The Skinny January 2013

FREE

Issue 88 January 2013

Music Sinkane Tomahawk Fat Goth Miaoux Miaoux Film Django Unchained Attractions of 2013 Clubs The Asphodells Theatre Manipulate Festival Art Economy, the Exhibition

.co.uk

INDEP ENDEN T C ULT URAL

JOURNAL ISM

R ick

Redbeard unveils No Selfish Heart, his long-awaited debut solo album

& Chips Food & Drink Survey The best scran and bevvy in Scotland, as chosen by you

Music | Film | clubs | Theatre | TECH | Art | Books | Comedy | fashion | TRAVEL | Food | Deviance | listings

£10 off

when you spend £25 or more in The Body Shop • valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall only

15% off

full price merchandise in Oasis • valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall branch only • may not be used with other discounts

15% off

full price merchandise in Warehouse • valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall branch only • may not be used with other discounts

25% off

£25 for cut

15% off

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall store only • Valid on full price items only • May not be used with other discounts

• non transferable • select stylists only • valid until 31/1/13 • valid Sun-Thurs only • valid Princes Mall only • may not be used with other discounts

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall branch only • may not be used with other discounts

full price merchandise in New Look

and blow dry in Regis

full price merchandise in Pulp

20% off

when you spend £50 or more in Gleneagles of Scotland • valid Princes Mall branch only • valid until 31/1/13

Coffee for just £1 from Coffee Stop

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid for a regular sized filter coffee only

£1.99 for

in Subway

BigMac / McChicken / Fillet o’ Fish Plus fries in McDonalds

15% off

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall only

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall branch only

• valid until 31/1/13 • valid Princes Mall branch only • may not be used with other discounts

2 Subs, 2 Drinks, 2 Crisps for £6

* Coupon may be required to redeem. Management reserves the right to refuse or alter offer. All offers valid for Princes Mall Edinburgh only.

full price merchandise in Joy

Contents

O2 ABC GLASGOW JUST ANNOUNCED

Photo: josh wilson

JUST ANNOUNCED

photo: steve gullick

LD OUT SOLD OUT Thurs 21st February / Fri 22nd SOFebruary / Sat 23rd February

p.28 live in berlin

p.17 the asphodells

FRIDAY 21 JUNE 2013

GLASGOW CLYDE AUDITORIUM

WEDNESDAY 20TH FEBRUARY

GLASGOW CONCERT HALL 0141 353 8000 www.ticketmaster.co.uk

22ND ANNUAL ST. PATRICK’S DAY CONCERT

In association with LIVE NATION

REGULAR MUSIC IN ASSOCIATION WITH ASTROJAZZ PRESENTS

ZERVAS & PEPPER

FRIDAY 1 MARCH

EDINBURGH Voodoo Rooms

SATURDAY 2 MARCH

GLASGOW Nice ‘n’ Sleazy

New album ‘Cigarettes & Truckstops’ Out Jan 2013

THURS 28 FEB

FRI 01 MAR

GLASGOW EDINBURGH ORAN MOR QUEEN’S HALL

fri 15th mar

Tuesday12th February

Glasgow ORAN MOR

New album ‘Archipelago’ Out Now via Tru Thoughts Recordings.

0131 668 2019

edinburgh queen’s hall

Thurs 24 Jan EDINBURGH Voodoo Rooms

Ron Pope special guests

Glasgow Oran Mor Tues 8th Jan

EDINBURGH VOODOO ROOMS

elll m a H TriaJAN On WED 2G3OW

S GLa N MOR A OR

p.46 new blood: fat goth

p.29 food and drink survey

NELL BRYDEN MON 21 JAN

JOHN MURRY

Photo: beth chalmers

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

illustration; eva dolgrya

HIDDEN ORCHESTRA

January 2013 Issue 88, January 2013 © Radge Media Ltd.

Editorial

Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 3 Coates Place, Edinburgh, EH3 7AA

Editor Music & Online Editor Art Editor Books Editor Comedy Editor Deviance Editor DVD Editor Fashion Editor Film Editor Food Editor Heads Up Editor Listings/Cyberzap Editor Performance Editor Tech Editor Travel Editor Staff Writer

The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business.

Get in touch to find out more.

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

Printed by Mortons Print Limited, Horncastle ABC verified Jan – Dec 2011: 32,162

Rosamund West Dave Kerr Jac Mantle Keir Hind Bernard O’Leary Ana Hine Keir Roper-Caldbeck Alexandra Fiddes Jamie Dunn Peter Simpson Anna Docherty Anna Docherty Gareth K. Vile Alex Cole Paul Mitchell Bram E. Gieben

Production Production Manager Designer Sub Editor

SUN 16TH JUNE 2013

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE 0131 529 6000

www.ticketmaster.co.uk www.regularmusic.com 0844 844 0444 or in person from Ticket Scotland: Argyle Street Glasgow, Rose St Edinburgh & Ripping Records and all usual outlets

4

THE SKINNY

January 2013

Peter Marsden Maeve Redmond Bram E. Gieben

printed on 100% recycled paper

Sales/Accounts Sales Director Sales Executive

Accounts Administrator

Lara Moloney George Sully Tom McCarthy Solen Collet

Publisher

Sophie Kyle

CONTENTS

8

10

12 14

17

18

FRONT

Shot of the month; Skinny on Tour comes home for Christmas; an Aussie critic rails against socially engaged art; Crystal Baws welcomes the new year with some doom; plus Stop the Presses; while in Hero Worship, Food Editor Peter Simpson nominates his hero: 'Anyone but Heston...'

39

Heads Up starts 2013 as it means to go on, with some recommended events for each and every day of January.

48

FEATURES

Lead singer of The Phantom Band Rick Anthony discusses his new solo album under the guise of his piratical Rick Redbeard alias, and takes us track-by-track through The Selfish Heart. Avast!

Ahead of the release of Tarantino's eagerly-awaited Django Unchained, a closer look at the history of the Spaghetti Western.

Containing alumni from Battles, Jesus Lizard and Faith No More, Tomahawk tell us of their much-anticipated reunion... just don't call them a supergroup! Plus: guitarist Duane Denison is this month's Guest Selector.

Andrew Weatherall is back with postpunk/disco/acid-house project The Asphodells - he tells us all about his 25-year journey to become the elder statesman of UK dance music.

Ones to Swatch - some humble suggestions of bands to keep an eye on in 2013

21

Puppetry, animation and stagecraft unite for the manipulate 2013 festival - we talk to Artistic Director Simon Hart.

23

25

A major group show at Stills and CCA explores how the Economy impacts on every aspect of life – we spoke to the curators.

Coming Attractions – our Film writers have consulted their crystal baws to bring you some predictions of what's going to be getting you excited in the cinema in 2013.

LIFESTYLE

Deviance: A closer look at the intersections of polyamory and neurodiversity, plus a rumination on the meaning of gender.

26

Showcase: Painter Mary Wintour shares a couple of her works.

28

Travel: A brief guide to living in Berlin – we will convince you to move there.

37

Fashion: Introducing Edinburgh's Harvest Skate Company, the brainchild of Jamie Johnson and Kieran Forbes.

Music: Alongside our regular Live Highlights and Metal columns, we've got live reviews of Manson vs. Zombie and Converge, new music from Pere Ubu, Burial, Fat Goth and The Pictish Trail, and this month's Dirty Dozen reviewed by Miaoux Miaoux

WAITING FOR GO

Clubbing Highlights for January include Romare, Alex Smoke and Riton, plus a slinky wee DJ chart from Gerry Blythe (New Life/Kill Yr Idols)

OVER 14’S

DVD: The Baytown Outlaws, Forbidden Games and Dark Nature will all aid the traditional January hibernation.

52

Art: Recommended exhibitions include Jamie Fitzpatrick's dark taxidermy sculptures, Harland Miller's book cover paintings and Andy Hope in Inverleith House.

54

Theatre: Venue of the Month is Glasgow's Citizens, plus previews of Birds of Paradise and A Taste of Honey.

55

Comedy: Stand up comic Michael Dolan apologises for any material which could be regarded as misogynistic.

56

Books: Maement reviewed by its contributors, and Spinach Soup for the Walls.

Tech: Predictions of what will excite the digital world in 2013.

57 58

29

Best newcomers – how to join the elite mob of adored new cafes, bars and restaurants.

32

Round the world in Scotland – your picks of the country's top international cuisine. Plus Phagomania spends some time in Vietnam staring at goat cock.

Results – who won what, and why.

Frightened Rabbit's Scott and Grant Hutchison vote for their favourite haunts in Edinburgh and Glasgow, respectively.

05 07

FLUORESCENT HEARTS

09 11 13

LITTLE EYE

CALLUM FRAME THE ASHTONES LORI MCTEAR

OVER 14’S

15 TIMES DEAD MAELSTROM BLOOD THREAD

OVER 14’S

08

SECRET MOTORBIKES THE REVERSE COWGIRLS BABY STRANGE

10

ANDERSON MCGINTY WEBSTER WARD AND FISHER

12

DAVEY HORNE SIENNA

RED SANDS THE STARLETS COURIER’S CLUB

14

FATHERSON AND FRIENDS

15

MICHAEL CASSIDY

17

16

OVER 14’S

YOUNGER THE CLOCK LUCA AAMES

06

HAIGHT-ASHBURY

MICHAEL EDGAR RYAN JOSEPH BURNS CALLUM BAIRD STEPHANIE MANNS

ROMAN NOSE ORGANS OF LOVE

HONEYBLOOD

CHRIS DEVOTION & THE EXPECTATIONS POOR THINGS BLACK INTERNATIONAL FAT GOTH

04

EXILE THE TRAITOR

THE SUNSHINE SOCIAL CAMPFIRES IN WINTER

ONE GOOD REASON SKIPPY DYES WHISPERY CLUB

THE BEGBIES THE GAZELLES RADIO ARCADE

MIAOUX MIAUOX

KITTY THE LION

Listings: Clubs, Music, Theatre, Comedy and Art events in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee in January.

31

35 36

VERSUS VERSUS QUEEN JANE THE BARRELS

Competitions: Your chance to win a bumper Glasgow Film Festival pass, and tickets for Balletboyz at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.

Introduction – you lot voted, we collated the results, you only have yourselves to blame etc.

03

CHERRI FOSPHATE

BACK

FOOD & DRINK SURVEY 2013

BLINDFOLDS

WAITING ON JACK CLASSIC WHEELS SEAMS

Film: January release highlights include The Sessions, V/H/S and Les Miserables (yes, The Skinny recommends a musical), alongside Film Events of the month.

51

New DFA signing and sometime-member of Yeasayer and Caribou, Ahmed Gallab of Sinkane explores his exotic debut Mars, and tells us why 'world music' is a redundant term.

19

22

50

REVIEW

King Tut's Wah Wah Hut 2010. 272a St Vincent Street, Glasgow, G2 5RL

6

50+ SCOTTISH BANDS OVER 15 NIGHTS IN JANUARY

EN GOLD

ET

TICK

Access to all gigs!

#KTNYR13 @Kingtuts

FOR TICKETS VISIT: WWW.KINGTUTS.CO.UK/NYR OR CALL 08444 999 990

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY

5

CHAT

Editorial

Due to the complexities of print deadlines (in short, we’re finishing this one early to get a Christmas holiday) I’m writing this on the morning of the hotly anticipated Mayan apocalypse. Assuming this issue is not a massive exercise in futility, may I pass on my congratulations on your survival and wish you all the best for the forthcoming year of 2013.

As you might have noticed from the cover, this January we have built our issue around the twin themes of ‘Rick’ and ‘Chips.’ ‘Rick’ being Rick Redbeard, he of Phantom Band fame whose debut solo album finally lands this month. We celebrate by quizzing him on said release, the American Gothic-infused No Selfish Heart, and forcing him to eat chips in the street.

Which brings us, seamlessly, to the ‘Chips.’

This month marks the release of the results of our second annual Food & Drink Survey. You voted, we (or Peter the Food editor, to be more precise) counted your ballots and came up with this, a perfect snapshot of the Scottish culinary landscape at the dawn of the year 2013. Turns out you lot are mad keen on burritos. We’ve created a special, beautifully illustrated (thanks Eva Dolgyra for the images) supplement to present the winners in full and interspersed your thoughts with those of some of our favourite artists and musicians. Turn to p32 to find out which colour of food King Creosote deems acceptable.

Elsewhere in this issue we’ve taken a look into our crystal baw, offering you a glimpse of the cinematic and musical delights that lie in store for you this year. We also anticipate the release of Tarantino’s Django Unchained by analysing the rich history of the Spaghetti Western. In Music, Tomahawk’s guitarist Duane Denison caught up with our Music editor to introduce new album Oddfellows and also explain what the hell they’ve been playing at for the last five years (quite a lot, as it turns out). DJ-producer legend Andrew

SKINNY ON TOUR

Weatherall talks new collaborative venture The Asphodells, which steps away from rock ‘n’ roll to celebrate post-punk and electronica, while Sinkane, aka multi-instrumentalist Ahmed Gallab, tells us about his eclectically-influenced new album Mars. In other news, we’re looking forward to two events that play fast and loose with the conventions of capitalisation – manipulate festival’s celebration of puppetry and physical theatre, and ECONOMY, an exhibition exploring artwork with a relevance to the current economic climate.

Aside from that it’s business as usual – reviews, previews, interviews, exciting new artists, recommendations of worthwhile ways to spend your valuable time and money. Happy January.

[Rosamund West]

This month's cover photography was supplied

by Eoin Carey. Eoin is a Leith-residing freelance arts, events and portrait photographer. He works throughout the UK for Performing Arts, Festivals, PR, Commercial and Editorial clients to lavish their marketing and press campaigns with his signature colourful imagery and a hint of levity. Full of new year's good intentions as ever, he is currently developing a personal project in a fishbowl.

This month Skinny on Tour comes home for Christmas – but where did reader Bree stop for a look at the stained glass windows? If you think you know the name of this particular place of worship you could be in with the chance of winning a bottle of delicious wine, courtesy of our expert friends at VINO WINES.

Entrants must be over 18. Winners will be notified on the day of closing and will be required to respond within one week or the prize will be offered to another entrant. For full terms and conditions go to www.theskinny.co.uk/terms, and www.drinkaware.co.uk for the facts. Prize is collection only.

Enter your guess at www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions

Going somewhere nice? Why not take a copy of The Skinny – perhaps you could be in next month's Skinny on Tour. Submit your entries to competitions@theskinny.co.uk

Closing date: Tue 29 Jan

SHOTs OF THE MONTH dirty three at oran mor, 25 nov By neil jarvie

6

THE SKINNY

December 2012

rob zombie at secc, 28 nov By kenny mccoll

CHAT

Crystal Baws with Mystic Mark

ARIES This month a fully-operational Death Star moves into your chart while searching out remaining Rebel bases in the Hoth system, inadvertently detecting the planet which governs Aries' hopes and ambitions. Despite its barren surface being completely inhospitable to life, a malfunctioning probe droid reports Rebel activity and the order is given for the moon-sized Imperial battle station to obliterate your dreams with its superlaser.

a

b

Hero Worship: Anyone But Heston

Food & Drink editor Peter Simpson tells us why we can all be Food Heroes (except for Heston Blumethal) words: Peter Simpson

TAURUS Unlike the bull, this month you get sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

GEMINI You finally give in and buy your dog the squeaky toy of his dreams: an inflatable rubber bitch with removable dishwasher-safe genital cavities.

Turns out there is little cultural news in late December in Scotland. The world probably didn’t end in a Mayan apocalypse.

c

d

CANCER Like the crab you are incapable of love and thrive in a saltwater environment.

LEO You allow your unmuzzled spirit animal off its leash so it can run free in a field of moon-beams but it unexpectedly goes radge and mauls a toddler, leaving the authorities no choice but to have it destroyed.

e

VIRGO January is mating season for Virgoans.

If you wish to produce a new Virgoan in nine months time, uncork your libido like an F1 driver on the winning podium, drenching you and your teammates in the foamy liquid spray of victory!

f

g

LIBRA This month I read your aura and give it a scathing review.

SCORPIO Leaving your bulging colostomy rucksack on the bus causes a terrorist alert and the police destroy it in a controlled explosion.

h

SAGITTARIUS Paying your landlord in handjobs has got you this far, but when the rent goes up you’re forced to seek Housing Benefit.

The council agree to backdate the handjobs, yet won’t pay your landlord directly. You’ll have to collect them first. The delay in payment angers your landlord so your dad, being the guarantor, gets a bus down from Aberdeen to deliver the 50 outstanding handjobs himself.

i

CAPRICORN Your next door neighbour unveils plans for an extension to your property including 18ft barbed wire fences, a gun tower and barbaric scientific apparatus for studying humans.

j

AQUARIUS After years of believing everything you read on the internet, your critical faculties have fallen into atrophy and you have your brain amputated and replaced with a Chinese waving lucky cat ornament.

k

PISCES It never occurred to you that building a gigantic aquarium full of scuba divers for your daughter’s 7th birthday would be so fraught with difficulties. She becomes particularly attached to one young diver called Hans Schneider who delights her by always tapping on the glass and pointing at his watch. Finding him floating at the top of the tank the next morning, you are forced to trawl the diving spots near your Mediterranean home for an unsuspecting replacement.

l

twitter.com/themysticmark

So I’m in this makeshift pop-up restaurant in a Manchester attic. It’s a Christmas-themed grottoslash-diner (sample dishes include an Xmas dinner sandwich and sweet potato chips with gravy and spices). The food’s great, the atmosphere’s well festive, but there’s one problem. “Excuse me,” I whimper. “Where is the maitre d’ with the dry ice and the ambient audio accompaniment for this sandwich?” True story.

Well, the pop-up Christmas diner part is true – the same guys run a burger joint next door that you access through an old office block – but that dry ice remark is a dig at your friend and mine, Mr Heston Blumenthal. Over the last year, you may have seen me make a couple of ham-fisted jabs at the critically and commercially-acclaimed, Michelin-starred super chef from the comfort of my living room table, and might wonder why.

Why must I be such a downer, always finding something to complain about? Why I gotta hate?

Also, isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that this story takes place in Manchester, soon to be a second home for everyone’s favourite culture and listings magazine?

I’m down on Heston not for his ubiquity, or his presenting style, or even his funny little glasses.

I’m down on Heston because he embodies the idea that it takes something ‘special’ to make great food. Lemon jelly in mashed potato, dry ice, ‘sounds of the sea’ – this stuff is for oil barons, footballers, and people who think that ‘dazzled’ and ‘impressed’ are synonyms. It’s not for the normal people, and Heston should stop making us feel like philistines for cooking meat in an oven rather than leaving it in an ice box full of tepid water for nine hours.

My food heroes are friends who make explosive home brew and spend days wiping it off their ceilings, cafés filled with mad furniture and plaster donkey heads, and guys who set up Christmasthemed restaurants in old office blocks. It doesn’t take a divine will or a warped interest in chemistry – just imagination, a little bit of skill, and a love of grub. Food heroes are everywhere, and maybe this month’s Food & Drink Survey will feature yours.

It might even inspire you to reach for a whisk. I guess, to paraphrase Enrique Iglesias, you can be my hero, baby. Now put the dry ice away.

Known for being the poster-woman for Creative Scotland, Ruth Mills offers lecture demonstration action with This Mortal Coil. Starring Dr Laura Gonzales talking on the body of the hysteric and Lucy G Weir teaming up with Mills to offer a history of contemporary dance .

Thu 3 Jan 4.30pm Sun 6 Jan 4pm for secret location see www.ruthmillsdance.blogspot.co.uk/ Tramway’s performance revival gets serious with the Rip It Up Project – a season of new stuff for the cognoscenti. It kicks off with Leen Dewilde and Su-a Lee (Glasgow’s coolest cellist) in a show that has five women, one cello, six chairs and a bunch of handsaws. By the end, there is less chair and a lot more sawdust... Fri 18 & Sat 19 Jan Auld Reekie Roller Girls Home Season 2013 Bout 1: Cherry Bombers vs Leithal Weapons Sat 19 Jan. Catch some roller derby in the new year as the Glaswegian Cherry Bombers battle the Leithal Weapons at Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh.

Season tickets are £15 ( + booking fee) at arrghomeseasonticket2013.eventbrite.com/ Or £7 at the door. Under 14s go free.

A Bogan Abroad: How to Change the World

ECONOMY, a major group show at CCA and Stills, aims to provoke public discussion. Our resident Aussie art critic unpicks the meaning of socially engaged art words: Peter Drew Believing that contemporary art is a trustworthy judge on the role of the economy may be a bit like believing that the tabloid press is a trustworthy judge on the value of privacy. While ECONOMY, an upcoming exhibition at CCA and Stills, aims to generate constructive public discussion, it seems doubtful that discussion will be heard over the roar of a $45 billion global art market. Indeed, many of the works in the exhibition will re-enter circulation as art commodities once the show has concluded.

They might even enjoy a higher market value for their increased visibility. Although this seems unlikely for Andreas Gursky, whose ‘art star’ status was already an attractive promotional hook before his work was garnered for this show.

Of course, the apparent futility of it all isn’t lost on the artists themselves. Jenny Marketou’s video work We Love Candy but Our Passion Is Collecting Art stages the artist’s confrontation with the economic function of art as it erodes her artistic ego and aspirations for ‘changing the world.’ No doubt a 30 minute video about rich kids and their art collections would make any artist feel disillusioned, if not nauseous. So why make it, unless your real intention is to illustrate some foregone conclusion?

One of the most powerful attributes of art is its ability to explore the truth without commanding us to follow a master ideology. Despite this, many artists prefer to simply conceal their ideology under a few layers of meaning so their audience

can unwrap it for themselves and feel special, like a child on Christmas morning. One issue with an exhibition like ECONOMY is that its meaning has already been laid out by the curators before the viewers even enter the galleries. Their skill is not to conceal but to declaim the merits of their ideology.

For ECONOMY it’s a case of: Rich guys, bad.

Poor guys, righteous.

“Socially

engaged artists don’t make objects, they manipulate people into participating in seemingly helpful activities” When art is hijacked by politics in this way, nobody wins. The politics is reduced to dumb emotional gags and the art becomes a vessel with little value of its own. The latest and greatest example of this is ‘socially engaged art,’ a phrase that’s all the more irritating in its implication that other art is somehow socially disengaged.

Socially engaged artists don’t make objects, they manipulate people into participating/collaborating in seemingly helpful activities. Basically, it’s charity work with the pretence that artists are more creative than ordinary people, so that when they’re doing charity work, it’s actually art.

ECONOMY brings to Glasgow the artist collective WochenKlauser, who have been pioneering socially engaged art projects across the globe since 1992. In the Drumchapel area, they will “help to set up an association to encourage and support the foundation of a small worker self-managed cooperative.” Although the cooperative movement has a long and rich history in Scotland, WochenKlauser will explore “what role art can play in effecting sustainable change – no matter how small – within the social fabric.”

For all their sanctimonious horizon gazing, it’s still doubtful that the devoutly Marxist artist is more annoying than the unapologetically capitalist one. They occupy opposite ends of the same boring fascination with money. In between, the vast majority of artists are busy inventing ways of sharing a sense of meaning that goes beyond money.

Theirs is a difficult task, impossible actually, but it at least keeps them busy – they’re discovering the infinite subtleties of how the world actually is, rather than how to change it.

Economy is on show at Stills, Edinburgh 19 Jan - 21 Apr and at CCA, Glasgow 26 Jan - 23 Mar www.economyexhibition.net

December 2012

THE SKINNY

7

HEADS UP

Traditionally a bit of a quiet month, but not so here – we've dug deep into our carefullycompiled bank of listings to dig out the best events to brighten your January. We kick off with King Tut's New Year's Revolution (50+ bands over 50 days? Yes, please), then move by way of mighty techno blow-outs, brand new spoken word nights, the start of Traverse's 50th year celebrations, and an ever-welcome screening of The Goonies...

COMPILED BY: ANNA DOCHERTY

FRI 4 JAN

Kicking off the new year as only they know how – i.e. with myriad musical goodness – King Tut's host their annual January blues beater, NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION, which sees some 50-odd bands take to the venue over the next 15 days, amongst 'em headline sets from Miaoux Miaoux, Kitty the Lion, and Fatherson.

King Tut's, Glasgow, 3-17 Jan, 8pm/8.30pm, £6. See listings for full programme

Barely four days into 2013 and it's already time for a mighty techno blow-out, as stripped-down techno crew UNSEEN lock horns with fellow Edinburgh techno specialists EDINBURGH TEKNO CARTEL down't Studio 24, battling it out at their free-entry versus night – where they'll fight it out to the bloody death (aka play some beastly techno beats 'til we all fall down). Studio 24, Edinburgh, 11pm, Free

MIAOUX MIAOUX

PHOTO: EOIN CAREY

HEADS UP

THU 3 JAN

WED 9 JAN

THU 10 JAN

Showcasing some of the best up-and-coming independent British filmmaking talent, THE JOY OF SIX brings together a selection of awardwinning shorts from a collection of emerging directors, brought to life by acting stints from the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Peter Mullan, and Tom Hiddleston. GFT, Glasgow, 5.50pm, £7.50 (£6)

The folk behind Balkanarama enliven our Wednesday evening somewhat with their all-new Balkan, klezmer, gypsy, and all things eastern club night, EAST BEAT, at which DJ Kezza will be churning oot the spicy beats and rhythms (aka dance you likely will). Best of all, it's only two quid if you get down before midnight. Studio 24, Edinburgh, 11pm, £2 (£3 after midnight)

Resident young guns BETA & KAPPA make their now regular trip east for their favourited electronica and bass night, playing this edition out as a residents-only party. No doubt they're conserving steam for their Fear and Loathing-themed bash at the end of the month (29 Jan), where'll they'll team up with the OPTIMO boys to transform Sub Club into a trippy dream. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 11pm, £4 (£3)

PHOTO: PHOTOBRUSH

ELLINGTON KID

TUE 15 JAN

Worthy of a mention for no other reason than it's just a lovely night oot – the Glasgow SLOW CLUB take to Bloc for their regular Monday showcase outing, where the emphasis is on slowing everything down for a chiled music night soundtracked by a selection of live guests from the local scene, completed by mood lighting, candles, and cake. Could it sound any bloody lovelier? Bloc, Glasgow, 9pm, Free

Musing on the question of how people are seeking to change the world through creative endeavour, thought-provoking documentary DESIGN & THINKING finds designers, social change advocates, businessmen, and a host of other individuals highlighting both creativity and collaboration as essential ingredients in shaping the future. Introduced

by GSA's, Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam. GFT, Glasgow, 6.15pm, £7.50 (£6)

PHOTO: SOL NICOL

MON 14 JAN

FRI 18 JAN

SAT 19 JAN

All-new celebration of spoken word, music, and other such lyrical loveliness, RALLY & BROAD returns for 2013 with a rather fine line-up taking in readings from the Scottish Poetry Library's own JL Williams, fuzzy-faced Edinburgh-by-way-ofAmerica poet Ryan Van Winkle, and yer man Alan Bissett, soundtracked

by Andrew Eaton-Lewis (of Swimmer One)'s solo project, Seafieldroad.

The Counting House, Edinburgh, 8pm, £5

Stills' SOCIAL DOCUMENTS programme concludes with a thought-provoking group exhibition examining the impact of the economy upon life, featuring the work of a number of artists from across the globe – including Tracy Emin, Hito Steyerl, and Owen Logan – addressing issues including migration, labour, sexuality, democracy, and the quest for alternatives. Presented across Stills (Edinburgh) and the CCA (Glasgow)

Star of BBC1's Live at the Apollo ANDREW LAWRENCE brings his new tour of darkly funny comic spewings to The Stand, ominously titled Andrew Lawrence Is Coming To Get You, built on long, carefully-worded rants with a poetic rhythm and a boom-voiced delivery. Amen to that. The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £13 (£11). Also playing Edinburgh's The Stand the evening prior

THU 24 JAN

UNITED FRUIT

8

THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

FRI 25 JAN

Prepare thy ears for the noisy delight that will be Paisley math-rock trio CARNIVORES squaring-up to the posthardcore abrasion of Glasgow's UNITED FRUIT (serving it up at F1 velocity, as per), playing a double-headliner racket of a show down't King Tut's. So, aye, basically they're both known for tearing it up live – always a pleasure to behold, naturally. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8pm, £6

PHOTO: MARTIN BARKER

WED 23 JAN

PHOTO: TOMMY GA-KEN WAN

TUE 8 JAN

BLEEP once more bring the ear-bleeding electronic beats 'n' bleeps to their Dundee home of the Reading Rooms, this month celebrating their 4th birthday joined by London-based tech-house beat maker par excellence Riton (aka Henry Smithson), alongside the full continget of residents – WeAreNotRobots, Light Nights, and Teddy Hannan. Reading Rooms, Dundee, 10.30pm, £8 (£10 after 11.30pm) RITON

HEADS UP

mon 7 jan

sun 6 jan

We take a wee step back in time, as Henry's Cellar Bar host their annual Christmas party. Yes, in January – we're sure it makes sense to them. Providing the musical soundtrack will be a selection of bands that the staff at Henry's play in, jollied along by the obligatory miniature party food and tinsel. Er, Merry Christmas! Henry's Cellar, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £4

Self proclaimed 'improv warlord' Billy Kirkwood returns to brighten our Mondays with his improvised comedy games and sketch show, Improv Wars. Built on an anything-goes attitude, he'll be joined by team captains Gary Dobson and Stu Murphy, leading a select team of special guests who'll do their best to make merry with whatever the audience throws at them. The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £4 (£2)

photo: vivienne lowe

Bruce Morton and Andrew Learmonth return for their first Greater Shawlands Rebublic comedy outing of 2013, for which they'll be hosting a bumper 'sale' edition – with half price entry and stints from Mikey Adams, Sarah Cassidy, Rosie Kane, and Stuart Thomson, plus live blues from Tales of Joke, all in aid of the campaign for an independent Shawlands. The Bungo, Glasgow, 8pm, £3

bruce morton

fri 11 jan

sat 12 jan

Glasgow Film Theatre come up trumps once again, dipping into the classic film vault and digging out The Goonies for a late night airing, as part of their ever-ace Late Night Classics schedule. Highlights include Josh Brolin's inspired gym-shorts-over-joggers ensemble, Cyndi Lauper's theme song, and, well, Chunk-everything. The GFT, Glasgow, 11pm, £7.50. Free entry to Nice' n' Sleazy's after-party with ticket stub

Hailed for his beautifully intricate and diverse take on the techno genre. spanning the musical spectrum as he goes, Glasgow-born (and currently London-residing) DJ and producer Alex Smoke returns to his hometown to celebrate the release of his forthcoming album, Wraetlic, playing a debut AV set as The Berkely Suite's new monthly guest-laden night, Oddio. The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 11pm, £5

billy kirkwood

sun 13 jan

The Thunder Disco Club residents take to Glasgow's Sub Club for a bit of Sunday evening mayhem on their regular second Sunday of the month slot, churning out the 90s house, techno, and disco hits as the good lord intended (er, maybe). Monday morning hangover do your worst. Sub Club, Glasgow, 11pm, Free (£5 after midnight)

photo: emily wylde

sat 5 jan

thu 17 jan

Glasgow-based artist Sogol Mabadi takes over the Studio 41 space with her new solo exhibition, which finds her quite literally inhabiting the gallery space, inviting viewers to participate in a series of live one-toone performances that attempt to ascertain the extent we are able/willing to enter another’s physical and emotional space.

Studio 41, Glasgow, until 28 Jan, Free

Award-winning director and designer Stewart Laing brings his aesthetic eye to a new interpretation of Jean Genet’s notorious play, The Maids, about three women (two maids and their mistress) locked in an abusive cycle of domination and submission, based on the true story of the Papin sisters who murdered their mistress and her daughter back in the 1930s. Citizens, Glasgow, until 2 Feb, From £12

sun 20 jan

mon 21 jan

tue 22 jan

A regular favourite of Celtic Connections' sprawling programme, Hazy Recollections return with their delightful lazy afternoon of nu-folk – with the first in a trio of Celtic Connections' specials featuring Dave Frazer, Donna Maciocia, State Broadcasters, Bear Bones, and Willie Campbell. O2 ABC, Glasgow, 2pm, £10.

Also 27 Jan and 3 Feb, see listings

Lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist of Interpol, Paul Banks, takes to the road lonesome, touring on the back of his new solo album, Banks, a dark and atmospheric post-punk offering built on sampled dialogue, complex guitar work, and his trademark merciless monotone of a vocal – not that we ever really doubted that last part, mind. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £17.50

Stalwart of the comedy scene Jo Caulfield hosts her all-new spoken word show, The Speakeasy, featuring a feastful of writers, comedians, and musicians telling (mostly) true stories, with this edition boasting sets from author/screenwriter Alan Bissett, anti-folk legend Lach, poet Elspeth Murray, and a mini play from Calum Lykan and Hazel DuBourdieu. Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 8pm, £5

bear bones

photo: sol nicol

wed 16 jan

lach

sun 27 jan

mon 28 jan

The Traverse kick off their 50th birthday celebrations with Fifty Plays for Edinburgh, bringing together a selection of the 50 writers who have been chosen from all over the world to help them mark the occasion. Tasked with coming up with plays about Edinburgh, the authors form the 'Traverse Fifty', and this is an early chance to see the fruits first-hand. Traverse, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £6 (£4)

As part of their occasional screenings of classic films they just fancied giving another airing on the big screen, the Glasgow Film Theatre dust off a 70mm print of Ridley Scott's Alien for a late Sunday afternoon showing, featuring Sigourney Weaver in full-on alienfighting, gun-totin' mode as Ellen Ripley. FYI, we'd have gone back for the cat too. GFT, Glasgow, 4.30pm, £7.50 (£6)

Enigmatic rock frontman David Bazan rounds off our calendar month, taking to the newly-opened Broadcast in Glasgow to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Pedro The Lion's classic album, Control, for which he'll be joined by his full live band accompaniment (Andy Fitts on bass and Alex Westcoat on drums) to play said album in its entirety. Broadcast, Glasgow, 8pm, £7

photo: Eoin Carey

sat 26 jan

January 2013

THE SKINNY

9

The Crossing

While The Phantom Band cook their third LP, frontman Rick Redbeard offers contrast with his striking songbook of dark Celt-infused Americana interview: Dave Kerr An ominous text message arrives half an hour before The Skinny’s appointment with Rick Anthony: “Ate too many chips… feel a bit sick.”

Certainly a trooper, possibly a madman, we salute the Aberdonian singer-songwriter for overdosing on the starchy stuff for the cover of our scran special when the call connects. Once the pros and cons of fritter rolls are dispensed with, the more nourishing subject of his impending solo debut arises; a rich offering of stirring acoustic ballads from the heart, it’s been some eight years in the making.

That soulful burr might be unmistakable, but Rick’s work in isolation under the piratical nom de guerre Rick Redbeard is a world away from the cosmic voodoo he preaches at the helm of The Phantom Band. “I’m the same guy but they’re two different characters,” he remarks. “Going into the Phantom Band is largely a different style of music; my head’s in a different place and I’m interacting with what’s in front of me. Musically they’re two pretty different distinct things, but both enjoyable in different ways.”

As Rick’s solo gigs have become less frequent since the release of the Phantoms’ 2009 debut, even those paying attention might have presumed that his solo guise was dealt a death blow by the Glasgow sextet’s steady ascent, yet the plan has always been to emerge when the time was right, with an album as part of the design. “Stewart [Henderson, Chemikal Underground co-gaffer] had mentioned the idea to me years ago,” he

10 THE SKINNY

January 2013

starts. “Between Checkmate Savage and before we’d even started writing The Wants – I think we’d just come off our first European tour. So from then on I had that in my head, like ‘OK, at some point I’ll probably put an album out.’”

“Finally, around the end of 2011, me and Stewart sat down again and he said ‘look this is probably a good time for you to get something out, if you can get it to us as soon as possible.’ I think in his head he was reckoning I had loads of old recordings of things that I just hadn’t given to him. The next day I was going back over stuff and thought ‘nah, I don’t want to just give him these things I’ve recorded over the years – I want to record some new stuff and maybe re-record some really old songs to try and bring it up to date and make it more aesthetically tied together.’ So aye, gradually Stewart was phoning asking ‘how are you getting on with that? I thought you were just going to give me an album?’ I said ‘yeah, just started recording it – might be a bit longer!’”

The result – a remarkably cohesive home recording stitched together between Rick’s parents’ house in rural Aberdeenshire and his Glasgow flat – was a solo work in every sense. Even Paul Savage, Chemikal’s resident production maestro, and steady guiding hand across much of the label’s output, didn’t get a look in. “Yeah, he didn’t get his fuckin’ grubby mits all over it!” jokes Rick.

“No, I think that, for the band, we couldn’t have recorded those albums without Paul – he was really an instrumental part of that. For my own album,

photography: eoin carey though, I always kind of thought I’d probably be more comfortable on my own playing the songs, a lot of them straight up, and just trying to capture the intimacy of that. For better or worse, it’s got my fingerprints on it and it’s very much my album, and people can come to it on those terms. There’s no flashy production or autotune, it’s just a guy, a mic, and a few bits and bobs.”

“It’s

like painting – it’s about knowing when to finish and let it go” Rick Redbeard With the DIY charm of fleeting whispers and background creaks at No Selfish Heart’s core, chasing studio perfectionism was never an issue, though he admits that surrendering some of his older songs to a definitive rendition was difficult at times. “It’s a really tricky thing to get over,” he concedes, “but it’s something you’ve got to get over. I suppose being in the band has helped me deal with it to a certain degree. With the band we’d not often have a definitive version of a track – it would be pretty fluid right up to the point where it was recorded. I’ve lived with these particular songs for a long time and played a lot of them for a few years. They were the hardest to

record; I mean you’re putting it down and you’re like ‘this is the first encounter with this song that a lot of people are going to have,’ and you’re trying to recapture the things about the song that made you interested in it in the first place. It could be a pause, a turn of phrase, you become fixated on capturing that in the recording, and it’s almost like chasing shadows sometimes. It’s difficult, man. But I imagine it’s like painting – about knowing when to finish and let it go.”

The first fruits of No Selfish Heart emerged last spring when local DIY label Gerry Loves approached Rick with the idea of releasing an early track as one side of a split 7” release alongside another distinct Scottish soloist, former Y’all Is Fantasy Island frontman Adam Stafford. “When that offer came along I was just finishing off things and tying up loose ends,” says Rick of the coincidence. “It was a nice one to put out, and they really liked it, but then when it came to sequencing the album I didn’t think I was going to put that on, until I realised it needed a little bit of lightness in there. That was my one concession from the old recordings.”

Beyond the tasteful traces of Americana scattered throughout the album – from Old Blue’s lilting refrains, evoking Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, to We All Float’s wistful echoes of Neil Young – Cormac McCarthy is an omnipresent touchstone. All the way up from the stark black and white shot of the great outdoors on its sleeve, No Selfish Heart is somehow imbued with a similar Southern Gothic

Tr ack-by-tr ack: Rick Redbeard reveals No Selfish Heart

From its genesis eight years ago to the finish line last spring, Rick presents a personal tour of his heartwarming debut

atmosphere to the celebrated author’s work. What is it that attracts Rick to McCarthy’s world? “It’s something about his prose; the atmosphere of certain things. When you read a paragraph of writing he just completely blows you away – the economy of the writing, there’s almost no punctuation; it’s just this flow of images that he manages to portray to bring you to this point. There’s a passage in Outer Dark where he describes some birds flying off a field as a guy’s riding past, and it’s just fucking incredible, the clarity of expression that he manages. And he does this time and time again.”

With such an immersive tradition of songwriters and characters from the folk world to draw from, how did Rick find his own voice? “When I first started getting into music it was with things like Faith No More, Mike Patton, Mark Lanegan – people like that from American rock, I was singing along with those when I was 12 years old,” he recalls. “And then, as you get older, you start to find your own voice. But even until I was in my early 20s there was still a lot of American twang in there. I guess there still is, but then you hear more and more different styles of music when you broaden your horizons musically – for me it was stuff like Leonard Cohen, Bill Callahan, Tom Waits – people who almost speak words when they’re singing – powerful in its way, but almost as though they’re not putting a lot of effort in. Whereas a lot of the earlier singers I listened to from the rock world were really like [defaults on an impression of Sebastian Bach circa Youth Gone Wild] ‘whoah, I’m fuckin’ singing here!’ They’re really going for it.

Then you’ll have a guy like Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy who’ll manage to convey quite a lot of emotion through very little effort. That really appeals to me.”

Having paid his dues on the ‘acoustic hell circuit,’ Rick fully appreciates the difficulty of carving a niche in Scotland’s busy landscape of introspective singer-songwriters. “The ‘acoustic hell’ I’m referring to is all these free acoustic nights that you just do to get experience of playing in front of people,” he says. “You see other people doing things the way you absolutely don’t want to do it, and you say to yourself ‘alright, I don’t want to be like that guy.’ Then you start to realise that it’s more about the bar getting people in to buy a few drinks and you bringing a few friends along to do the same. After a while I just thought ‘I really don’t need to do this.’”

So scoring a gig is the easy part; it’s finding a reverent crowd that poses a challenge. As the divide between those who care for the music and the drunks who attend for the patter seemingly continues to widen with the perpetual popularity of live music, Rick says that the simple ethos of events like the recent Shhh! Festival at Platform in Easterhouse are the way forward. “I’m never going to win any prizes in terms of technical guitar playing or songwriting,” he states modestly, “but I’d like to think there’s a certain feeling you get if it’s the right atmosphere. When it’s quiet you can get

into it. I was at a John Grant gig in the Arches a few weeks ago, and there was this couple behind me just talking the whole way through. Everyone around them was getting more pissed off, and it was like ‘why are you here? You’ve spent fifteen quid on a ticket, and you’re just blabberin’ away and laughing when the guy’s telling stories about friends of his who’ve died! Come on man! Give the guy a break.’ I think the Shhh! Festival was really nice, the whole idea is that you’re going along to get into the music, and it really works, there was a lot of stuff there that I wouldn’t have normally engaged with, but because of the nature of the environment, your focus is absolutely on it, and you can get a lot more into it.”

Likening the process of sitting down to organise and record his catalogue to “Spring cleaning,” Rick’s free to focus on the fresh possibilities of the coming year. “Maybe do a few shows, make some new friends... getting the Phantom Band record done is the main objective. I’ve also organised a little collection of the older songs I quite like that I’ll maybe do something with. It’s a good way to draw a line under everything up till now and just start writing again for myself and for Phantom Band. I think it’s important in your head, not to compartmentalise necessarily, but to have things organised so you can look forward, rather than tinkering with old things.” With that in mind, does Rick harbour any resolutions for 2013? “I don’t do them, man,” he chokes with disapproval. “You should make resolutions whenever, you don’t need a new year to change your ways!”

We can’t let the man go without asking where The Phantom Band are at with album number three. “We’ve been underway with it for about a year,” he reveals. “We’ve got the bones of it – it’s further on than we were with The Wants when we went in to record it, let’s put it that way. We’re trying to evolve it even further; it’s important for us to go in and have as clear an idea as possible of which tracks work, and which ones don’t. To go into it that bit more prepared – just for our own peace of mind, to feel like we’ve at least tried to do it a different way. We’re making progress and it’s sounding really good so far.”

Before we leave Rick to digest the rest of his heavy lunch, The Skinny tells him that another of his bosses at Chemikal Underground, Alun Woodward, recently whispered into his cup of tea that he’d be interested to hear a solo album apiece from each of the Phantoms. Does he see that idea snowballing? “I do. I’ll get on to them!” he only half jokes. “I don’t think that’s an outlandish idea; I’d say it’s a good call. There’s a lot of untapped talent bubbling under the surface, away from the band – I think everyone’s got a solo album in them.

We’ll get six of them on the go at the same time and see who wins the Grammy!”

Clocks I got a funny little electric shruti box for Christmas one year that looks the way that Orange guitar amps would if they were made by Tomy. One day I started singing over it while trying to record something else and this is what came out; musical stream-of-consciousness recorded for posterity. I tried sequencing this track in a number of places on the album and it only ever worked at the start.

It feels like a proposition: “Are you with me? Okay, welcome aboard…” and with hindsight I can portray it as such, but really this whole song is just a happy accident.

Old Blue This song is both old and new: the main part has been around for ages, but I wrote the chorus just before I recorded it. You could say that it’s about using love to try and ward off death; or you could say it’s about the sad realisation that no amount of love can stop time passing. You could say both those things if you wanted to be a miserable bastard, but you could also say that it’s about sex and that seems like more fun for everyone whether it’s true or not. To be honest I just wanted to have a song with a colour in the title.

Any Way I Can This and Now We’re Dancing are about as close to ‘pop’ as this record gets. Another old one – this was my most played track on Myspace in 1986 or whenever the hell it was that people still used Myspace. The chorus fell into my lap one day fully formed and it’s so sweet and hopeful that I had to lash some strange morbid verses to it to stop it from floating away.

A Greater Brave I tend to dislike things like lalalas, handclaps and finger clicks, especially when it’s just a guy walking down the street doing all three at once, but this track was born with the lalala backing vocal locked in place so I couldn’t very well take it out. I always liked the central repeating phrases, but getting a song to hang around it was a pain in the ass and there was a point where I wished it was a human being so I could’ve punched it in the mouth. Still, these problems get ironed out; you learn to forgive and now we’re friends again.

We All Float I was worried this might be a little sad with a capital S, but it really grew on me and I was keen to include a piano track on the record for a bit of variation. The recording on here is maybe the third or fourth time I’d played it and there are a lot of accidental little noises on here that wouldn’t have happened had I recorded it in a studio. I like it when you hear incidental noises and mistakes on records – it anchors the music to a specific moment and place and reminds you that you’re listening to a human being.

Kelvin Grove This is an old folk song I learnt a long time ago and the tune is one that’s also used in the song The Shearin’s No For You of which the late Jim Reid does a great rendition. I dropped the final verse from this take for reasons that escape me now and, with hindsight, I’m not convinced it was the right thing to do. Still, it’s best not to dwell on these things; what’s done is done, and it’s fair to say that the horse has not only left the barn, but managed to kick over a kerosene lamp on the way out.

Now We’re Dancing This is the oldest recording on here – done sometime in 2007 in a small bedroom on West Princes Street with orange walls and a repulsive carpet. It was my friend’s flat and you’ll be pleased to hear he’s since redecorated. A loveable pair of buffoons (Gerry Loves Records) released this as a split 7” with Adam Stafford’s great Vanishing Tanks track that I think you can still buy. Well, actually I know you can because I still have a small pile of them in my car.

Cold as Clay (The Grave) I wrote this sometime in the mid 1970s just when disco was really starting to take hold… and, oh sorry, that’s for something else. This is another country-tinged track about sex and death. When I used to do this on the acoustic-hell circuit in the bars and cafes of the West End I would introduce it with a story about burying my girlfriend in the woods. It brought some funny looks, but at least it momentarily got their attention away from all those expensive fashion-beers.

Wildlove I wanted to write a really traditional sounding song – something that feels very familiar; something with really simple lyrics like a lullaby, and stripped of some of the more overt darkness. The accompanying guitar is one of these things you play that imbues any conversation spoken over it with a slight poignancy, no matter how mundane – ‘Pass the biscuits’ ‘There’s none left…’ ‘ Oh…’ No Selfish Heart I wanted the album to finish as it started – with a really stark track of nothing but a voice and an instrument. I initially recorded this with melodica and glockenspiel and all manner of shit cluttering it up until it just totally lost the feel – like someone trying to improve an oak tree by painting it pink.

I stripped it all back, added the end section and suddenly it made a lot more sense. Songs are like kids – you shouldn’t pick a favourite but... once this was written I knew it had to be the title track.

No Selfish Heart is released via Chemikal Underground on 28 Jan www.chemikal.co.uk/artists/rick-redbeard/

January 2013

THE SKINNY 11

film

Under the Influence

Cinema magpie Quentin Tarantino’s dipped his toe in blaxploitation, samurai, kung-fu and war movies. It was only a matter of time before he tried the spaghetti western. We cast our eye over the sub-genre’s dark underbelly ahead of the release of Django Unchained words: Alan Bett

illustration: eclair fifi

tar antino's magpie moments Quentin Tarantino’s never been shy about his cinematic larceny. We pick five of his finest homages words: Alan Bett

It was the fag end of the sepia seventies and, after two decades in the sun, the Italian Western genre was staggering, gut shot and waiting to die. Then along came Enzo G. Castellari’s Keoma, a moody, wind-whipped masterpiece of operatic violence and beauty. It was the last great Spaghetti Western, a sub-genre born when Leone’s Dollars Trilogy blazed a trail through the early sixties, followed by Sergio Corbucci’s original Django (1966) and The Great Silence (1968). This year we have Tarantino’s Django Unchained and you can be sure that Italian blood runs through its veins. Quentin is a very big fan you see. And perhaps in those thirty years since, the scorched earth left by those Latin mavericks is finally ready to yield again.

12 THE SKINNY

January 2013

The joy in Tarantino movies is often in the spotting of his obscure genre references. This time the fun begins with the poster artwork, which tips its hat to a cult western – in this case not Django but Red Sun, a Wild West samurai, blades and bullets mash-up starring international all-stars Toshiro Mifune, Charles Bronson and Alain Delon. The film itself will surely see regurgitated dialogue and camera angles alongside scenes cannibalised wholesale from the classics Quentin covets. With Tarantino cinema chases its tail. The Italians, by contrast, looked both further afield and deeper within themselves. Leone took much aesthetic influence from fine art while Corbucci delivered delicious visual symbolism, such as Django’s title character’s ferocious gatling gun dragged along

in his coffin; death wrapped in death. Many were obviously influenced by Italian opera’s violent melodrama and exaggerated grotesques. All tied together of course by the sweeping emotive music of Morricone and others.

Arthur Penn’s Bonnie & Clyde and those other easy riders and raging bulls of the Hollywood revolution take much credit for the slow-mo tango of extreme heroic bloodshed, but the Italians beat them to it with films oozing more claret than a cornerman’s sponge. They would nonchalantly fill a man with bullets and, in the case of Django Kill!, garishly rip them back out. This violent cynicism was so intrinsic to their art, whether feeding from post war pessimism or reflecting on Europe’s bubbling political tensions. If Eskimos have 21 words for snow then why can’t exploitation directors give us, what Alex Cox numbers, 10,000 ways for a man to die?

American directors were keen to sanitise the West; the Italians cynically dragged it through the mud and shit. Each nation projected an equally mythic representation at opposite ends of the scale. Perhaps there was a deeper pessimism in the Italian psyche, or perhaps it’s just easier to denigrate another land’s past (even as a metaphor for your own present). The American classics of John Ford and Howard Hawks were literally clean cut interpretations, favouring clean-shaven, morally straightforward heroes played by the likes of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. The Latin films played more rough and ready. A bristly Franco Nero was the dark antihero in Django, and as a positively bear-like Keoma even more so. I often think that a study of western cynicism in relation to facial hair would be time well spent. Only Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West frustratingly disproves my theory: he was clean as a whistle and bad as a motherfucker. Hopefully Christophe Waltz’s bushy chops and DiCaprio’s sneering facial fuzz herald Django Unchained as a pitiless bloodbath.

Those two stars, alongside Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington, have much to live up to. The Dollars Trilogy featured a TV co-star who ‘felt lucky’ and went on to become a legend. Django made Franco Nero an international star, one which would perhaps have shone brighter had he been American. For Keoma, Castellari surrounded himself with tough, seasoned veterans of the genre: the blue-eyed Nero and Woody Strode, one third of Leone’s patient, doomed assassins at the beginning of his magnum opus Once Upon a Time in the West. Tarantino gives Nero a momentary cameo but mostly casts newcomers to the genre – thankfully names you would expect to be more than up to the job.

Tarantino himself may be climbing into the saddle in the near future, if rumours are to be believed. Enzo Castellari has grand plans for a new Western and Quentin and friends are earmarked as the villains. Until then we’ll make do with Django Unchained, what may be his great Western (and I had thought that was Inglorious Basterds – his remake of a sort of Castellari’s original warsploitation). So, expect zooming. Expect personal close-ups of narrowed eyes breaking dramatically through into dreams and memories. Expect dark flashbacks lingering around characters like purgatory. But most of all, expect blood and bullets.

Those who judge Tarantino as a magpie must remember that Leone, the master, took his influence from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo – Kurosawa in turn borrowing from Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 novel Red Harvest. It’s all a merry-go-round you see, a cross pollination of ideas and border spanning influences. Nothing exists in a vacuum and so Tarantino is but one more link in the Django chain.

Django Unchained is released 18 Jan

City on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987) The famous multiple Mexican stand-off at the climax of Reservoir Dogs feeds from the finale of this Hong Kong gangster classic starring Chow Yun Fat in his prime. The most wholesale appropriation is taken from Danny Lee delivering a two gun takedown through a police car windscreen, recreated bloodily by Mr White.

Twisted Nerve (Roy Boulting, 1968) As Daryl Hannah strides sexily down the hospital corridor in Kill Bill her eye patch points to the morally questionable Swedish thriller They Call Her One Eye. Yet her catchy little whistle comes from an equally dubious British horror, Twisted Nerve.

This current ringtone favourite is taken from a deranged killer’s lips.

Sex & Fury (Noribumi Suzuki, 1973) For once Tarantino tones down, gentrifying a snow garden samurai bloodbath. In his case a finely choreographed dance of death between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu; in Suzuki’s, multiple murders painted over the blood splattered breasts of cult queen Reiko Ike. Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974) A film awash with Blaxploitation references, but the title and typography both point to Foxy. Of course Tarantino filched the lead lady from the earlier film but also gave B movie icon Sid Haig a cameo and director Jack Hill a respectful citation.

Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) Inglorious Basterds is of course a bastardisation of Castellari’s original plot and title, yet most references within it come from the Western rather than war genre. The most prevalent is the opening, mirroring Leone’s masterpiece. Fluttering sheets; a sadistic killer; a cruel game of cat and mouse; a cold-blooded slaughter.

The Django Chain

Django Unchained is the latest in a long line of Django knockoffs. Here are four of the best Django outings words: Alan Bett Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) Introducing the rough and ready, coffin dragging quick shooter played by the legend Franco Nero.

Bathed in mud, blood and quicksand our morally sinking anti-hero plays rival gangs off against each other to the death. Now where have we heard that story before?

Django Kill! (Giulio Questi, 1967) An altogether darker and more depraved tale, riding in on Django’s success although featuring no character of this name or link to the original.

Director Questi was no fan of the genre but thought it the perfect canvas for humanity’s failings: narcissism and greed.

The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci, 1968) Substituting desert sand for ice and snow while maintaining the cruel beauty of its spaghetti predecessors, this is a stone cold classic. A villainous, fur clad Klaus Kinski terrorises a local community and the sacrificial mute hero Silence. The most striking of the Italian westerns, until...

Keoma (Enzo G. Castellari, 1978) Twelve years from Django, Nero features here as a much tougher piece of leather. A weather beaten, bare chested, shaggy haired ‘half-breed.’

Saturated in moody mise-en-scène and whipped by whistling winds, Keoma is a triumph of both style and substance.

The statue of Mr. Jack is always watching over our distillery.

NO ONE EVER BUILT A MONUMENT TO A COMMITTEE. A man should stand for something. Jack Daniel did. He stood for quality, consistency and integrity when it came to making the whiskey that bore his name. And even as opportunities to cut corners came and went, he never wavered from those beliefs. That’s why he still stands here to this day, just keeping an eye on things.

J A C K D A N I E L’ S

TENNESSEE WHISKEY

Keep your legacy intact. Please enjoy responsibly. ©2013 Jack Daniel’s. All rights reserved. JACK DANIEL’S and OLD NO. 7 are registered trademarks.

F EATURES

music

Guest Selector

Tomahawk’s guitarist time travels back to 1972, the year glam rock broke

phot: vincent forcier

Words: Duane Denison

Flashback

As Tomahawk return to the fray with album number four, guitarist Duane Denison accounts for the experimental supergroup’s five year absence INterview: Dave Kerr “I’m sure I was in Edinburgh with the Jesus Lizard… maybe Tomahawk too, or maybe that was Glasgow… I get it confused…” Sitting down with Duane Denison to discuss the reprisal of Tomahawk, it seems the touring life has become a bit of a blur for one of the more prolific guitarists to walk the fringes of modern rock. It’s hard to believe that the band’s last album, Anonymous – by turns a playful and chilling collection of reconstructed Native American folk songs – was released some five years ago now. More perplexing, though, is that prior to a run of gigs last autumn, they hadn’t played live in nearly a decade.

Then you remember the profiles that Tomahawk’s constituent parts have maintained in the intervening time – singer Mike Patton’s shock return to Faith No More and myriad projects that ran the gamut from voicing computer game effects to performing Italian pop classics with a Dutch orchestra. Then there was drummer John Stanier’s heavy shift behind the kit for nebulous math-rockers Battles (peppered by inspired collaborations with glitch-hop maestro Prefuse 73 and minimal techno producer The Field). And of course there was Denison’s own trip down memory lane with The Jesus Lizard, in-between time served with Ministry’s Paul Barker (as U.S.S.A) and four years in the ranks of Nashville rockabilly hell raisers Legendary Shack Shakers.

With this exponential growth of their collective taste buds since the last go-round, did a fourth Tomahawk album ever start to drift out of reach?

“It was always there in the back of my mind,” says Denison. “I just had no idea how things were going to play out. Faith No More and Battles were busy, and I was doing other things as well. I just kept writing and tucking ideas away… letting them accumulate and ferment on their own. We stayed in contact; I’d see the other guys every so often when travelling and it just seemed like the time was right.”

As the project finally came back into focus in late 2011, the addition of long-term Patton associate Trevor Dunn (ex-Mr Bungle, Fantômas) galvanised the group as they set about fleshing out the “riffs, beats and general things” that Duane had brought to the table for what would ulimately become the band’s fourth LP as we now know it: Oddfellows.

“Bringing Trevor onboard kind of kicked it into overdrive,” Denison admits. “Everybody already

14 THE SKINNY

January 2013

knows Trevor, we’ve hung out, toured together in different groups and his reputation precedes him, doesn’t it – such a great all around player. Mike’s obviously known him a long time, since they were kids practically, and they’ve worked together, so that was comfortable. When we got together to rehearse, right from the get-go, I thought that the rhythm section – him and John Stanier playing together – just sounded great, a natural fit. There wasn’t even a second thought; it was as if they’d been playing together for years.”

With Dunn’s versatility compounding the collective’s mounting idiosyncrasies, the question becomes: What would a new Tomahawk album

“We’ve

all changed and gotten into different things; this album reflects that”

put out a full-on rock album and we didn’t want to repeat what we’d already done. We had to do something a little different, something that might bring in new people, new listeners, because we don’t know who the old ones are anymore. I think there’s a good balance of elements that are accessible and ‘poppy’ in a weird way, than typically darker and heavier. I’m very pleased with how it turned out. We’ve all changed and gotten into different things; this album reflects that.”

Now they’re finally out of hibernation, Tomahawk’s touring plans are firming up well into the New Year with gigs in the US, Australia and Europe beginning to surface on the itinerary. Will we finally see them in these parts? “I’m sure we’ll come to the UK,” he says, perhaps more determined to remember the occasion lucidly next time. “But keep in mind, with Tomahawk it’s always tricky scheduling!”

Oddfellows is released via Ipecac Records on 28 Jan www.ipecac.com/artists/tomahawk

Duane Denison even sound like? “I like to think Oddfellows picks up where [2003’s] Mit Gas left off,” says Denison, ignoring Anonymous as its own entity. “We kinda started from there and took off.” But anyone looking for a retread of Captain Midnight’s drum ’n’ bass inspired mania, or for the record to end in an abstract haze of howls, tape-loops and disorienting references to Big Country, might want to open their mind to a more outlandish possibility.

Although the quartet’s sense of chaos remains at play, they’ve surely produced their most direct and unconventionally poppy offering so far. “It just sort of happened,” Denison remarks of the gambit.

“Mike and I had talked beforehand about making an album that was definitely more live sounding – even though there’s a tonne of vocal overdubs – ha! But we definitely wanted to have a thing where we could play those songs and record them live with everyone in the same room, and that’s what we did.”

Is this to say they actively sought to broaden their appeal after such a long time away? “I think there was a conscious attempt, not necessarily to try to be popular…” Denison chews on the dilemma. “Y’know, it had been a while since we

Guest Question: Fraser Stewart (Fat Goth): Did you really sleep with Courtney Love?

Fat Goth? Oh boy… Hahahahahahaha…. [pause] Hahahahahahahaha…No, NO! She took a shine to me when Hole and The Jesus Lizard played Lollapalooza in ’95. I was just trying to be nice!

Their bass player Melissa – beautiful gal – she took me in to meet Courtney, and I went out of my way to be nice. If you’re gonna be around someone on this big rolling tour for weeks, get to know ‘em – or at least reach out and try. But that’s all. You know what, I should just say ‘Yes – I did, and while we were doing it I put on a green cardigan sweater and a blonde wig!’

1. Alice Cooper – School’s Out (1972) I grew up in a suburb of Plymouth, Michigan, right in-between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Whether it was Motown, Bob Seger or Ted Nugent, music was always around since when I was a kid. But it really all hit me at the same time, when I was 12 or 13 – y’know, when you’re at that age where you’re just starting to become a teenager. It all happened at once: girls, drugs, cigarettes and rock’n’roll – the whole thing.

Glam was the prevalent thing, but, in America, the first rock band I really saw on TV was Alice Cooper and that album School ’s Out. That was, to me, hair-raising, and that makeup still looks great, he just looks the same! Those songs, the way those guitars sounded – really bright and sharp, but also distorted – I just thought ‘this is perfect.’ It was such a theatrical show – I thought everyone was like that, but I quickly found out otherwise…

2. West, Bruce & Laing – Why Dontcha (1972) It’s funny – Tomahawk sometimes gets called a supergroup, which I kinda bristle at, I’ve never liked it. But when I was a kid there was a real supergroup called West, Bruce and Laing – Leslie West and Corky Laing from Mountain and Jack Bruce from Cream. They only made two studio albums and a live album, but the first studio album was called Why Dontcha – it was this amazing blue album cover. I’d say that album is totally overlooked, underrated and it really rocks. There’s this song called The Doctor where it’s just raging slide guitar.

3. T. Rex – The Slider (1972) Then came T-Rex with The Slider – I actually stole the 8-track. Yeah, I went into the local store, bent down as if to tie my shoe and I grabbed the 8-track, stuck it in my sock and walked out of the store. I just had to have it!

4. The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main St. (1972) The Rolling Stones put out Exile on Main St. that same year. There’s so much on it – a double album with tonnes of great songs. Even the pictures on the back and in the inlay – I think a lot of bands now underestimate the power of visuals. There wasn’t MTV; there wasn’t YouTube at this point – just these photos of them, seemingly in the studio or hanging out – it just made it look like being in a band was the greatest thing in the world. They’re always drinkin’, smokin’, there’s always girls around, they’re up late with all these cool guitars and amps laying around. I was like ‘man, that’s where it’s at!’

5. Roxy Music – Roxy Music (1972) In December that year I went to my first fullon rock concert. My friend’s dad drove us to downtown Detroit – the old Cobo Arena, and the headlining band was Humble Pie. But the band that blew our minds was Roxy Music – it was their first album and US tour, so they were with Brian Eno. They looked so crazy – you had Brian Ferry, a weird lounge singer; then you had Eno looking like he was dressed as a jester. Phil Manzanera looked like the human fly, then you had Andy Mackay, who was a spaceman from the 50s. They were the first band I’d ever heard use a synthesizer. But Detroit is such a lunch bucket working man’s rock’n’roll town, that I was afraid to clap in case I got beat up! So we just tucked it away in the back of our minds, but they became a lot more influential than Humble Pie! Oddfellows, the new album by Tomahawk, is released via Ipecac Records on 28 Jan www.ipecac.com/artists/tomahawk

A

Y S AR 0 W U .5 IE AN £7 EV 1 J TS PR & 2 KE 9 C ,1 TI 18 LL

A bittersweet tale of love and longing, loneliness and betrayal.

A TASTE OF HONEY

14−24 FEBRUARY 2013 Jeff Mills + Jane Birkin + Calamity Jane Barn Dance =

By Shelagh Delaney Directed by Tony Cownie

GLASGOW MUSIC AND FILM FEST Experimental bonkersness + Original visions =

CROSSING THE LINE

18 January – 9 February

BOX OFFICE: 0131 248 4848 www.lyceum.org.uk/honey Please note a £1 fee will apply to all bookings.

Royal Lyceum Theatre is a Registered Company No. SC062065 Scottish Charity Registered No. SC010509

VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL #6 2 - 16 FEB 2013

Traverse Theatre & Summerhall, Edinburgh

15% DISCOUNT

WHEN YOU SHOW THIS AD

and venues across Scotland

INNOVATIVE INTERNATIONAL THEATRE AND FILM

“Head and shoulders above any coffee I’ve sampled so far on our quests- ”

– Lunchquest.co.uk

T VIC O

IA R

ET RE ST

DEDICATED TO THEATRE AT ITS MOST SENSUAL AND IMAGINATIVE THE SCOTSMAN

Tickets on sale now for Music and Film events - all films on sale from 17 January WWW.GLASGOWFILM.ORG/FESTIVAL

www.manipulatefestival.org

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 15

16 THE SKINNY

January 2013

photo: steve gullick

clubs

F EATURE S

Late Flowering Lust

Andrew Weatherall has abandoned the rock and roll of his last album to create The Asphodells with Timothy J. Fairplay, a glorious celebration of post-punk and electronica inspired by John Betjeman, AR Kane, and his club night, A Love From Outer Space interview: Bram E. Gieben “Give me one minute, I’ve just got the teabag in,” says Andrew Weatherall. “That’s not a euphemism – I am actually making a cup of tea.”

Speaking from his book-lined studio “in a basement on the outskirts of London’s decreasinglyfashionable Shoreditch,” Weatherall is on excellent form, holding forth with enthusiasm about current collaborator Timothy J. Fairplay, with whom he made new album Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust under the name The Asphodells. They met when Fairplay was: “...a fresh-faced acid-house loving punter” at one of Weatherall’s nights, called Haywire. “He would usually be the first to arrive and the last to leave...” Then there’s the subject of his sprawling three-disc mix compilation for Ministry of Sound, released this year, inspired by his increasingly-acclaimed club night with Sean Johnston, A Love From Outer Space: “I did think about it long and hard,” Weatherall says. “Do I want to be associated with Ministry of Sound?”

With regular anecdotes about his passion for music, his start in the record industry, and digressions to discuss the works of everyone from John Betjeman to William Hazlitt, Weatherall is an erudite, charming conversationalist – humble and excitable, a mercurial wit who describes himself, after more than two decades of making music, as “a kind of gentleman amateur.”

We’re here to talk about The Asphodells album, which is a thoroughly different beast to Weatherall’s last solo effort, A Pox on the Pioneers. Where that album explored rockabilly, dub and good oldfashioned rock and roll, Passion / Lust is an album of synth-led grooves with seductive, minimal vocal performances from Weatherall, taking in elements of disco, techno, post-punk, synth-pop and acid house. Made on analogue synthesisers and drum machines, with guitars and live bass, it is so good it feels effortless. Although the songs are rooted in deceptively simple, melancholic chord structures and pulsing, minimal electronic grooves, the casual flair with which The Asphodells wear their influences – from classic acid house to Joy Division, from Kraftwerk to Faust – is a whole lot of fun.

“I’m glad you used the word fun, because although we’re very serious about what we do,

and the music has been described as dark, I still like laughter in the studio,” says Weatherall. “It’s vital to me, it always has been.” Coming off the back of an “acrimonious” split with a former production partner, Weatherall had to abandon some co-written material, to avoid “all sorts of devious wrangling” should he ever want to release it. The collaboration with Fairplay started organically – he had moved into Weatherall’s studio complex eighteen months previously, and they started working together. “He knew how I worked,” Weatherall explains. “He just stepped into the breach beautifully. It was a very painless transition.”

Weatherall describes A Pox... as “a bit more studied, a bit more technically conventional” than The Asphodells album. It’s a strong, well-rounded work nonetheless. “God bless you for saying ‘wellrounded,’” laughs Weatherall. “We don’t just lump everything together every six months and then put it out. I’m very conscious of not doing that, especially with ‘dance music,’ for want of a better phrase. A lot of techno albums, electronic albums, are just a collection of tracks, and they don’t hold together particularly well. I’m very conscious of the concept of an album, and it being a body of work that all fits together. It’s in my bones.”

The process of recording the tracks is more important to their quality than the influences that inspired them. “We don’t jam – I don’t like jamming,” Weatherall insists, laughing again. “It all starts with the percussion and the bass, as with a lot of musical forms down the years.” Using a Roland 808 drum machine and a Juno 106 synth, the duo bash out a rhythmic structure, and if they need an organic bassline, they call in Andy Baxter, a musician in the studio next door who has an amazing collection of “eye-wateringly beautiful vintage bass guitars.” Modestly, Weatherall says: “Tim’s knowledge of musical construction is somewhat better than mine, so he’ll help me figure out how to get somewhere and then back again.”

His description of his early years in the music industry is candid. He says he “accidentally” got into DJing because he “had a good record collection, which accidentally led me to going into the studio.” Weatherall was convinced it wouldn’t

last. “I remember going for a job interview with a test pressing of Loaded under my arm... it was at a record company. The guy saw me come in and he said, ‘Look, I’d interview you, but what the fuck are you doing here?’ I said: ‘’Well, I need a job.’ He said: ‘No you don’t, because that record you’ve got under your arm there is going to be reasonably successful.’ So, from day one, because I thought it was all going to end tomorrow, I thought, I’m not going to try and impress the boss, or be on some sort of career ladder... I’m just going to have fun.”

He says he is in an “enviable position” because he has “a reasonably good heritage” and a

“I’m

not a slave to technology, technology is a slave to me” andrew weatherall “reasonably good back catalogue.” He reflects that perhaps this latest surge of interest in his work is to do with what he represents: “People want something to balance up that fleeting, ephemeral pop culture atmosphere.” He describes seeing three generations of clubbers on the dancefloor at his recent Glasgow appearance, and speculates: “I do represent the antithesis to the throwaway, mp3 culture. I’ve got nothing against that – you can have both quite easily, you know, I do both.

But I think that’s why I have had a renaissance over the last couple of years... people are looking for something a bit more than this week’s shiny object. Maybe I represent something that strikes a balance against that.” He laughs again, before adding: “It’s not just because I’m old!”

Rotters Golf Club, the label he started in 2001, operates on an autonomous basis, working with artists like folk singer Shirley Collins, and Alec Empire. Weatherall doesn’t want to take the shine away from them: hence he started Bird Scarer. The limited edition, 300 vinyl copies of each release

sell out almost instantly, allowing Weatherall to showcase artists with niche appeal and his own “vanity projects.” It’s an ideal set-up: “There’s a lot of effort that goes into Bird Scarer, but not a lot of work, if that makes sense,” Weatherall chuckles.

He’s keen to downplay the cliché of ‘Weatherall the Luddite’ but says he does still avoid social networks. “Maybe I’m lucky – I lead quite a busy, full life. And it’s too busy and full to take time out to tell people what a busy, full life I’m leading. I just don’t feel the need. There’s just too much daylight, too much magic sometimes, with computers. Too many secrets are being given away. So I’m just going to hold on to mine for a little bit... I don’t feel the need to share my life. I’ve got an amazing, beautiful set of friends, and that’s the only social network I need, really.”

He’s only half-joking when he says: “I’m not a slave to technology, technology is a slave to me. I use music software to make music, but I don’t feel the need to update every two months, to have the latest thing. I’m not seduced by the digital world, habitually. I find it attractive, and very interesting.

It’s a brilliant thing. If you have a laptop in your front room, you’re connected to literally everything in the world there’s ever been. It’s how it’s used, I suppose – I just use it to enhance my life in a practical way, rather than a cosmetic way.”

Weatherall returns to Radio 6 on 4 Jan with a show promising the “usual smorgasbord of delights,” a post-Hogmanay hangover show he’s calling Come Down With Me. Approaching his half century, Weatherall is modest about his reputation as the elder statesman of the UK dance scene, comfortable to live the quiet life in his studio, and coming out to play on his own terms. Describing the studio, which he has occupied for fifteen years, he says: “I’ve got a good library of books down here, and a good library of music.” That’s all Andrew Weatherall has ever needed.

The Asphodells – Ruled By Passion, Destroyed by Lust is released via Rotters Gold Club on 4 Feb. Read our extended interview with Andrew Weatherall online www.rottersgolfclub.co.uk

January 2013

THE SKINNY 17

Photo: Phil Di Fiore

music

Martian Chronicles

Certainly ‘one to watch’ in 2013, Sinkane’s Mars is a thrilling mixture of African rhythms and melodies, abstract jazz and space-age soul. We talked to him about the LP, his time in Yeasayer and Caribou, and the expiration of the term ‘world music’ interview: Bram E. Gieben Sinkane was the production name for multiinstrumentalist Ahmed Gallab – now it is the name of his band. He released his eight-track album Mars on DFA / City Slang in December last year.

It was in many ways a substantial departure from his earlier albums, Color Voice and the self-titled Sinkane, from 2008 and 2009 respectively, which came out on boutique label Emergency Umbrella Records.

Where his debut and sophomore albums were largely instrumental, Mars features Gallab’s voice front and center. He was revealed as a capable and diverse singer – crooning in a sensual, almost whispered tone on the Afrobeat-soul of Jeeper Creeper; sounding like a sexy robot from the future on the louche vocoder-assisted funk of Lady C’Mon and the anthemic, sun-drenched Cruisin’, and perhaps most thrillingly, unleashing a pitchperfect falsetto worthy of Curtis Mayfield on the hard-hitting, chopped funk of first single Runnin’.

With time spent as a touring member of several very well-regarded US indie bands, including most notably Yeasayer, Caribou and Of Montreal, Gallab has taken inspiration from his former collaborators. Several of them guest on Mars, including Yeasayer’s Ira Wolf-Tuton, and George Lewis Jr, aka Twin Shadow.

Now operating as a full band, backed by drummer Jason Trammel (also a Yeasayer alumnus), celebrated jazz guitarist Mikey Freedom-Hart and bassist Mike Montgomery, Sinkane have begun a tour around Europe and America to promote the album. The Skinny catches up with Gallab at French festival Trans Musicales in Rennes, just before he and his band take to the stage for a jaw-droppingly tight, uplifting, soul-soothing performance of highlights from the album. Relaxed, highly intelligent, and with an almost unnatural air of calm about him, Gallab is charming in person, discussing his Sudanese roots, his influences, and his plans for the band.

Based in Brooklyn, he is enthusiastic about its musical culture: “There is a lot of creative energy in Brooklyn,” he says. “The amount of music that’s being made there daily is just unbelievable, and the level of quality is great. There are many musical communities there, so you don’t have to go to Brooklyn hoping to meet only one kind of

18 THE SKINNY

January 2013

person. You end up finding out that there’s such an open-ended musical world there. It allows you to tap into parts of your psyche that you just wouldn’t have known about, because you haven’t seen people achieve that level of creative involvement.

Everyone there works very quickly and achieves a lot very quickly, so it also gives you the opportunity to get involved.”

And get involved he did – playing drums and other instruments for a whole host of well-kent Brooklyn faces. What did he learn from this experience? “I learned a lot about how bands work – I learned a lot about how bands communicate with each other, and I learned a lot about the music industry at large,” says Gallab. “The music is one thing – I was incredibly inspired by those bands musically, but what I took from that was how I could move forward with my group, and understand the world of the music industry.”

The lineup of Sinkane is still evolving, but for now, Gallab is extremely happy with the results he’s getting from his new band. Trammel played on Mars, the others he met after the album was finished. “In future, absolutely, I’ll record with them. It’s no longer going to be me, in my room, working on music.” Sinkane has been a project of Galllab’s since 2007, and making a band out of his solo compositions and a string of guest contributions has presented its fair share of challenges.

Mars took two years to create, in between on-andoff tours with different bands. “It’s kind of hard to make an instant transition, you know?” Gallab smiles as he says this, showing that the process is all part of the enjoyment for him. “You have to grow together, and it takes time,” he continues.

“But we’re doing pretty well.”

It’s a typically modest account from Gallab, who has achieved something truly special with the new Sinkane material. On first glance, the funk rhythms and simple, clear song structures come across with a powerful familiarity. Further listens reveal deeper and deeper complexities, with hints of South American percussion; intricate, abstract jazz flourishes on woodwind, brass and bass; subtle counter-melodies in the guitar playing which evoke classic African fusion musicians such as Fela and Femi Kuti, and a whole host of other exotic, farflung, and potentially disparate influences. Gallab’s

palette is truly international, but never experimental for the sake of it, or in a showy, self-conscious way. Sinkane simply borrow from everywhere, and make it their own.

Asked for his opinion on the outmoded (and arguably politically incorrect) term ‘world music,’ Gallab makes no apologies: “I think it bastardises music,” he says firmly. “I think what it does is it puts a lot of beautiful, different, eclectic music

“There

are many different schools of music, and many different ways to learn” Ahmed Gallab, aka Sinkane under one simple category. And it’s not that simple – there’s a lot more to music which can be found all around the world than can be contained in one simple category. I think we’re starting to discover that music on its own terms. The idea of ‘world music’ has become dated.”

He is equally suspicious of attempts to limit the scope of who artists can be influenced by.

The Skinny asks if he sees elements of ‘cultural tourism’ in Afrobeat-influenced bands like Vampire Weekend, and he rejects this suggestion categorically: “I think it’s all good. It’s okay for anyone to make whatever kind of music they wanna make.

It’s not for me, or anybody, to say what people should or shouldn’t do. It’s equally annoying to hear someone criticise a band for adding a specific influence, or to call it cultural tourism, as it is to use the term ‘world music.’ People can do whatever they want, and they will continue to. As long as it’s sincere, then it’s fine.”

Gallab started out learning how to play instruments the classical way, but soon discovered the joys of self-taught, improvisation-based learning.

“I don’t read music,” he says. “I can, but I don’t.

There are many different schools of music, and many different ways to learn. The more I play,

the more I become ‘classically trained,’ and the more I become interested in that school of music, because it’s a challenge for me. But I’m really glad I learned the way I did.”

On the release of Mars, there were several reviews which placed it within the tradition of ‘Afro-futurism,’ alongside Parliament, Funkadelic, and Andre 3000. But Gallab is uncomfortable with categorising his music in this way. “Journalists are good at making blanket statements,” he says with a grin. “I am inspired by Parliament and Funkadelic. I am inspired by Andre 3000. If a term like that makes it easier for people to understand my music, then I guess, sure. But it should never be looked at with the premise that it needs to be categorised.”

Asked what’s next for Sinkane as a band, Gallab gives a relaxed response: “I haven’t really thought about that. I’m more interested right now in getting the message of Sinkane out there. The record just came out, so it’s really important for us to just tour, and have conversations with people all around the world. There will be a time where we need to stop and work on something else, but that’s later.”

Mars was almost a who’s who of Brooklyn musicians – who would Gallab like to collaborate with on future Sinkane records? “I’m really inspired by the Sa-ra Creative Partners,” he says. “They’re a musical collective from Los Angeles and New York.

They put out a record called Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love a few years ago, and they also had a hand in producing a lot of the later Erykah Badu records. I’m really inspired by them, and I think they’re amazing people. Equally, Damon Albarn is a big influence of mine, I really like that kind of music. A lot of African, Afro-Cuban and cumbia music too, stuff like that – it would be nice to work with someone who is just right in the cut, you know? Someone who understands that music deeply and completely.” Someone, then, a little like Gallab himself – a natural, mercurial and restless talent. “The world is large, there is a lot of different music,” he says. “I’ll probably change my mind next year.”

Mars is out now on DFA / City Slang. Sinkane will be touring Europe in 2013. Read our extended interview with Sinkane online www.sinkane.com

Ones to Swatch

Never let it be said that The Skinny isn’t a broad church – here are just a few personal picks our music team will be rooting for in 2013 Janelle MonÁe

Last seen bending brains with The ArchAndroid’s neo-funk robo-soul revue under the watch of Outkast’s Big Boi, Janelle Monáe isn’t exactly understated in her ambition. She’s got big plans for its follow-up, too: not one, but two new albums tentatively scheduled for this year.

While she’s not yet set a release date for these twin creations, work is apparently well underway – judging from the tracks debuted live so far, she’s dialled down the oddball concepts but sacrificed none of her glamour or magnetism. [Chris Buckle] www.jmonae.com

the sword

Deafheaven

Deafheaven are one of the most notable bands to emerge from the latest wave of American black metal, let alone the San Francisco scene, in the past few years. Their 2011 full-length debut Roads to Judah combined shoegaze melodies with doomy riffage and post-rock vibes, making for a strangely alluring crossover.

Spring 2013 will mark the release of its followup, Sunbather, again via Deathwish Inc. Guitarist Kerry McCoy gives an indication as to what we can expect from the new record: “There are a lot

of harsh, dark vibes on Sunbather, but don’t be surprised at how lush and rock-driven, even popdriven certain aspects will be.” Vocalist George Clarke affirms: “The black metal aspect to our music is prevalent in the new material, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the focus this time around.”

Everything should make more sense when the band takes the new songs into a live context, which is where they truly shine. We’ll be watching.

[Ross Watson]

Plastic Animals

Vasquez

Plastic Animals have been beavering away in Edinburgh for a few years now, but 2012 saw them up their game in a big way – with their basic guitar/ bass/drums set up being augmented by a second guitarist and synths, their live shows became increasingly confident, and DIY micro label Strange Fish re-released their excellent second EP Automaton.

That confidence ought to see them push on a bit. Automaton’s spacey, rhythmic drones – layered in waves of noise with Peruvian native Mario Cruzado’s vocals floating wistfully over the top – defy easy categorisation. There’s something here for the rock fans, the shoegazers and those who just appreciate a bit of melody. Definitely a band worth catching in 2013, and not just to get your hands on the actual plastic animals they give away with their merch…[Stu Lewis] www.plasticanimals.co.uk

deafheaven.com

For all its booksmarts and visceral tonality, alternative music can often be a bit morose, hence the continuing ironic embrace of frankly shitty pop by otherwise intelligent people just looking to dance.

Edinburgh trio Vasquez aim to put this to rights.

The vibrant instrumental troupe blend technical flair with a loin-commanding love of the groove, echoing the good work of Death From Above 1979 but thrust through a technical mincer and sure to appeal to followers of Adebisi Shank, Trans Am and The Fucking Champs.

With a thrid EP (presumably called ’3‘ if the current pattern is to continue) due for release at the start of the year, this hard working and hugely enjoyable triumvirate are throughly deserving of your attention, not to mention your best attempt at The Robot. [Chris Cusack]

Having survived the twin assaults of the Mayan apocalypse (that’s the last time we’ll mention it, honest) and the rather more realistic threat of festive indulgence, what better way to clear the mental cobwebs, burn some calories and celebrate your survival than some good old fashioned heavy metal? The Sword have been cranking out such shiz for nearly a decade now and roll into the O2 ABC on 7 January in support of their successful fourth album Apocryphon. The title refers to ‘secret teachings about things that maybe shouldn’t be known,’ according to guitarist Kyle Shutt. Make sure you’re down the front for this particular class.

Though sometimes billed as a ‘Celtic pop group’, Kila (O2 ABC, 19 Jan) are far too long in the tooth to allow such a lazy genre tag to adversely affect them. Indeed, they’ve been at this game, however they may choose to label it themselves, for over two decades, growing from intimate gigs in Irish pub lofts to the likes of this appearance as part of the Celtic Connections festival. Yet there is certainly an immediacy to their mix of traditional and electric instrumentation that befits a ‘pop’ tag and as such makes the venerable troupe a wise choice to kick off the two-week festival.

Billed under the lawsuit-avoiding Animals and Friends umbrella, legendary guitarist and producer Steve ‘The Colonel’ Cropper joins the current incarnation of the sixties stalwarts under the straight-up moniker of Steve Cropper & The Animals (O2 ABC, 28 Jan). Expect some well-loved gems from their various back catalogues including Booker T and the MG’s Green Onions, The Animals’ classic House of the Rising Sun and a nod to Cropper’s tenure as a Blues Brother with Soul Man. There’s no doubt they’re on a mission from God. Aimee Mann (O2 ABC, 30 Jan) has had her ups and downs over the years, something she wonderfully sent up with her amiable but down-beat appearance on hipster-baiting TV show Portlandia.

But 2012 saw her return to the real world with eighth album Charmer, which included a duet with Shins main-man James Mercer and came with glowing reviews. It marks a perfect time then for Mann to make this long overdue return to Glasgow and prove once more that she has longevity beyond many of her peers. [Darren Carle] facebook.com/o2abcglasgow

vasquez.bandcamp.com

January 2013

THE SKINNY 19

FREE Office Space FREE Business Mentoring FREE Wifi

Call us at 0141 418 9120

The MAIDS

By Jean Genet In a translatIon By Martin CriMp thu 17 Jan – Sat 2 Feb

book now 0141 429 0022

citz.co.uk

Citizens theatre ltd. registered in scotland no. sCo 22513 and is a scottish Charity no. sCo 01337. Photo by tommy Ga-Ken Wan

CHECK OUT OUR MOBILE SITE

ILLUSTRATION: WWW.VERBALSPICKS.COM

20 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

theatre

Who’s Pulling the Strings?

Puppet Animation Scotland’s manipulate theatre festival kicks off in February with a thrilling mix of physical theatre, animation, and of course, puppetry. The Skinny got an exclusive preview from manipulate’s Artistic Director, Simon Hart

Puppet Animation Scotland’s sixth annual manipulate theatre festival offers a program which ranges from re-tellings of old myths to disturbing, alternative visions of the future, blending physical theatre, innovative production design, animation and film, and a celebration of the art of puppetry.

Exploring the edges of ‘visual theatre’ – a discipline that can combine acting, lighting, costume, animation and special effects, the manipulate 2013 program pushes the boundaries of the kind of stories it is possible to tell on stage, and offers a thrilling, involving alternative to the empty spectacle of big-budget, 3D blockbusters. “I think the best visual theatre, by not relying on the spoken word, has the potential to engage audiences on deeper, more visceral levels,” explains Simon Hart, the director of manipulate. “While words can often move us, the vividness and power of images can have an even more immediate and lasting effect.”

One show sure to cause a stir at this year’s manipulate is To The End of Love, presented by Tip Connection; a re-telling of that goriest of fairytales, the myth of Bluebeard’s castle. “This production is a very clear and imaginative retelling of the Bluebeard story from the viewpoint of the young bride,” says Hart. The wordless performance relies on physical gesture and response, and production design: “We read the body and facial language of the bride as she begins to realise that all is not what it seems!”

Tellingly, like the best horror movie monsters, the villain remains hidden for most of the piece: “Bluebeard appears only as an expensive well-tailored blue suit of clothes, so he is a cipher,” says Hart.

“Other characters appear only as the clothes they wear, so they engage with the bride and relate to her only in the way she seems to wish them to.” The myth of Bluebeard is presented ambiguously, leaving it open to the audience to interpret whether the tale is actually taking place, or is a dark fantasy, imagined in the mind of the bride.

Another cornerstone of manipulate 2013 is puppetry. Often thought of as the province of children’s entertainment – from Punch & Judy to The Muppets, puppets have been beloved by countless generations – there are older, darker traditions of puppetry, from the ancient Japanese art of Bunraku, with its intricate, carved models and focus on stories with mature themes, to the Kathputli tradition from India, a popular form of puppetry whose origins are thousands of years old. Then there are more modern puppet masters, such as Czech animator and puppeteer Jan Švankmajer. Puppetry can hold up a mirror to human nature, and tell stories that are fantastical, mythical and satirical in a unique and inventive way.

Neville Tranter’s Schicklgruber deals with the story of Hitler’s rise and fall, presenting a satirical take on the events portrayed in the movie Downfall, although Hart maintains that Tranter’s production predates the Oliver Hirschbiegel film.

“It is Tranter’s most successful and well known production,” explains Hart. “Although Neville is Australian he has lived in the Netherlands for several decades. Perhaps this intimate outsider’s view of a European country which suffered considerably while being occupied during WWII is one reason why the production works so well.”

What is it about puppets that makes them such good vehicles for satire? “I think these puppets allow us to laugh safely at a very black situation,” Hart says. “Through the shape and style of the puppets Tranter can create caricatures, and emphasise physical and character traits – Hitler’s bulging, mesmeric eyes and thus his madness; Goebbels’ slyness; Goering’s fatness and absurdity – they are character traits we immediately relate to, and which would be very difficult to draw attention to easily in any other way. The puppets push

interview: Bram E. Gieben

To The End of Love

Schicklgruber

the totally unattractive qualities of the characters to satirical levels, and by being able to laugh at them, we can recognise and explore the evil they created in a secure way.”

Final Space, Ocean Flight and Myth and Infrastructure are a trilogy of shows which use a combination of animation and physical theatre to tell stories with elements of fantasy and sci-fi.

Final Space is about a woman who encounters a ‘dream-sucking machine,’ dealing with themes of identity, memory and the interaction of humanity and technology. Ocean Flight meanwhile is a retelling of Charles Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight, reinterpreted as a metaphor for the melding of man and machine. In Myth and Infrastructure, solo performer Miwa Matreyek invites us to enter a dream-like fantasy realm. All three performances use light, film and animation innovatively to tell their stories.

“The combination of live performers and film raises one’s awareness and visceral responses to and appreciation of both elements of the performance,” Hart explains. “On a superficial level we can admire this combination of a completely controlled medium – the film – with the more unpredictable engagement of the live performer. On a deeper level I think through the successful interaction of both, we pay more attention to each element and its intrinsic value and contribution to the overall narrative.” For Hart, this combination has the edge on the CGI spectacle of Hollywood films: “Quite often with CGI and big Hollywood films the very impressive technical medium becomes the whole message because the development of the content has been neglected.

This company has started from the three stories it wants to tell, and then articulated those narratives with the help of the chosen creative mediums.”

Another company participating in manipulate this year are Glasgow collective Buzzcut. The Buzzcut show features three solo performances: “Over the course of an evening audiences will experience intimate one-to-one theatre, be able to make a robot, meditate on the passing of time and mortality, have a drink and a laugh, and see a brilliantly weird take on the power dynamics of ballroom dancing,” says Hart. “I saw this last piece – Por Sal Y Samba – about three years ago and have wanted to programme it ever since, but it never quite fitted into a Traverse setting.” This year’s festival sees shows taking place at the festival’s original home at the Traverse, but also at Summerhall, the Lochgelly Centre in Fife, Aberdeen’s The Lemon Tree, Glasgow’s The Arches, and even as far afield as Norwich Puppet Theatre.

Hart has been involved in programming manipulate since its inception in 2008, and is passionate about its aims. “The festival is dedicated to bringing powerful visual theatre of the highest quality from around the world to Scottish audiences,” he says.

“The event is also about providing a platform on which Scottish artists can engage – through the performances and / or accompanying workshops programme – with the work of international artists.”

Asked to tell us about some of the other highlights of the festival, Hart is enthusiastic. “After the Wave is the first full-length piece created by Scottish artists which we have programmed at manipulate,” he explains. The show is “inspired by images of tsunami victims huddled in cardboard

box ‘homes’ and Maja Daniels’ baleful pictures of Alzheimer’s sufferers,” and uses life-size puppets, mask work and live music.

What audiences does Hart hope to reach with this year’s manipulate? “Our audiences are typically students or recent graduates, young, very engaged, not afraid to be challenged out of their comfort zones,” explains Hart. “Technically savvy, they seek their information from the internet and peer groups, are actively interested in experiencing new art forms, are comfortable with new technologies, and in cultural terms seek out the sort of imaginative creative hybrids the companies we programme at manipulate create.”

Puppets and animation are often seen as forms which are principally enjoyed by children. How does Hart see the adult audiences responding to their use in this context? “As children we all play with lifeless objects which, through play, we then invest with great symbolic life and value,” he says.

“As adults we can all too easily lose this knack of accessing this immediacy, this world of imagination and play, and our interior lives are poorer as a result. The best theatre can provide us with potential ways to re-enter these worlds, visual theatre even more so because, as long as we are willing at the start of a piece to enter the artist’s world.

This less traditional world of performance creates its own context as it goes along, inviting us to take the journey with the performers and rediscover our own potential to be delighted and amazed.” manipulate 2013 takes place at venues across Scotland and England from 2 to 19 Feb. Check the website for tickets, prices and times www.manipulatefestival.org

January 2013

THE SKINNY 21

Choose life. Choose economy art

A major group show at Stills and CCA explores how the economy impacts on every aspect of life. We stepped off the treadmill briefly to chat to curators Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd interview: Jac Mantle

Google it, and the images that come up are of notes and dollar signs, a map with currency symbols moving over Europe, the US and China, and a line graph mapping a downward trend. Ask people what it looks like, and a common answer would probably describe a scene like Andreas Gursky’s Chicago, Board of Trade. The monumental photograph shows a cacophonous trading pit from above, a frenzy of brokers clustered around monitors.

According to curators Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd, the economy could be just as well described by Tanja Ostojic’s confrontational photograph of herself naked and shaved, which the Serbian artist placed in an online personal ad with the words: ‘Looking for a husband with a EU passport.’

Both of these images appear in Economy, a show which will be staged across Glasgow’s CCA and Edinburgh’s Stills. Curators Dimitrikaki and Lloyd propose that the economy is connected to everything – to your education, the climate, where you live, and even the way you have sex. Showing the work of 30 international artists alongside public forums, films and a website, the show aims to provoke public discussion on how the economy impacts on our lives.

“We had identified a change in contemporary art produced after the Cold War,” explains Dimitrakaki, “and so we asked ourselves what artists had been doing differently. A lot of art from 1990 on tried to address how we’re made in terms of economic relations. There was an increase in exhibitions and discourse on labour and sex. We asked, what does this mean for contemporary art?

And we concluded that there was an economic turn in art. There were all sorts of reasons for this, and we didn’t think it had happened before.”

Dimitrakaki is animated, pouring more coffee. She mock-sighs about having to delve into the history of contemporary art (her research background) in order to explain the exhibition’s gestation, before enthusing over the work, which is “very controversial and very strong. There is this newness about Tanja’s work and also about other works that we’re presenting.”

Choose a husband Ostojic’s project will be shown at CCA in the

form of documentation of the performance, which spanned five years of her life. It includes the ad she placed and the shocking self-portrait that presented her in the starkest way possible, along with her wedding photos, visa applications, and a video of her first meeting with the German citizen who became her husband. It also includes her divorce papers, filed after – incredibly – the project failed and the passport did not enable her to get a visa.

“She’s not actually an EU citizen so we’re having to go through the process of getting her a visa so she can travel here,” says Lloyd.

“Are we allowed to say that?” cautions Dimitrakaki.

The project’s failure gives it a whole new dimension, both poignant and farcical.

“She always felt she was in control throughout the project,” says Lloyd, “but this doesn’t mean that she could actually foresee what was going to happen with it.”

Travel as a condition of everyday life is also represented in the show, under a strand called Exodus. “With the economic turn, we find that as part of your work, or to find work, you have to travel,” says Dimitrakaki. “Artists are sometimes very privileged in having access to travel, but it’s absolutely exhausting and is embedded in the work you’re expected to do.”

Choose a career The show at Stills will include Martha Rosler’s series of airport photographs, shot in the 1980s before reality TV shows brought the grey interstitial spaces to our living rooms and before airport high security put a clamp on the freedom of photography. Instead of the airport being a non-place or a purely functional space, her photos document a site ripe with the theatre of social relationships.

Work spilling over into life and becoming a social relation is another symptom of the economic turn that the curators have identified, as is a more pervasive accepted sexualisation of work. “Of course, it is often women who work in this industry, and female artists who have a certain kind of conditioning that permits investigation of this, which takes place in their own lives,” says Lloyd. “And this is happening everywhere – it’s not a matter of locating it in a particular geographical context.”

WochenKlausur_ Participatory Economics (2013)

22 THE SKINNY

January 2013

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Normal Work (2008)

Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are One work that exemplifies this trend is a video called Normal Work, by German duo Boudry and Lorenz, showing at CCA. While looking through an archive, the artists found photos of a 19th century domestic servant who was in a sado-masochistic relationship with her boss. “She would undertake her daily work and then perform it again in the evenings for pleasure,” says Lloyd. “He had a particular interest in really well-built, muscular women and she enjoyed playing to that passion.

So she would pose for photos – and in those days, hiring a photographer was a big deal. She always wore a black arm band which signified her slavery to her master.”

Re-staging the photographs, Boudry and Lorenz consider sexuality and how we appear in our work.

The scenario is extended in a film in which a model re-creates the poses. After demonstrating the laborious rehearsals required to create the still images, the model addresses the camera, speaking of the other work he is doing to finance his participation in Boudry and Lorenz’s film. The actor’s uncertain identity and unspecified status as a drag performer further complicate and queer the character.

Although they have disclosed all the works in Economy, the curators envisage that the show’s content will continue to grow through discussion within and beyond the creative community. Each month they will invite a writer to contribute a text to the website, which anyone can comment on.

The site also has an Image Archive, where people can upload pictures of what the economy means to them.

Choose your future In February, Austrian collective WochenKlausur (‘Weeks of closure’) will undertake a residency, working with residents in Drumchapel to

“If we make one person look at their own situation and think about it, we’ve done a lot already.”

Angela Dimitrakaki encourage and support the foundation of a worker-managed cooperative, a project the residents have initiated. Very much in line with the curators’ press release statement that “Economy seeks to refute the idea that contemporary art is cut off from the concerns and material conditions that motivate ‘real struggles’ and bring about ‘real change,’” the project nevertheless has all the potential for criticism that goes along with socially engaged art. I ask the curators what ‘real change’ would constitute in this context.

“It’s not just about bringing people to the website!

It’s about involving them in whatever capacity.

We’re trying to build in as many ways as possible for other voices to come in, so it’s not just us talking at people. We’re not naïve – we don’t think that everything can translate into concrete progress, but our aim is to at least start addressing the situation. If we make one person look at their own situation and think about it, we’ve done a lot already.”

In terms of concrete change, there are the public forums and WochenKlausur, says Dimitrakaki.

“Beyond that, how do you define the concrete?

We hope that the policy makers will join the forum – they are invited!”

Economy is showing at Stills 19 Jan21 Apr and at CCA 26 Jan-23 Mar www.economyexhibition.net

fi lm

2013’S COMING ATTR ACTIONS IN FILM

What’s a fanboy to do? With Batman swanning around Florence drinking Fernet Branca and Iron Man, Thor et al. back making mediocre movies on their lonesome, things are looking grim. But don’t despair: here are some films that might be great in 2013 WORDS: JAMIE DUNN, CHRIS FYVIE, DAVID MCGINTY, DANNY SCOTT, AND AND JOSH SLATER-WILLIAMS

WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT...

THE GREAT GATSBY (Baz Luhrmann) 17 May Who better to breathe life into F. Scott Fitzgerald’s gold-plated rendering of the Roaring Twenties than Luhrmann, a filmmaker with an aesthetic so florid he could turn a James Kelman novel into a riot of sequin and bubblegum pop. Leonardo DiCaprio, a beautiful Romeo for Luhrmann in the mid-90s, is now a jowly Gatsby; Carey Mulligan is Daisy, Gatsby’s ebullient starcrossed lover and quintessential flapper. [Jamie Dunn]

A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III (Roman Coppola) date TBA Though Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray have both frequented plenty of Wes Anderson films in the last ten years, they haven’t shared much actual screentime since Rushmore. The sight of them both on top zany form in the trailer for Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is whetting the appetites of indie-comedy fans everywhere. [David McGinty]

WORLD WAR Z (Marc Foster) 21 Jun Apocalyptic epic World War Z’s troubled production of re-writes and re-shoots suggests it’ll be, well, shit. The presence of the effortlessly charismatic Brad Pitt as double-hard undead slayer and leader of the resistance, a beloved source novel and frenetic trailer suggest it may be quite fun. A section shot in Glasgow, allegedly providing work to thousands of real life stealth zombies, ensures local interest. [Chris Fyvie]

ALAN PARTRIDGE: THE MOVIE (Declan Lowney) 16 Aug Aha! Alan Partridge, Norwich’s premier broadcaster, finally finds a medium big enough to contain his considerable ego. Last heard languishing on North Norfolk Digital’s midmorning radio show, Partridge’s big screen debut should be filed in the comeback hall of fame with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Question is, will he finally get together with his heaven-sent PA, Lynn? [JD]

PACIFIC RIM (Guillermo del Toro) 12 Jul Guillermo del Toro’s latest directorial effort is heavily inspired by both ‘mecha’ anime series and ‘kaiju’ giant creature features.

When an alien attack threatens Earth’s existence, humans piloting giant machines are deployed to prevent the apocalypse. If keeping in tone with its influences, this could prove quite the thrill, though the first trailer and released designs are curiously bland. [Josh Slater-Williams]

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (J.J. Abrams) 17 May Prepare to beam back onboard the Enterprise. Following the enormous success of J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot, Into Darkness tells the story of an orphaned space farmboy who – encouraged by an old wise man who knew his father – attempts to stop a spaceship that can destroy planets. All that remains to be seen is how closely Star Trek Into Darkness will resemble The Empire Strikes Back. (Spolier – Benedict Cumberbatch is Lando!) [DM]

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES (Derek Cianfrance) 12 Apr Ryan Gosling modifies his Drive persona to play Luke, a motorbike stuntman driven to crime to provide for his illegitimate child, in Derek Cianfrance’s Torontowowing feature. In Blue Valentine Cianfrance experimented with improvisation, this time it’s reputedly plot, in a threepart story that begins with a Gosling versus Bradley Cooper, good-versus-evil tale and ends with grown up versions of their sons still coping with the fallout.

[Danny Scott]

THE PAPERBOY (Lee Daniels) 15 Mar Eerie walking doll Nicole Kidman entraps the kid off High School Musical in a plot to get hubby John Cusack out the jail in Lee Daniels’ dirty, sweaty and, by all accounts, utterly deranged southern gothic neo-noir. There’s psychosexual shenanigans aplenty, while Matthew McConaughey provides sleazy support and (presumably) taps-aff.

Divided audiences at Cannes, as every film ever shown there has. [CF]

IN THE HOUSE (François Ozon) 29 Mar Kristin Scott Thomas’s increasing prolificacy with Frenchlanguage cinema continues with François Ozon’s follow-up to camp-fest Potiche. A darkly comic story of suburban voyeurism, Ozon, also behind the film’s screenplay, looks to be taking major cues from Hitchcock and Polanski in what festival feedback suggests may be a return to form for the former enfant terrible. [Josh Slater-Williams]

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (Abbas Kiarostami) date TBA Anyone who pretended to like 2010’s Certified Copy to boost their intellectual cred will be upset to hear 2013 brings Kiarostami’s next feature. This time the ‘action’ moves from Tuscany to Tokyo as the Iranian director examines the relationship between an old-timer and a young call girl over the course of two-plus hours. Expect lots of Kiarostami’s trademark conversations in cars and the end credits when you least expect them. [DS]

THE WORLD’S END (Edgar Wright) 14 Aug Depending on your view of Hot Fuzz it’s almost a decade since Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were last funny, in Shaun of the Dead.

Next summer they will join director Edgar Wright to complete the so-called Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. The World’s End is the titular final pub in a legendary crawl from five childhood friends’ youth. Reuniting for a middle-aged attempt at the booze up they slowly realise the world outside is facing total annihilation. [DS]

CLOUD ATLAS (Wachowski Bros. & Tom Tykwer) 22 Feb Based on the incredibly complex novel by David Mitchell (not that one), Cloud Atlas consists of six separate but interconnected plotlines with settings as varied as an 1850’s remote South Pacific community and a postapocalyptic dystopian future.

With The Wachowskis and Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer at the helm, spirits are high that this might be more Matrix (“How did they?”) than Matrix Reloaded (“Why did they?”). [DM]

THE WE AND THE I (Michel Gondry) date TBA Lo-fi genius Michel Gondry is the master of spinning unlikely scenarios (a romantic comedy about a couple having their memories wiped, Seth Rogen as a superhero) into whimsical cinema gold. He does the same here using only a New York City bus, a dozen acting greenhorns from the Bronx, a brace of Young MC LPs, some tinsel and buckets full of enthusiasm. [JD]

WE’RE LESS EXCITED ABOUT...

MAN OF STEEL (Zack Snyder) 14 Jun Is it a bird? Is it a plane? WHO THE FUCK CARES ANYMORE? Zack Snyder reboots that most tiresome of superhero mythologies as insipid goody two-shoes Clark Kent discovers he’s really tough and has great responsibility and stuff. Henry Cavill is the new mopey Supes. Amy Adams is his presumably bored love interest. Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner offer daddy issues. Pants are worn outside of spandex suit. [CF]

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 23

S E I R F DUM

24 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

FESTIVAL BOX OFFICE:

0800 689 9405 WWW. B I G B U R N S S U P P E R . C OM

DUM FRIE S

deviance

Lifestyle

Queering Feminist Art Spaces words: Helen Wright A few months ago, I found myself in the odd and somewhat uncomfortable circumstance of screening one of my films at a ‘women only’ event when I don’t identify as a woman. Society considers my anatomy to be lady-like, but this doesn’t mean anything to me. Sometimes, I fantasise about being a guy though I wouldn’t actually want to transition.

In short, I don’t really consider myself to be male or female. The titles of trans or genderqueer don’t hugely appeal either. Not because these aren’t valid social positions, which deserve our support and understanding, but cause I’m just not that big a fan of identities.

It can be pretty nerve-wracking and awkward announcing your very personal stance on this issue. So, I attended the aforementioned shindig without making a fuss. It proved an enjoyable evening in a supportive environment; I quaffed free cocktails and had a nice time. I still felt a bit vexed, though. Some women feel safer when there’s less chance of uninvited sexual advances, or more creatively confident in an environment free from the arrogance that occasionally characterises hetero male stances. It’s understandable, then, they would want to forge all-female or femaledominated alliances. I would just like to ruminate on genderised language used by female-driven posses in the Scottish arts scene.

There’s been a tiny explosion of feminist activity in our wee nation of late. Fuelled by social media, groups like bloggers Tuck Your Cunt In and Team Girl Comic are doing exciting work in their respective fields. But they both describe themselves as all-woman/female. It would make me very happy if they gave equal emphasis to trans, genderqueer, and non-gendered artists.

Our culture is accustomed to talking in gender binaries, but the world doesn’t split so easily into men and women. Dissenters might disagree with dominant opinion through their identity or, in my case, deliberate lack thereof. Or they may have a different gender from the one assigned to them at birth and have to worry constantly about being accepted. The central point is that language which assumes everyone is straightforwardly male or female is erroneous and highly loaded. My suggestion would be that feminist crews change their capsules to ‘female and gender nonconformists,’ or something similar. It’s perhaps a little unfair to focus on these organisations, since people at large need to alter their gender speak. Here would be a good place to start, though, as we are fighting essentially the same anti-marginalisation battle.

Solidarity makes sense.

Music festivalists Ladyfest Glasgow have a clarification on their Facebook page, “By ‘woman,’ we mean: anyone who self-defines as a woman or who identifies as genderqueer and/or has experienced oppression as a woman.” This is much better but I’m still not sure it would include me. Luckily, I’m entirely devoid of musical talent, so there’s no need to worry about whether they’ll accept me as a headlining act. I also messaged Ladyfest about this (something I haven’t yet done, and should, in the case of TYCI or TGC). They were super responsive and confirmed they are completely open and inclusive. It’s important to keep hassling people to think about this so that we can open up the subject for discussion and celebrate the gender-progressive creative jamboree currently occurring in Scotland.

An Uncommon Sense Approach To Polyamory

A personal account of the intersections of polyamory and neurodiversity words: Lisa

Navigating through the feelings, intentions and expectations of others can be tricky for anyone. For some people it comes with a few extra hurdles. I have dyspraxia, a specific learning difference that affects co-ordination, organisation and several other areas. For some dyspraxic folk, including myself, it overlaps with or includes traits of autistic spectrum conditions.

I’m also polyamorous. It may seem surprising that someone with social difficulties would gravitate towards a relationship style involving multiple loving and/or sexual partners. Even the most enthusiastic proponents of polyamory will often recite the warning, “It’s not easy. You need to be great with organisation and have excellent communication skills.” These are two areas where I certainly don’t excel.

I have trouble picking out information from body language and contextual cues. I find it difficult to link literal meanings with background information or other more subtle forms of communication. For example, I’ve occasionally appeared rude for not realising that sentences like, “Would you like to take a seat?” can be requests rather than questions. I also find it hard to pick up on the unwritten rules of social interactions. What comes ‘naturally,’ or is seen as ‘common sense’ (an ableist concept in my opinion) to most people, can be more difficult for me to keep up with. Struggling to work out what people are expecting of me causes me stress and uncertainty.

Traditionally, a monogamous relationship set-up

illustration: laura griffin

is the norm. When I’ve been in monogamous relationships, the fact that it was monogamous wasn’t even decided upon. It was unquestioned.

Within this framework – especially, I think, if it’s not a queer relationship – it can be easy to let other behaviours slip into unquestioned norms, following unspoken rules.

“Knowing

exactly what’s ok, what isn’t, and what a partner wants from me is a much more comfortable way to be.”

The somewhat queer nature of poly relationships means they can’t rely as heavily on prefabricated scripts. They must be built from scratch around the needs, personalities and bodies of each partner.

As someone who has trouble figuring out the unwritten rules of social interaction it’s incredibly liberating to throw away the rule book altogether.

There is no room for assumptions; the multitude of expectations and boundaries functioning in the relationship(s) are more likely to be explicitly

discussed and defined in detail. Knowing exactly what’s OK, what isn’t, and what a partner wants from me is a much more comfortable way to be.

There’s also a structure there to get everyone’s slots of time worked into something resembling a schedule. The aspects of a poly relationship style that may seem regimented or unromantic to others are what most appeal to me. It feels safe, with some level of certainty and predictability.

Of course, an emphasis on explicit communication of expectations and an element of structure are not solely confined to polyamory. Other aspects of my dyspraxia interact with relationships in ways that are.

Sex with me can be a wee bit awkward. I’m generally uncoordinated and slightly over-sensitive to touch and pain. If I’m someone’s sole sexual partner then I can feel like I’m letting them down.

Similarly, since I have difficulty picking up on subtle signals and non-verbal communication, it can be hard for me to provide sufficient support in times when a partner feels unable to verbalise a problem. The knowledge that someone I care for gets sexual and emotional fulfilment from additional partners is comforting.

Though my perspective can’t be extrapolated to everyone, or even all those who are dyspraxic, queer, cis, or women, I’ve come to learn that polyamory works for me. It suits my needs and my personality, both of which I consider to be inextricable from my dyspraxia.

January 2013

THE SKINNY 25

Showcase

Show Room, collage and oil on card, 60x45cm, 2012

Mary wintour Mary Wintour is an artist living and working in London. She graduated from Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow school of Art in 2010 and was selected for the 2011 Scottish New Contemporaries. She continues to paint and exhibit. www.marywintour.co.uk

26 THE SKINNY

January 2013

SHOWCASE

Simply Sublime, collage and oil on card, 42x37cm, 2012

January 2013

THE SKINNY 27

LI F E STYL E

travel

So, you want to live in Berlin?

An expat’s guide

Our former Games Editor upped sticks and moved to Germany’s Capital a couple of years ago. Here’s his manifesto as to why you should join him... words and photography: Josh Wilson

You’ve read all those stories – ‘Berlin is a Mecca of cool,’ and ‘Boho artist paradise’ and ‘crap like that.’ And so you’ve decided that maybe you’d like to take the plunge? Well, as someone that has done just that, I can give you a few tips on preparing yourself for life in Deutschland, where the booze is cheap, the language is difficult, and what do you mean it’s six a.m. already? Fuck!

Some things you need to do / probably should know before you get here: Quit your job You can’t move here if you’re still living there. It’s surprisingly easy to do, too. Just walk up to your boss and say: “I’m quitting because life here is expensive and boring and Berlin might be fun...

What the fuck else am I supposed to do with this life? Consider this my two weeks.”

Take a fucking German course Sure. Germany is in central Europe, which means that they’ve been teaching their kids how to speak other languages for years. Yes, almost certainly most people’s English is better than your next language of choice (or... as is embarrassingly often the case, your English). But you should learn some German all the same.

Why? Well a whole bunch of people here were born before the Wall fell. Older people, for example. Older people in bakeries where you want to buy breakfast, for a more specific example. They likely won’t have tip-top English, so things can get awkward and confusing fast.

Find a wohnung Or: Get yourself a flat! If you want to rent your own place, it’s going to be unfurnished (without even anything in the kitchen... just a sink); and that’s another mission in itself. You need to have at least six months earning in Germany; more than likely you’ll need a real job contract too.

Failing that, there are loads of flat shares on the go. But you need to convince your would-be flatmates to take you on. And the Germans take this process very seriously. Often interviewing hundreds of applicants for one room for a month.

Germans are not big on going by instinct.

Websites like wg-gesucht.de will help get you started, but there’s really no point until you get there. No one will take you on without meeting you first.

If you want something quick, it’s not too difficult.

Cheap’s not a problem either. What’s hard is getting a place in one of the fun / nice areas.

Everyone wants to live there, so be prepared for a slog.

Chill the fuck out (about nudity) People here get naked. You won’t notice it until summer comes around again – but it’s definitely a thing. What’s also a thing is that everyone has a body! So don’t make a big deal, just go along with it and hell... you might find it oddly relaxing. No one has anything to hide when they’re starkers.

Go to a park, sit, chill, sip your beer... oh wait.. what’s that in the corner of my eye? Seriously tanned old-man dong? Yup. If you go to a sauna, people will be naked too.

They’ll also be chatting away like they were neither sweaty, nor naked. They’re mixed saunas too.

It’s strange the first time, but you’ll get used to it real quick (or leave... I guess). It’s fine to sneak a peek... just don’t stare too hard at all the beauties.

Get a job It’s probably about as easy to find work as in the UK. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, so there’s lots of opportunities. And because life is relatively cheap, you can survive for a bit longer without!

There are lots of bars, and cafes, so that’s an option, but you’re going to need at least a bit of Deutsch for any of those. If you’re a professional

28 THE SKINNY

January 2013

/ creative type, Berlin is chock full of agencies doing design-this or engineering-that. And in these jobs, more than likely, English will be the office language...

Freelancing is expensive here (you need a lot of clients), and taxes are not small, with a compulsory pension payment as well as having to pay the full rate for health insurance. You’re looking at shelling out about €600 / month before you even earn anything.

If you’re struggling with any of that, you could always become a student. University is free here, because the government believes in education for everyone, not only rich people. And as a member of the EU (for the time being at least), you get it free too. Isn’t that nice?

Get some health insurance Again, Germany is in the EU... so it’s not uncivilised. Health care is provided, just in a different way. You pay a lot more directly to it. And it’s compulsory.

If I were giving advice, I’d say hang on to your UK European Health Insurance Card (what used to be an E111, apply online on the NHS website and use that until you get a steady job. But I won’t say that because I’m not sure how legal it is once you actually (legally) live in Germany. Tax is higher (a lot). But life is just better. They have a really expensive public transport system. BUT IT WORKS. Learn table tennis It’s a sport. It’s everywhere. It’s free (bring your own bats and some balls). It’s social (people are more than happy to come and ask for a wee game; even when you get hammered). It’s actually really god-damned fun.

Winter is cold Okay, Scotland is a lot higher up on the planet’s list of ‘winter is shitty’ places. You might think

you’re ready for everything the planet’s got.

‘Winter,’ you say to yourself every day in the mirror when you wake up, ‘I can handle that shit.’

You can’t.

As I write this, it’s a balmy seven degrees in Edinburgh. And while it’ll be wet there, and windy, things probably won’t get too much colder.

Outside of my window, it’s minus seven. In one month you can easily take another ten from that.

Give it another two weeks and take another ten again. Shit is cold. Buy a scarf, buy a coat.

Wandering around going “I’m Scottish, this isnae winter” is a fast track way to have people think you are a) mental (and not in the good/fun way), b) catch all of the colds / die.

Buy a bike Berlin is big. Deceptively so. You can look at a map and say to yourself, “I can walk to there.” You can’t. I still do this. I can’t. The public transport system is good, and regular, but it’s not always the most efficient way; and in summer, things can get real stinky real quick. This is where a bike is the answer. It’s fast, cheap, and just bloody lovely.

On top of that, Berlin is built for cyclists — paths are everywhere — and drivers seem to be pretty well trained. Just make sure you lock the fucker up, otherwise you might have to go buy one that looks curiously similar, from the shifty people at a flea market.

Recycle like the world is ending (’cos it is) It’s no longer acceptable not to recycle. It’s also pretty bloody easy to do. And I’m pretty sure it’s compulsory — i.e. big fines are waiting. But if you don’t, your flatmate will hate you for being an ignorant islander who doesn’t give a shit about the world. Which is fair enough really, you’ll probably deserve that. Recycling bins are everywhere, inside the courtyard of every block of flats. And when

you drink the beer, you get some money back for each bottle when you take them back to the supermarket!

Stop drinking shit beer The Germans are understandably proud of their beers. Here there are laws preventing beer from being too crap (only specific sets of ingredients can be used, all have to be above a certain standard). There’s a lot of choice. And it’s cheap.

Smoke inside As a non-smoker this is shit. But it’s here. It may not be legal (it varies across venue types), but in Berlin at least, it’s the norm. Bring some Febreeze ’cos you’re gonna smell like all of the ashtrays after a night out.

Pace yourself A night out really is a night out in Berlin. No closing hours makes everything incredibly relaxed, and if you’re into it, you can go clubbing from Friday all the way through to Sunday. The flip side is the great British sport of binge drinking isn’t well suited to here. You’ll peak too soon and be going home before anything even gets going here (which normally starts at 11pmish in a bar / 3am at a club).

Also it’s not really acceptable to be smashed here (or anywhere else that’s not the UK/Australia/ America) — throwing up in the streets and yelling and starting fights — it’s not pretty and you’re not funny. So stop being a twat.

Drugs are readily available / cheap Go to a park. See someone lurking in the bushes.

Come away with drugs. I mean paracetamol, obviously.

So yeah, what are you waiting for? A packed lunch and a kiss on the cheek? Stop being a pussy and move somewhere fun. Or don’t. I couldn’t give a fuck either way. I’ve got better things to do, I live in Berlin!

F O O D AN D D R I N K S UR V E Y

You voted for this – we've sifted through thousands of responses to bring you the best places to go for some scran and a bevvy in Glasgow and Edinburgh words: Peter Simpson

Hello there, and welcome to the second annual edition of The Skinny Food & Drink Survey.

Yes, it’s official; this survey is now an annual January tradition, much like that nonsense about jumping in the Forth on New Year’s Day, or the dawning realisation that spending £50 on a jumper for your idiot sibling wasn’t a very smart fiscal move. Now firmly entrenched in the cultural calendar, we’re picking up where we left off, and everything’s the same as it was last time. Let’s survey!

Except everything isn’t exactly the same. Of course it isn’t, that would be completely pointless.

It would also make the rest of this introduction a bit moot, really. Reprinting last year’s results would give all involved a lot more time to get their Christmas shopping done, but a lot’s happened in the last 12 months. Exciting new bars open,

illustrations: eva dolgyra

old faithful delis close robbing us of excellent sandwiches, minds are blown by mysterious and unpronounceable foreign foodstuffs. We even had that Mayan apocalypse, remember? The world of food has grown in the past year, so we’re back to give it its annual check-up.

The basic format remains the same – we asked you what you like, you told us, and now we’re telling you what you told us. That said, we’ve trimmed things down a bit, and put the focus on results that you can use. Do you want some food, but also to catch that bus? Well, we’ve got some suggestions.

Are you off for a pint? We asked around, and here are the good places. Keeping it simple, that was the plan.

In keeping with our long-running attempt to map out the drinks of the world, we’ve put together

something of a culinary travelogue, a guide to a journey through the planet’s cuisine that you won’t even have to leave the M8 to enjoy. We also asked you for your favourite food newcomers of the last year, and tried to work out exactly what it is that makes them tick. It seems that personality, determination, and good interior design nous all count for a lot in the world of food.

We also jazzed things up for our second attempt at this survey business with some special celebrity guests. We put together a roll call of the best of the Scottish musical scene, from Ally McCrae through to Withered Hand, and nudged them all into filling out the survey. If you’ve ever wanted to ask Mr Hand where to go for a cup of coffee, interrupt Frightened Rabbit mid-gig to talk pubs, or felt the urge to know King Creosote’s

favourite food colour, then your prayers have been answered. Their thoughts are in here, along with the collected wisdom drawn from thousands of votes by you, the readers.

Thanks for those by the way, as this whole endeavour would literally have been pointless and impossible without your voting. We may have made some changes, but the main plank of this survey has remained the same – we wanted your opinion on where to go for food and drink in Scotland, and boy did we get it. As we said last year, these results were chosen by you lot, so if you disagree with them you only have yourselves to blame.

See, as much as time marches on, old favourites disappear, and new ones pop up, some things never change. Guess that’s tradition for you.

January 2013

THE SKINNY 29

76x126 Skinny ATIC_Layout 1 28/11/2012 12:24 Page 1

the art of coffee in the heart of glasgow

bringing home the bacon 60 osborne street, glasgow g1 5qh

www.allthatissolid.co.uk

...and the halloumi, and the pine nuts, and the bean burgers. bookclub - delivering on value for meaties & veggies since 2010.

hillhead bookclub.co.uk seventeen vinicombe street 0141 576 1700

OLD CHAIN PIER old chain pier

A Local Eatery

byob / uberfast free wifi / fully licensed 7 days for breakfast lunch and dinner... or just Great coffee available for private parties, max capacity 20 covers 2 Restalrig Road, Leith Links, Edinburgh EH6 8BN 0131 538 0664 www.bijoubistro.co.uk

30 THE SKINNY

January 2013

LIVE MUSIC EVERY SAT AND Live music every sat and SUNDAY NIGHT FROM 8PM sunday night from 8pm GREAT HOMEMADE PUB FOOD AND Great homemade pub food and GREAT VIEWS Great views 32 Trinity Crescent 32 Trinity Crescent

Tel 0131 552 4960 Tel 0131 552 4960

F OOD AND DRIN K SUR V EY

Food 101 – Best Newcomers

food & drink Hero: The Doublet

What makes some new cafés, bars and restaurants so great? We delved into the collective psyche of your favourite newcomers to find out. Spoiler alert – you will need lots of time and money words: Peter Simpson

hanoi bike shop

Award-winning and bulletcatching theatre hotshot Rob Drummond takes us through the one-eyed dogs and suspicious jukebox of his food and drink hero, Woodlands' finest pub, The Doublet Lovecrumbs

It’s the start of another new year, and a good time to try new things and change things up a bit.

We’re not talking about going on a diet, or beginning a strenuous new exercise regime, God no. It’s a new year, not a parallel universe. Just trying new things, and bringing new ideas to the table, much like your four choices of Best Newcomers. In the spirit of the new year, we did our best to glean as many helpful hints and tips on being a successful food newcomer as we could, to inspire the next generation of top-notch food and drink and therefore snag some of the credit this time next year.

At Lovecrumbs (155 West Port, Edinburgh), the mad professors of the Edinburgh cake-making fraternity, personality plays quite the role in proceedings. First off, let’s make sure we get the description of this place clear for anyone who hasn’t been down yet – Lovecrumbs is a cake shop, situated next door to two strip clubs, where the cakes are kept in a wardrobe and at least one of the tables is made of an old piano. Like we said, personality.

Then there are the cakes. Holy shitballs, the cakes. Amazingly squishy brownies, slices of sponge the size of a small laptop, and crazy experimentation (exhibit A – bacon and chocolate cake). So there’s cake, and there’s laughter and fun and everyone’s having a good time.

That’s not to say that the Lovecrumbs duo have survived on mirth alone, as we found out when we spoke to them earlier in the year. As Hollie and Rachel told us then, they spent the first period of their baking careers “driving around in the van with cakes, going into cafés and asking them if they wanted to buy them.” Good old fashioned ‘boots

on the ground’ work, there. Alan Sugar would love that, then presumably call someone a mug and tell them that they were fired. There’s your first tip – if you’re going to start a new food venture, then get stuck in. That said, there’s good reason that said cafés went for Lovecrumbs’ cakes, and continue to do so – they are bloody lovely. So there’s some pointers – do what you’re good at, and don’t be afraid to appear slightly unhinged in the process.

To the uninitiated, Brew Lab (6-8 South College St, Edinburgh) can seem a bit off-beam as well.

The Edinburgh coffee shop has a growing reputation for making use of an outrageous range of equipment and expertise in their quest to make the best coffee going. Their coffee machine is called The Slayer, for crying out loud. Dave Law of the ‘Lab has some sage pieces of advice to pass on to anyone looking to get into the world of food. One of his first tips: “Remember to put your life on hold for approximately 6 months.” You should also try and rope in as many useful people as you can – architects, accountants, as well as people who like food – as quickly as you can. Oh, and Dave also says that painting will take longer than you think.

And that you won’t be able to predict what food people actually want to eat And that you’ll spend loads and loads of cash. But other than that, you’ll be in for a whale of a time.

Especially if you have other experience which you can draw on. While the humble civilians amongst us might now be pondering the viability of an office/cinema/bank-themed restaurant, for the Williams Bros crew past experience meant starting a beer-themed pub. People like beer in their pubs, so clearly they were onto a winner

brew lab

from the get-go. Taking the place of the Big Blue in Kelvinbridge, Inn Deep (445 Great Western Rod, Glasgow) won you over with a brilliant range of guest craft beer alongside a host of Williams’ brews, and by taking a place which had slipped from its former glory and revitalising it. So yes, that abandoned Chinese restaurant is your equivalent of the baseball pitch in Field of Dreams. If you refurbish it and stock it with lovely food and drink, they will come.

And if all else fails, just do something that noone else has done before.

That worked for Hanoi Bike Shop (8 Ruthven Lane, Glasgow), hot new Vietnamese restaurant and the other popular pick for best newcomer.

Have they picked up extra passing trade by confusing cyclists? Hopefully. But you lot seemed to also quite like their food, and John Cummings of Mogwai does too. In fact, when he gave us his completed survey he pointed out that it is a bit of a head-scratcher that Glasgow has never had a Vietnamese restaurant before. Hanoi Bike Shop, folks – the newcomer that makes you think.

So what have we learned? If you want to make this page in 2014, you’ll need to make top-notch food that people love, but that they’ve also never seen before and don’t expect. You’ll need bags of personality and joie de vivre, while snubbing the ideas of personal time and space in favour of looking after your culinary baby. You’ll need to be handy with a paintbrush, OK with driving from pillar to post every day, or preferably both, and it helps to be incredibly talented and clever in both a culinary and logistical sense. We know it sounds like a lot, but at least you don’t have to do any push-ups.

The Doublet is a pub of wonderful contradictions. It’s run down but expensive. It’s nostalgic but contemporary. It’s elbow to elbow or there’s just you and a one-eyed dug guarding the pint of aneverseen owner, lost presumably, Renton-like, in the admittedly awful facilities. It’s incredibly friendly but there’s always one or two banter assassins lurking primed with conspiracy theories about how there’s really very little evidence Savile ever did anything wrong (story based on actual events).

I love it because it feels like your Grandma’s front room, the bar staff are some of the most pleasant I’ve ever encountered and the jukebox has everything from Jim Reeves to Black Eyed Peas. Oh, and it has a wonderful two tier graduation system for drunks – upstairs for beginners, downstairs for veterans. I’m afraid that the folk upstairs are beginning to look younger and younger. I think graduation day may be in sight.

Here are some of your Food Heroes:

“Bell’s Diner (St Stephens St, Edinburgh), Bill the owner has the best stories!”

“The Roseleaf (Sandport Pl) in Leith – so unique and so brilliant!”

“The really nice woman in North Star (Queen Margaret Dr, Glasgow)” “A ham salad morning roll with salad cream and red onions from Snax cafe (West Register St, Edinburgh)”

January 2013

THE SKINNY 31

F OOD AND DRIN K SUR V EY

A World Tour of Scotland Scotland may be a grey and rainy land full of sheep and cobblestones, but it’s also home to vibrant and exciting food from around the world. Here’s a globe-trotting guide to your favourite food spots from across the planet words: Peter Simpson Regular readers of this section (hello again) will know that we love a bit of globetrotting in our food coverage. From our meticulous documenting of the ins and outs of Nigerian drinking culture (drink Guinness, eat paste, party comme c’est 1999) to our reporting on the Japanese confusing KFC baron Col. Sanders for Santa Claus, we like to embrace the whole world of food. Well, it turns out, there’ve been outposts of said world sitting on our collective doorstep this entire time.

Here are your survey picks from our ‘Round the World’ categories, as well as some top tips from well-travelled and broad-paletted musical types (and King Creosote).

As you always should on these kinds of journeys, we’ll start with a small change. La Vallee Blanche (Byres Rd) puts out French cuisine with a Scottish flavour in Glasgow’s West End in a cosy log cabin-esque atmosphere. When it comes to Italian food, there’s one name you lot seem to favour and that’s Vittoria (Leith Walk; George IV Bridge). The

Edinburgh institution is one of your favourites and with good reason – their pizzas and pastas are packed with fresh ingredients and classic flavour combinations, while their La Favorita pizza restaurant on Leith Walk does much the same thing but they’ll even bring proper restaurant pizza to your house. Oh yes they will. However, according to Kenny Anderson, aka King Creosote, Little Italy in St. Andrews is the best Italian in Scotland. Italian’s the only European food Kenny will eat, he tells us, “as it’s mainly yellow coloured.”

From Europe to the Americas, and to Mexico apparently. Your responses make it clear that when it comes to American food, you prefer it to come from south of the border. Maybe you’re still annoyed about that ol’ Iraq business, maybe the ubiquity of North American culture leaves the USA’s food hidden in plain sight, or maybe you all just prefer burritos to burgers – who knows? What we do know is that in Edinburgh, you enjoyed the hand-stuffed brilliance of the burritos at Illegal

Jack’s (Lothian Rd) and Los Cardos (Leith Walk), while Glasgow plumped in large number for the speed and punch of Taco Mazama (Renfield St), and the homely and laid-back fare at Bibi’s Cantina (Dumbarton Rd).

From the Americas to India we go, and there’s one clear winner in this category. Mother India’s Cafe dominated in both Edinburgh (Infirmary St) and Glasgow (Argyle St), powered by the genius that is Indian tapas. Truly, there aren’t many better things in the world than a table full of curries and pakora-type bits, bringing groups together in friendship, harmony, and a desire to get to the last samosa without resorting to fists. A case in point is Broken Records’ Jamie Sutherland, who says that Mother India has “gotten us through two records now. It may collectively remind us what fear and festering resentment of each other tastes like, but that doesn’t mean it’s not really good!” If that’s not a glowing endorsement, we don’t know what is.

And to finish our tour, another glowing rock

Phagomania: Vietnam wonders While you lot recommended world grub for the Food Survey from the comfort of your homes, our resident Phagomaniac went to Vietnam in search of odd tastes and cooked pets. The horror, the horror, etc. words & photography: Lewis MacDonald

Mekong Delta elephant ear fish

snake curry

32 THE SKINNY

January 2013

singaporean frog porridge

star endorsement of global food available right here at home. FOUND’s Tommy Perman rates the dim sum at Leith’s Stack (Dalmeny St) as the best he’s had in the world, and makes a point of mentioning that he was on tour in China not long ago. That’s right, Leith makes a better dim sum than the Chinese. You lot liked Stack too, and you showed some love to Gordon Ramsay’s favourite f**king Chinese restaurant Chop Chop (Morrison St), but you also branched out further into Asia in your selections. Pho Vietnam House (Grove St) got your attention, as did the Glaswegian/ Malaysian/Singaporean canteen that is Asia Style (St George’s Rd), and the pan-Asian comfort food of Glasgow’s Bar Soba (Byres Rd, Mitchell Ln).

As we went to press, Soba had just unveiled an Edinburgh branch to go with the one in the West.

See, that’s the thing about the wonderful world of food; it’s broad and exotic, exciting and fun, and it really is getting smaller and smaller all the time.

It’s a new year, and time for a new you. You’ve Googled your way to a new cuisine that is going to get you there, one of the world’s healthiest – Vietnamese. Good choice. This month’s Phagomania takes a first hand approach, after yours truly recently spent a month with the Việt. Having sampled mountains of delicious splendour, we are going to look at precisely none of that stuff. This is Phagomania, and Vietnam is full of weirdness.

Why not arrive to a breakfast of Singaporean frog porridge? Too soon? Okay, we’ll let you off with some fresh spring rolls (but what was the grey meat in there?). But you have got to join us for rat for lunch. What do you mean you don’t eat rat, you like them or something?

Alrighty then, sautéed hamsters it is. Indeed. this is where I crack and lose all sense of professional journalism. I’ve let myself down and more importantly I’ve let you, valued reader, seriously down. I did not eat the sautéed hamster. But I did, just for you, order the snake curry. That garnish is not going to hide the fact that those pieces of snake look like last year’s anchovy, run over by a tractor. The texture varies between ‘pretty awful’ and ‘not great.’ It had that fishy chicken thing going on and must have been rich in iron because it tasted like sucking on a rusty pole. It is meant to do a million things to make your health wonderfully better. Well, the French guy across from me lapped up all of his snake, garlic and onion. Good for him, healthy lad.

But you want something that is actually tasty?

Well it isn’t going to be pretty. Behold, the elephant ear fish, a rare treat from the Mekong Delta. This deep-fried monster parades in front of tourists on wooden holders, trouncing their eyes with its suspect appearance. But if something this ugly can taste great then Daphne & Celeste had better watch it. As is predominant in Vietnamese dishes it is best served wrapped in a rice paper roll with fresh herbs and a dipping sauce.

In Vietnam, expect to find yourself frequently lost in, and somewhat stranded by, translation. I mean, what is a ‘Spicy Spicy green Juice with Rhum’ in the first place? Well, look who’s an idiot now, as it turns out it is literally the perfect description for how it looked and tasted. Fresh from the fiery, leafy mouthfuls I search for some food accompaniment. And this is where I let you, trusted readers, down once more. The house special: steamed goat penis and testicles with medicinals. One can only imagine... for about a second. Although to be fair I’ve probably had it numerous times in the form of a kebab, visuals are a powerful thing when it comes to food and often, as Vietnam proves, the correlation between sight and taste can be very different.

Bar. Diner. PreClub Open 9am -1am 19 B l a i r S t

est

1980

p i t c h e r s & promos +

l ive DJ’s every Fri/Sat +

S n a pFax www.thecitycafe.co.uk

lGg

WINDSOR BUFFET

d

EST. 1899

45 Elm Row, EH7 4AH 0131 556 4558 windsorbuffet@live.co.uk

Leith Walk's finest purveyor of speciality spirits and cask ales ~ Home of Edinburgh's Booze School ~ Open till 1am every night ~ Find us on facebook or follow @windsorbuffet on twitter

why be blue?

• Hand Pulled Cask Ale Hobgoblin, Bitter & Twisted, Guest Ale • Food Served From Noon Until Late largest Probably the inburgh! d nachos in E

• 10% Student Discount On Food • Metal, Punk & Goth Jukebox Find Us in CAMRA’s 2013 Good Beer Guide

when you can eat, drink and be merry at

2013

23-25 St. Leonard’s Street, Edinburgh EH8 9QN •

www.theauldhoose.co.uk

0131 466 8550 3a merchant street, edinburgh eh1 2qd w w w.under thestairs.org

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 33

BiteJuly2012_Layout 1 25/06/2012 22:02 Page 40

FOOD SERVED 12-10 PRIVATE DINING FOR UP TO 40 PEOPLE WEDDINGS AND CELEBRATIONS BRUNCH SERVED SAT & SUN FROM 10AM

1 LYNEDOCH STREET, GLASGOW WWW.THEDRAKEBAR.CO.UK

2 0% OF F FOOD B I L L IF YOU BOOK & QUOTE “THE SKINNY OFFER” AVAILABLE MONDAY - THURSDAY ONLY

0141 3327363

34 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

F O O D AN D D R I N K S UR V E Y

results

So having asked you all for your food & drink favourites, pored over thousands of votes, and done more tallying and totalising than your average Comic Relief host, here are the results of this year’s Skinny Food & Drink Survey. You picked them, so any anomalies are your fault, but if you really don’t fancy our readers’ choices and want someone else to tell you where to go, we’ve also asked some of Scotland’s top music types for their picks

BEST CAFE For a second year on the bounce, Artisan Roast (Broughton St/ Bruntsfield Pl, Edinburgh; Gibson St, Glasgow) make your favourites. Maybe that’s because of the time and attention they take over your coffee, or the fact that their latte actually tastes like coffee rather than a milkshake with some mud in it. It may have a bit to do with the fact that an Artisan Roast coffee leaves you so hopped-up that you feel like running all the way home. Whatever it is, you liked them. However, they weren’t your favourite cafe.

That honour goes to Hula, just off Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. It’s light and airy inside, it’s so central it’s as if the city was built around it, the food is great, the juices are amazing, there’s art all over the place, and the coffee’s good. It’s Artisan Roast’s coffee that they use, naturally, but Hula are

your favourite cafe. Over in Glasgow, you also had a soft spot for Tribeca (Dumbarton Rd), the New York-style deli cafe with the enormous omelettes, and Where the Monkey Sleeps (West Regent St), the cafe with the outrageously-named sandwiches (Meathammer, Firewalker Deluxe etc) and the love of heavy metal. Glasgow, send some of your interesting people over here – we need them.

Yours sincerely, Edinburgh.

Withered Hand: “Gaia (Leith Walk, Edinburgh) does the best coffee I have ever tasted.”

RM Hubbert: “Piece (Argyle St, Glasgow). Amazing sandwiches. I kept an office nearby for over a year after I needed it just so that I could justify getting their Chicken Ole for lunch!”

BEST FOOD SHOP Two shops really stood out in your voting, and you’re all completely right to vote for them in such numbers. Gold star, folks! First up it’s Lupe Pintos (Leven St, Edinburgh; Great Western Road, Glasgow), everyone’s favourite charity cook-offsupporting, chilli-importing Mexican emporium, rammed to the gunnels with spicy loveliness. Your other big favourite is Peckham’s (various), as even with the sad loss of the Bruntsfield branch to the Relentless Death March of The Supermarkets, the maroon delis proved popular in both the east and the west.

BEST PUB The Best Pub category is something of an odd one, as it’s a bit like asking someone which is their favourite pair of slippers – everyone has a comfy favourite where they know what’s what and they don’t want the likes of you coming in and messing it up.

Nevertheless, there were some choices which stood out. In Edinburgh you liked The Blue Blazer (Bread St), the home of oddly-placed barrels, real fires, enough rum to float a battleship and the cunningly-place Castle floating just above eye level to disorientate you when you step outside at 1am. You also liked Brewdog (Cowgate), with its range of own-brand and obscure-butdelicious beer, quirky industrial-effect decor and the availability of classic children’s game Pop-Up Pirate. That’s what swung it for them, we reckon.

And you also enjoyed Cloisters (Brougham St), with its dark wood, great range of booze, and the convenient church next door to repent your sins.

Over in Glasgow, your favourites ran a similar gamut. There’s the quirky one – Hillhead Bookclub (Vinicombe St), all vinyl on the jukebox. crazy

furniture, and noticeably more quirk than in an equivalent Edinburgh pub. There’s the brewery pub – Inn Deep (Great Western Road), the Kelvinbridge outpost of Williams Brothers which offers a huge range of craft beers and toilets decorated with comic strips from the 1990s. And there’s the pub with the vague religious connection – Saint Judes (Bath St), an underground hideaway where you can recover from a day of living in a vibrant and interesting city. Also, it has ‘Saint’ in the name, allowing this section to wrap up nicely.

Vic Galloway: “Nice’n’Sleazy (Sauchiehall St, Glasgow) – still not rivalled across Scotland for jukebox, atmosphere, drinks and food! Oh, and there are gigs downstairs too... Can we have one in Edinburgh please?”

Ally McCrae: “McPhabbs (Sandyford Pl, Glasgow) for a cosy pint / football / read of the papers.

Bar Bloc (Bath St, Glasgow) for all other noisy late night pub needs.”

John Cummins, Mogwai (@mogwaieat): “Good Spirits Company (Bath St, Glasgow), although an offy that knows you by name is a good sign of neither your past nor your future.”

best place to show off When you do delve into the posh, sociallyawkward and etiquette-laden world of ‘real food,’ where do you go? Well, Edinburgh voters were spoiled for choice in terms of top-end and absurdly-priced grub, but plumped for The Kitchin (Commercial Quay), the high-falutin’ restaurant run

by Tom Kitchin from the telly. Stravaigin (Gibson St) was our Glaswegians’ choice, and is really ideal for the show-offs amongst us all. The food, the decor, the whole experience – everything is just a bit better than normal, with no difficult cutlery etiquette or syllabubs to confuse the situation.

Rod Jones, Idlewild / The Birthday Suit: “If we are talking high end posh food I’d have to veer out of Edinburgh and go for Abstract in Inverness.

Amazing food and great service.”

January 2013

THE SKINNY 35

F O O D AN D D R I N K S UR V E Y

BEST PLACE FOR A FIRST DATE

R abbit Food

Scott & Grant Hutchison’s top Scottish venues

Different approaches for the two main cities here.

Edinburgh folk voted for last year’s winner, the tried and tested Under the Stairs (Merchant St) in all its subterranean loveliness, presumably planning to hide in one of the giant wingback chairs if it all goes tits-up. Meanwhile in Glasgow, you voted for The Belle (Great Western Road), a super-hip pub with cheap and amazing coffee that’s always full of interesting people in their hilarious ‘fashionable’ clothing. Touché, Glaswegians.

Interview: Dave Kerr & Peter Simpson

King Creosote: “I’ve never been on a date. I’ll say the Secret Bunker, near Crail.”

RM Hubbert: “Haha, I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a date! Probably Mono, we could buy records if it all went horribly wrong.”

BEST FOOD ON THE GO

Photo: Markus Thorsen

It seems from your voting that the people to speak to for good food on the move are Americans.

Edinburgh’s favourites in this category were Los Cardos (Leith Walk), home of giant burritos and fajitas, and Wannaburger (Queensferry St), a magical land of locally-sourced burgers and giant pickles the size and shape of a 1990s mobile phone. Over in Glasgow you voted for the aforementioned Where the Monkey Sleeps, so time for another couple of those sandwich names (Mr Bolland’s Cutlass, Serious Operation), and Taco Mazama (Renfield St; Byres Rd) where the burritos are so tasty that you’ll be happy even if half of your lunch inevitably ends up on your shoes.

Ally McCrae: “Taco Mazama. The fastest burrito wrappers in the West (End).”

Withered Hand: “Palmyra is my late night guilty pleasure.”

BEST PLACE WHEN HUNGOVER Save for the obvious answer of ‘lying in a ball on the floor’ which many of you (and some of our musical guests) wrote in, the two favourites in our Survey both offer up the right mix of heft and flavour in their grub. Lucky 7 (Bath St) seems to do the business for our Glasgow readers, and with a central location, a menu consisting of comfort food at comfortable prices, and lots of lovely chairs, it’s hard to disagree. Edinburghers went for Illegal Jacks (Lothian Rd), where hangover

redemption comes in the form of burritos the size of rugby balls, and the cavern-like interior offers plenty of nooks to hide in if worst comes to worst.

Vic Galloway: “Joseph Pearce, Elm Row. A great Swedish-run bar with a nice selection of drinks and tasty bar-menu, comfy chairs and eclectic playlist...

It’s near my house too so I can slope home for a cry if necessary!”

The Selkirk-raised brothers Hutchison and comrades, AKA Frightened Rabbit, are all set to reach the next summit with fourth album and major label debut Pedestrian Verse when it lands next month. Given that they’re already up there with whisky and self-deprecating humour as one of our great exports it’s hard to see how that’ll work.

Maybe they’ll go supernova, and start absorbing other Scottish indie bands into their gravitational field; maybe they’ll just be even more popular among a wider audience. Who knows?

Anyway, our Music Editor got Scott and Grant to tell us their top Scottish food places. Handily, they split the task 50/50 between east and west.

Scott Hutchison on Edinburgh Best Pub: The Queen’s Arms (Frederick Street) Best Cafe: Rock Salt (Constitution Street) Best Food or Drink Shop: Santangeli’s (Polwarth Gardens) Best Newcomer: Castello Coffee (Castle Street) Best place... when hungover: Joseph Pearce (Leith Walk) Best place... for a first date: Edinburgh Butterfly & Insect World, then Dobbies for tea and scones.

Worked for me!

Best place... for showing off: Ondine (George IV Bridge) for posh food, Bramble (Queen St) for posh cocktails.

Best place... when you can’t hang about: A chicken kebab wrap from Olimpos take-away (Elm Row) is tough to beat. Not just for a drunken treat either.

Around the World: The Americas: South American cuisine is somewhat neglected in Edinburgh, but if we’re talking North American, the burgers at The Cambridge Bar (Young St) are tough to beat.

Around the World: The Indian Sub-continent: Noor (South Clerk Street) is the best Indian food I’ve had in Edinburgh. Really consistent too.

Around the World: Asia: Thai Pad (Leopold Place). Great food and really pleasant staff.

36 THE SKINNY

January 2013

Around the World: Europe: I really like Vittoria (Leith Walk). Incredibly friendly staff and solid Italian food. Massive choice on the menu too.

Food Hero: It’s not food, but who needs that lumpy shite anyway? Thistly Cross cider is something Scotland can be proud of. Also, they organised a damn fine festival this summer. Good folks.

Grant Hutchison on Glasgow Best Pub: The Belle (Great Western Rd) Best Cafe: Artisan Roast (Gibson St) Best Food or Drink Shop: The Cave (Great Western Rd) Best Newcomer: Hanoi Bike Shop (Ruthven Ln) Best place... when hungover: Rio Cafe (Hyndland St) Best place... for a first date: Guy’s (Candleriggs) Best place... for showing off: If I could afford it I would take my friends to Rogano (Exchange Pl) to show off.

Best place... when you can’t hang about: Deli 1901 (Skirving St) Around the World: The Americas: The best burger in town is still Stravaigin (Gibson St) Around the World: The Indian Sub-continent: The Village (West St) Around the World: Asia: Nanakusa (Sauchiehall St) for Japanese, Hanoi Bike Shop for Vietnamese, Noodle Bar (Sauchiehall St) for Chinese. Yet to find good Thai food in Glasgow. Please educate me.

Around the World: Europe: Battlefield Rest (Battlefield Rd) for Italian. I’d love to see a really good Polish restaurant in Glasgow but as far as I know there isn’t one.

Food Hero: I bloody love Stravaigin. In my mind it could have won every category in this poll.

Frightened Rabbit’s new album, Pedestrian Verse, is released on 4 Feb via Atlantic Records www.frightenedrabbit.com

fashion

LIFESTYLE

Anna Chancellor costume.

Fotini Dimouc & Hugo Glendinning

Transformation & Revelation: Gormley To Gaga - Designing for Performance The V&A museum is enjoying a special relationship with Scotland of late. Work is due to begin on the V&A’s Dundee branch in the new year, but in the meantime, some its finest exhibitions are travelling to Scotland.

The most recent touring exhibition, presented in association with the Society of British Theatre Designers, is sure to be a ‘must see,’ not least because there is no entry fee (surely a welcome detail in this expensive festive season!). Entitled Transformation & Revelation: Gormley to Gaga – Designing for Performance, the exhibition celebrates the work of the most pioneering British theatre designers, architects and artists of recent years.

Far from confining itself to one medium, the exhibition will feature everything from opera costumes to video projections – the central tenet is that all these pieces have been used to enhance the performance. By placing different media next to each other in this way, it becomes possible to understand how designers approach the tasks associated with performance: from transforming spaces, to utilising sound.

The exhibition also offers the visitor a ‘behind the scenes’ view of the creative process, showcasing a

variety of sketches, photographs and scale models.

This in turn allows the audience to appreciate the entire process, from the conception of an idea, to model building and the live performance itself.

Undoubtedly one of the central draws of the exhibition is the work of Es Devlin, whose creations include costumes for Lady Gaga’s 2010 Monster Ball Tour. The exhibition also features Rae Smith’s drawings of the digital projections used in the West End production of War House. Other names and works to look out for include Antony Gormley, Ralph Koltai and Marie-Jeanne Lecca.

The setting of Summerhall (the former Royal School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh) seems ideal for the exhibition. A creative hub for the Arts, its studio and workshop spaces have been a hive of artistic and cultural activity in recent months.

The exhibition runs from 15 December through to 22 February, and opens from 11am – 6pm daily.

Entry is free. More information is available at www. summerhall.co.uk [Emma Segal] Exhibition runs until 22 Feb, 11am till 6pm daily Free entry Summerhall (the old Dick Vet building) 9 Summerhall Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1QE.

Monster Ball World Tour 2009-2010 Devilin set designer

Harvest Skate Company Launched in early December 2012, the Harvest Skate Company is the brainchild of illustrator Jamie Johnson (you may have seen his intricate work in previous issues of The Skinny) and tailor Kieron Forbes. As recent recipients of the prestigious Cultural Enterprise Office Starter for 6 programme, the duo have begun to produce artistdesigned skateboard decks, publications and a limited edition clothing line, as well as providing a support network for young, up-and-coming skateboarders.

With over ten years of skateboarding under their belts themselves (each!) and both with creative backgrounds, it seemed like an obvious step for them to create something that encompassed their two passions. “There seemed to be a gap in the exposure of Scottish skateboarding and skateboarders. We want to provide a platform for them as well as giving artists and designers a new way to showcase their talent,” Johnson and Forbes say of their new multi-media brand. “It highlights Scottish creativity and the flourishing skateboarding scene here. With so much unique talent apparent at the moment, it made us decide to get something going. “ The first run of garments by the Harvest Skate Company mainly consists of sweatshirts and tees in neutral colours with subtle screen printed or hand-embroided elements, which were designed

by Johnson and Forbes themselves. “We kept the

pieces clean and simple in order to give the logo and the name room to breathe.”All the items made are “hand finished, honest and thoughtful.”

In the coming months, expect to see a collection of outerwear added to the line (in collaboration with a British designer – details under wraps until the release date), with design details and colour graphics by local artists including Matthew Swan, Dominic Kesterton, Albie Clark and Struan Teague.

“We are both interested and involved with visual art in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee and were aware of other illustrators and artists through being involved in various group exhibitions around the country,” say Johnson and Forbes. “It’s essentially a win win situation for ourselves and all the artists involved – we get their work out there, whilst showing what sort of aesthetic we are into as a brand.”

Do Johnson and Forbes have any New Year’s resolutions for their new start-up? “To sleep, communicate and to work hard.” Can’t get much better than that!

For more information about the Harvest Skate Company or to buy limited edition apparel, publications or skateboard decks, please visit harvestskate.com or Focus Skate Store focuspocus.co.uk [Alexandra Fiddes] bristopirates.tumblr.com / @harvestskateco facebook.com/HarvestSkateCompany / harvestskate.com

January 2013

THE SKINNY 37

A WEEKLY GUIDE TO THE TOP TEN EVENTS IN SCOTLAND, DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX www.theskinny.co.uk/zap

ILLUSTRATION: WWW.VERBALSPICKS.COM

STEREO cafe bar free WIFI

FOOD SERVED 12PM 9PM

LIVE MUSIC

OPEN UNTIL 3AM THU FRI SAT

20 RENFIELD LANE GLASGOW STEREOCAFEBAR.COM 38 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

music

P R E V I E W : l ive m u s i c

LIVE MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS In a busy start to your crisp new gig calendar; Dinosaur Jr, Young Fathers, United Fruit and The Computers are just a few to scribble under January 2013

After the hedonistic madness of Hogmanay, we raise our bleary-eyed fizzogs and look towards the dawn of a new year, safe in the knowledge that the Mayans were (probably) wrong about that whole ‘end of the world’ thing, and that we really should think about a spell off the booze. Perhaps a fortnight. Maybe a month. Or a year. We reckon that resolution will break around 5 Jan or so – after that you’ll be fighting fit and ready to party.

Which is just as well, really, as on 6 Jan, indie / electro troubadour Miaoux Miaoux comes to King Tut’s in Glasgow, as part of their New Year’s Revolution gigs, showcasing the best that Scotlland has to offer. MM’s Light of the North made it into our top 50 of last year, and the boy’s got an ear for a catchy pop melody and a house-influenced beat that will charm the pants off you, guaranteed. He is ably supported by Roman Nose and the rather fabulous Organs of Love.

By the time 11 Jan rolls round, it’ll be like that period of abstinence never happened, as you plunge merrily into another New Year’s Revolution gig at Tut’s, this time featuring Chris Devotion and the Expectations, recently described by broadcaster Vic Galloway as “The Ramones, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen and The Replacements having a punch-up.” Support comes from Poor Things, Black International and Dundonian Skinny favourites, tipped for big, big tings in 2013, Fat Goth. You’d be mental to miss it.

It’s over to Nice ‘N’ Sleazy on 12 Jan, for a rousing live set of noisy, shout-along rap-and-drums-based racket. If you haven’t seen Hector Bizerk before you’re in for a shock (and a treat). Support is unconfirmed so far, but with rapper Louie turning up on tracks with Stanley Odd’s Solareye, and his solo material with the likes of fellow Glasgow rap-cat Mackenzie, not to mention drummer Audrey’s other job as drummer for indie-pop minstrels The Miss’s, you could be in for some treats there too.

On 19 Jan, get yourself down to Edinburgh’s Electric Circus for experimental rockers Vukovi, whose lead singer Janine Shilstone has a most impressive set of pipes, elevating their pop-punk noise to epic levels of awesome. Support comes from equally exuberant pop-punkers The Mirror Trap.

Washington Irving mix together jangly, Belle & Sebastian-esque indie-pop with earnest, lovelorn folk, and there’s a definite narrative bent to their songs which marks them out in the Scottish scene.

They play Glasgow’s Oran Mor on 19 Jan, support comes courtesy of slow-burning pastoral songsmiths Olympic Swimmers.

2012 was an exciting year for Edinburgh’s Young Fathers, as they signed to veteran experimental hip-hop label Annticon, and started work on a new album. Taking in a wide range of influences from

The Metal Column

Words: Illya Kuryakin photography: eoin carey

miaoux miaoux

folk to funk to Fela Kuti, to name just a few, their restless, mercurial approach makes them pretty unique, and on 19 Jan, they will be launching their new release Tape One at Glasgow’s Broadcast.

On 23 Jan, we wouldn’t dare miss Reekie hip-hop combo Stanley Odd, who begin their 2013 with a special gig at the Old Fruitmarket, playing in collaboration with the delightfully eccentric Electric String Orchestra. Support comes from barnstormin’ Edinburgh blues squad Mystery Juice.

24 Jan presents an unmissable chance to see Fence Records boss Johnny Lynch, aka The Pictish Trail, premiering tracks from his much-anticipated album Secret Soundz Vol. 2. Lynch’s experimental approach to indie-folk takes in electronic sounds, field recordings and fractured, wistful lyrics, plus the man’s stage chat is surely unrivalled. Support comes from fellow Fence-r Rozi Plain. They play the Glasgow Art Club.

Listen up: Exeter’s The Computers trade in the kind of ballls-to-the-wall, visceral, hardcore-tinged blues-punk that would make most lily-livered of indie-folk kids spit out their organic lager and commence pogo-ing. They are your offical alternative to the Fence bash, playing Bloc on 24 Jan. Also on 24 Jan, a welcome head-to-head from epic post-rock guitar-abusers Carnivores alongside post-hardcore rockers United Fruit (surely poised to drop that second LP in the coming months) as they duke it out at King Tut’s. Expect fireworks. Support comes from Clockwork Social.

On 26 Jan, Glasgow blogger Aye Tunes once again goes toe-to toe with blogger and great plunderer of bootlegs Peenko; the pair take over the 13th Note to showcase some of the best in up-andcoming homegrown indie rock from shimmering upstarts The Yawns, Plastic Animals, and King Post Kitsch. Yaldi!

If you’re reading this, you made it. Looks like those Mayans were wrong, eh, droogs? Well, what did you expect? Those losers didn’t even have the power of the riff to keep them sane back then. It’s time to look forward without fear now in seeking out the most unholy delights the year has to offer.

One step at a time, like.

If you’re into slightly daft but stellar doom, listen up: Texan riffmasters The Sword are stopping past Glasgow as part of their UK tour with their labelmates, blues-tinged heavy rockers Lonely Kamel.

That’s taking place at the O2 ABC2 (7 Jan).

There’s an evening of debauchery on the cards at the 13th Note with heavy metal extremists Storm of Embers, over-the-top Viking worshippers Norderobring, metalcore dudes In Depth & Ocean and prog-metallers Man Made Origin, which is sure to be a fun and eclectic night (11 Jan).

If you’re into your friendlier stuff, take note: L.A. glam punks Faster Pussycat go way back, and they’re heading to Bannermans to perform a greatest hits set. They haven’t played some of these jams live since the 90s; it’s kind of a big deal. Get yourselves over there for some classic rock ’n’ roll (12 Jan).

Swedish post-metal vets Cult of Luna are on tour with the like-minded Humanfly and Amenra. That’s a pretty beastin’ lineup – if you’re intae crushing atmospherics, you won’t want to be anywhere else than Ivory Blacks (19 Jan).

It’s strange to imagine members of Slash’s Snakepit, Cinderella and White Lion as well as Alice Cooper’s guitarist couped together in the back room of an Edinburgh pub, but that’s exactly what’ll be going down when Lost Angels take to Bannermans (23 Jan). Dinnae lose out!

Local death metal freaks / Earache alumni Cerebral Bore are headlining a notably brutal night at Stereo with some fellow thrashers, namely Warpath, Cemtex, Scordatura and Iniquitous Savagery (24 Jan). This one wins our ‘punishing lineup of the month’ prize.

Mind them Limped Bizdkit fellers? Their ultraprolific weirdo guitarist Wes Borland is taking his industrial metal side-project Black Light Burns to the Cathouse (25 Jan). Should be an interesting one, so keep it in mind.

Finally, there’s Sylosis, who combine old school thrash and prog with a more sinister form of death metal. They’ll be seeing the month out at Ivory Blacks (26 Jan). Alternatively, you could head down to Nice ’n’ Sleazy on the same night to witness psychedelic rock being filtered through 80s goth aesthetics via The Underground Youth, Los Tentakills, His Name Is Codeine and Curiosity Shop. That should be enough to keep you busy. See ye next month! [Ross Watson]

Do Not Miss: dinosaur jr the arches 30 jan

photos: pete dunlop

The undisputed kings of slacker rock return.

2012 saw the release of the justly-acclaimed I Bet On Sky, marking their third LP since the return of Lou Barlow to the fold some seven years ago, singing and writing songs again with former nemesis J. Mascis. If anything, the band are stronger and more energised than ever. Known for their epically-loud, expansive, axe-fetishising live performances, and with Mascis’ growling, pleading vocals still on world-beating, room-filling form, this is a rare opportunity to see them throw down at close quarters.

[Illya Kuryakin] www.dinosaurjr.com

January 2013

THE SKINNY 39

R E V I E W : L ive M u s i c

Some Songs Side-By-Side Album Launch Stereo, 29 Nov

photo: kenny mccoll

photo: ann margaret campbell

rrrrr

Rob Zombie / Marilyn Manson

Since Some Songs Side-By-Side is the debut release from Stereo’s fledgling record label, the bar’s basement space seems the natural place to launch it. Along with co-labels Watts of Goodwill and RE:PEATER, they’ve coaxed three-quarters of the compilation’s contributors out tonight (Muscles of Joy and Sacred Paws being the only absentees), providing a compressed taster of the box set’s contents and affirming why each act was invited to participate in the project in the first place.

Things start on the floor, with the room edging and craning to catch sight of Palms belting through a short set of terse hooks and galvanic, rough-hewn post-punk. With six bands to squeeze in, there’s no dawdling: a swift changeover and The Rosy Crucifixion are plugged in and laying down tremolo-hammering rock n roll of a surf and greaser vintage, making an old set of influences sound very fresh indeed.

Gummy Stumps follow in a fashion entirely their own: Colin Stewart’s gruff barks and the eclectic racket strummed and drummed beneath remain a singular composite, with Silver Sliver their performance’s craggy crest. Things move up on to the stage for Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gates Lock Pickers, plying their strutting rhythm and blues with panache. A splash of Psy in Mary Hell turns heads, while The Grace of God is a downcast delight.

While there have been drop ins and drop outs throughout the evening, Organs of Love are the first act to play to a noticeably less attentive crowd. But it doesn’t last long, as the duo’s brand of moody, off-kilter electro extends wispy tendrils to refocus drifters. Finally, Tut Vu Vu bring the event to a close, with their wonky and wild fusion of polyrhythmic jazz and playful prog-rock undertones crowning an excellent night with its final flourish. [Chris Buckle] soundcloud.com/some-songs-side-by-side

SECC, 28 Nov

The spooky kids adore Marilyn Manson – they mouth the words to every song as the God of Fuck goes through several costume changes and stage sets. Disappointingly, Manson fails to deliver on the promise of a ‘greatest hits’ package – rather, he performs a self-indulgent set culled from his weaker albums. So in place of Fight Song, we get a turgid mOBSCENE; instead of The Nobodies, he trudges half-heartedly through The Dope Show.

The fact that the set’s highlights are aging covers – Sweet Dreams and Personal Jesus – is telling. Also significant is the imagery he employs – a two-armed cross rather than an inverted crucifix; flouncily tearing pages from a bible; and the clulmination – his old set of codNazi banners, a Hitler-like portrait as backdrop, and a podium. Manson continues to flirt with extreme imagery to mask his increasingly dull music.

In contrast, Rob Zombie delivers all killer and no filler. His stage set – staggered walls of carnivalesque video screens, microphone stands made of bones – is colonised by a succession of vast, weird creations, from giant 1950s robots to a twenty-foot devil; drones and contraptions with visual nods to industrial SF classic Hardware; and a pumpkin-headed ghost.

There is barely time to breathe between the hits, as Zombie opens with Jesus Frankenstein, and barrels through utter classics from his comic-book industrial ouevre, including Sick Bubblegum; a juddering, anthemic Living Dead Girl; and a stomping Mars Needs Women, all culminating in a thrilling encore of Dragula. Zombie’s palette of influences is at once more interesting and heartfelt than Manson’s – shots of Sherri Moon-Zombie are intercut with splatter-filled cartoons, segments from The Lair of the White Wyrm, and classic MGM monster flicks. His conviction and humour sustain two cheese-fest ‘rawk’ covers (Enter Sandman and School’s Out). The commitment Zombie shows to giving the fans what they want marks him as the clear winner of this much-hyped bout. [Illya Kuryakin]

photo: ann margaret campbell

rrrrr

Converge / Touché Amoré / A Storm of Light / The Secret Classic Grand, 28 Nov

rrrrr

With Animal Joy ranking amongst their best work, Shearwater feel like one of 2012’s great overlookeds, their seventh album receiving only a fraction of the attention it deserves. However, the fact they remain inexplicably niche carries a silver lining for those assembled in Broadcast for the band’s second swing through Glasgow this year, with the venue’s small size helping foster a particularly intimate performance (“the best thing about this place is the low overheads,” jokes/forecasts Jonathan Meiburg of the ceiling’s close proximity).

“Tour lurgy” has left Meiburg feeling robbed of some range, but a thunderous sound compensates ably, imbuing tracks like Animal Life and Castaway with real power. In the encore, Meiburg invites requests and selflessly selects the one most testing to his ravaged voice-box, stretching for every high note of a solo Hail, Mary and setting hairs on edge. As the full band exit the stage, Meiburg’s hand goes through the aforementioned low ceiling, branding the fledgling venue with a memory of the evening and delivering an irresistible metaphor: a fist raised in triumph that confirms they’re destined for bigger things.

[Chris Buckle]

missionofburma.com

www.convergecult.com

shearwatermusic.com

robzombie.com

Mission of Burma Mono, 5 Dec

rrrrr

40 THE SKINNY

January 2013

photo: vito andreoni

A decade into their second wind, Mission of Burma have arguably set the criterion standard for how to reform a cult act and not only preserve your reputation, but enrich it. Considering they originally split due to guitarist Roger Miller’ chronic tinnitus, the sheer volume tonight is a (welcome) surprise, with Bob Weston keeping the levels loud and the three onstage members playing with undiminished vigour.

While only an explosive That’s When I Reach For My Revolver triggers a room-wide response, there are pockets of enthusiastic appreciation for all corners of their set: a raw-sounding Dust Devil is the pick of the Unsound material, while 2wice (from 2006’s The Obliterati) further attests to the gnarled might of their post-reformation output.

But it’s the still-fresh early cuts that leave the deepest boot print, particularly Dirt’s tense, incendiary riffs and a stomping Fame and Fortune in the encore. Mission still accomplished. [Chris Buckle]

Italy’s The Secret waste no time in blowing the doors open tonight.

Their chaotic, nihilistic blend of hardcore, grind and black metal is simply unforgiving; vocalist Marco Coslovich’s deathly bellow accompanies a violent maelstrom of blast beats and dramatic minor guitar chords throughout the set, making them sound like some kind of rabid crossover between Mayhem and our headliners. The results are positively grim, paving the way for three more stellar, qualityassured acts.

A Storm of Light are perhaps the odd ones out – they’re more of a slow, brooding collective, both sonically and in the way that they play.

A collage of stunning apocalyptic images floods the screen behind them (it figures; guitarist/vocalist Josh Graham was a visual collaborator for Neurosis), setting a thick, gloomy atmosphere as the band studiously bring their Neurot-indebted, industrial-tinged post-metal to life. Bassist Domenic Seita’s tones are notable for being thick, sludgy and devastatingly loud.

The crowd have been fairly static up until this point, but as L.A.’s Touché Amoré take to the stage and begin to pile through their emotionally wrought post-hardcore mini-epics, the front-end of the Classic Grand erupts with positive energy, sending a sea of hands desperately grasping for a shot at frontman Jeremy Bolm’s mic. His anxious, confessional lyrics are at odds with his stage presence, which radiates with profound joy: “I have the biggest crush on this city,” he admits, name-dropping a number of homegrown acts he holds dear, from Mogwai to Belle & Sebastian.

Converge simply don’t do that kind of sentimentality. Instead, the Massachusetts hardcore veterans pile on the aggression with seminal Jane Doe opener Concubine, which acts as some kind of anger-stimulus for the audience, who lunge forth with wild enthusiasm. A good bulk of new material is given a test run: quickfire rager Trespasses and the slower, more textural Glacial Pace stand out, going down superbly in amongst the classics. Axe to Fall’s doom-laden Worms Will Feed / Rats Will Feast has become something of a live staple, and for good reason, too. To witness their calculated brutality in the flesh is to be part of something truly significant. [Ross Watson]

Shearwater Broadcast, 27 Nov

rrrrr

R E V I E W : l ive m u s i c

Christ.

Pivo Pivo, 25 Nov

rrr

photo: emily wylde

One of the most engaging things about Christ. is his masterful keyboard playing. His extended, hypnotic improvised synth lines and spiralling, interlocking melodies create vast sonic cathedrals in the mind of the listener, and give his music the feel of vintage synth music – his compositions sit well beside the likes of Aphex Twin and Plaid, but are equally comfortable in the company of Tangerine Dream, Stockhausen or Brian Eno. Live, he adds the element of a live drummer to the mix, imbuing the sometimes meandering tracks with an urgent pulse.

Somehow, tonight, the performance seems like less than the sum of its parts – perhaps it’s the quality of the soundsystem in Pivo Pivo, or the difficulty of marrying the electronic elements with the organic backbone of the drums. When Christ. really soars – on some fantastic highlights from ‘07’s Blue Shift Emissions, or on a track from the recently-released Cathexis OST, his performance is absolutely hypnotic, vibrating the audience to a higher realm of consciousness.

It’s a shame that the whole performance isn’t as consistently engaging, but it’s nonetheless a welcome return to the live arena for one of Scotland’s most influential electronic producers. [Bram E Gieben] christmusic.bandcamp.com

The Twilight Sad / We Were Promised Jetpacks / Holy Mountain photo: beth chalmers

Barrowland, 15 Dec

rrrr

www.thetwilightsad.com

Wild Nothing Stereo, 30 Nov

rr On record, Jack Tatum’s Wild Nothing project have a dreampop, shoegaze bent – synths are pushed to the fore, and vocals are often drenched in reverb, giving the songs a wistful, narcotic dreaminess.

Live, backed by a guitarist, bassist, drummer and synth player, the setup coaxes out the jaunty indie-pop roots of the songs. There are hints of post-punk in the drums, at times recalling The Cure; the tempo of many tracks is upped slightly, and the resultant loss of space and dynamic in the mix leaches the music of much of its uniqueness.

The guitar lines lose their FX-pedal sheen and become jangly, Teenage Fanclub-esque workouts. The synth is largely drowned out by the band. Although Tatum and co. deploy some of Wild Nothing’s best-loved songs (Golden Haze, and the title track from Nocturne are standouts), one can’t help but feel let down – away from the studio sheen, and with Tatum relying on the band to fulfil his vision, there is not much to mark Wild Nothing’s songs apart from the daytime radio pack – they would sit alongside the likes of Tom Petty, or worse, the boring balladry of Maroon 5, without feeling out of place. A competent performance, but tonight the Virginian outfit veer a little too close to bland. [Bram E. Gieben]

photo: nick milligan

Without any sort of warning or restraint, Glasgow’s Holy Mountain unflinchingly whip out the anvil-heavy speed-riffs to a partially bewildered audience. Despite the celestial band name, they’re a sinful trinity at heart, harnessing the power of all that’s dirty and depraved about rock ’n’ roll. The pace occasionally slows down to make way for some decidedly awesome sludgey breakdowns, and the tight outfit keep onlookers guessing with some playful false-stop shenanigans.

With a style slightly more in tune with tonight’s headliner, We Were Promised Jetpacks are perhaps less controversial but no less impressive. As the sublime Keeping Warm unfolds and builds up to its huge crescendo, most of the assembled crowd look noticeably taken aback by the sheer majesty of it all, whereas the more straightforward, anthemic tracks (Quiet Little Voices and Roll Up Your Sleeves in particular) provoke impassioned shoutalongs. Their set brings the Edinburgh boys one step closer to playing a stadium. Judging by the vibe, they might as well be.

Most of tonight’s glory, however, is reserved for Kilsyth’s The Twilight Sad, who aren’t afraid of opening with the darkest material from this year’s excellent, synth-drenched No One Can Ever Know.

The stage glows a passionate, violent red to match the mood of the downright menacing Kill it in the Morning. The rhythm section are understated throughout, whereas singer James Graham (who has always made for a fascinatingly unconventional frontman) allows himself to be consumed by waves of feedback and noise, rather than facing the audience directly. When he finally does, he’s thoroughly modest and sincere about just how far this band has came, choking up in the moments before an impassioned rendition of fan favourite Cold Days from the Birdhouse. We’re lucky to have them. [Ross Watson]

Menomena / Empty Pools

www.facebook.com/wildnothing

Nice N’ Sleazy, 23 Nov

Dirty Three / Zun Zun Egui

rrrr

Òran Mór, 25 Nov

Upstairs at Òran Mór can be a difficult venue in terms of atmosphere: the cavernous spaces of the church tend to absorb energy and create awkward, echoing acoustics. So it proves for tonight’s openers Zun Zun Egui, whose vibrant eclecticism initially feels displaced in front of a subdued crowd. The Bristolian/Mauritian/Japanese quartet, however, have deftly fused an audacious blend of dubby spaciousness, gospel-like ecstatic chanting, afrobeat rhythms and frazzled funk; and their marshalling of those influences into a taut, dynamic whole eventually grabs the crowd’s attention.

Despite this cacophonous beginning, however, the tumult with which Dirty Three open their set is still startling in its raw energy. This year’s Toward the Low Sun LP marked a return to the vital, ecstatic and abstract soundscapes of their earlier work; yet live, songs like Rain Song, Furnace Skies and You Greet Her Ghost are imbued with a new, impassioned intensity that is almost jarring.

Inevitably, it’s Warren Ellis’ stock of befuddled, meandering interludes which ultimately forge a sense of warmth and connection, covering topics ranging from the horror of being reincarnated as Chris Martin, to a detailed analysis of sponge cake. Against this surreal backdrop, the clamorous beauty of Ellis’ violin, Jim White’s restlessly imaginative drumming, and Mick Turner’s gentle, glassy chords unite in intoxicating waves of noise. By the end of an all-too-short two-hour set, any limitations in the venue are long forgotten. [Sam Wiseman] www.anchorandhope.com

photo:neil jarvie

rrrr

With their slightly off-kilter approach to indie rock songwriting, Bristol’s Empty Pools are right at home on tonight’s bill. With a sound that’s less predictable and more energy-injected than your average jangly indie rock quartet, they’re instantly refreshing. Though not conventionally catchy, their songs are well thought-out structurally and carry a soaring, dreamy quality held together by Aaron Dewey’s urgent, slightly mathy drumming style.

As Plumage, the opener to this year’s Moms begins to unfold in a live context, it’s strikingly evident that Menomena are in a healthier place than they were during the turmoil-ridden Mines tour prior to the departure of founding member Brent Knopf. Though they now officially operate as a duo, the necessary extra instrumental duties (keyboard, sax, additional guitar) are fulfilled by a pleasingly enthusiastic, instrument-swapping backing band, bringing their membership up to five. On record, their bloated jams are expertly crafted and painstakingly layered over one-another; tonight, they colourfully explode in unison, and it’s breathtaking.

The bulk of the set focuses on new material, peppered by some carefully selected older cuts; the lush gloom of Queen Black Acid and hooky fan-favourite Muscle’n Flo are sure-fire highlights. Though many songs have uncomfortable, often harrowing subject matter, little can be done to downplay wholehearted jiving on the crowd’s part. Sassy closer TAOS prompts repeated, desperate cries of “one more tune!” and the sobering notion that this band might have ceased to exist if it weren’t for the determination of the remaining members truly hits home. [Ross Watson]

January 2013

THE SKINNY 41

REVIE W : AL B U M S

ALBUM OF THE MONTH The Pictish Trail

Secret Soundz Vol. 2 Fence Records, 21 Jan

rrrr Many artists develop signature sounds; rarer is the musician who accrues several. Johnny Lynch is one of the few to do so successfully, with a palette as diverse as roof-raising dance duo Silver Columns and In Rooms’ playful genre experiments. For The Pictish Trail’s second volume of Secret Soundz, the spectrum re-restricts to a core of folkinfluenced balladry and warm electronics, but the variation on offer remains striking and enriching.

Recorded in a caravan on Lynch’s adopted home of Eigg (the Hebridean island forever stitched into Fence-lore thanks to Away Game), Vol. 2 is wrapped into a fluent whole by woozy lo-fi production, which helps establish an absorbing aura of intimacy. Appropriately, the album’s finest moment sits at its centre, with Wait Until setting

sad, murmured vocals against a persistent electronic throb; written following the death of Lynch’s mother, it’s the record’s heart in more ways than one.

Other standouts include the subdued and introspective Sequels, while the instrumental interludes that studded Vol. 1 are resumed to great effect. Leftovers from a soundtrack to an unreleased children’s film, these colourful miniatures act as bridges in two senses, both echoing the much-admired prior volume, whilst threading together the soon-to-be-beloved current one. [Chris Buckle] The Pictish Trail tour starts at the Art Club, Glasgow on 24 Jan and finishes at The Caves, Edinburgh on 21 Feb. For full UK dates, see thepictishtrail.com www.thepictishtrail.com

The Ruby Suns

Ulrich Schnauss

Broadcast

Memphis Industries, 28 Jan

Domino, 21 Jan

Warp, 7 Jan

Christopher

rrr

A Long Way to Fall

rrr

On fourth album Christopher, New Zealander Ryan McPhun has pushed The Ruby Suns further still from their psychedelic-threaded indie origins, embracing a dancefloor-friendly aesthetic to mostly swish effect. Inspired by time spent immersed in Oslo’s arts scene, it sees McPhun continue down a path first paced with 2010’s Fight Softly, combining lush melodies with intricate, disco-lite production.

The opening trio are arguably the record’s peak accomplishments: Desert of Pop struts to the same blueprint as Pet Shop Boys’ Getting Away With It; In Real Life elevates the elation with faint echoes of Kool and the Gang; while Dramatikk is a bubbling, laidback gem. But for all its early promise, later stretches feel detached and even a little hollow, melting into an undistinguished zeitgeist sound when once The Ruby Suns stood out a little more distinctly. Pristine and glittery on the surface, but not enough to push McPhun up a league. [Chris Buckle]

Ulrich Schnauss’ finely-honed blend of melodic techno and shoegazey electronica places A Long Way to Fall in the company of similarly blissed-out records of recent years, such as Pantha Du Prince’s Black Noise (2010) and Jesse Somfay’s A Catch in the Voice (2009). While some pieces have a cutesy, almost saccharine quality (Like a Ghost in Your Own Life, Borrowed Time), the titles speak of a darker and more melancholy sensibility underlying things (Broken Homes, A Ritual in Time and Death).

If the tone of Long Way is therefore somewhat confusingly pitched, that does little to tarnish the brilliance of its crystalline dreamscapes.

Schnauss has now been mining this rich vein for a decade, and his masterful meshing of intricate drum loops, hypnotic arpeggios and throbbing synth chords can be arrestingly beautiful. Consequently, whatever it lacks in narrative coherence, Long Way makes up for in its ornate construction. [Sam Wiseman]

www.rubysuns.com

www.ulrich-schnauss.com

Berberian Sound Studio

rrrr Broadcast’s soundtrack for the critically-acclaimed film Berberian Sound Studio was created by James Cargill and Trish Keenan before the latter’s untimely death in early 2011. The devastating effectiveness of her vocals, despite being used only sparsely on this release, is a stark reminder of what Broadcast have lost; although rumours persist that a new album of material featuring vocals recorded before Keenan’s passing could surface this year on Warp.

For now, Berberian Sound Studio showcases a muted, minimal approach which is still in keeping classic Broadcast, evoking memories of Witch Cults of the Radio Age. The giallo theme of the film is also explored, with sonic nods to Goblin, particularly their Suspiria soundtrack – analogue synths and organs feature heavily, and the production has the hiss and reverb of a vintage recording. Clocking in at 39 tracks and almost 40 minutes, it’s an album of glimpses, fragments and half-formed images; but it has a remarkable coherence and beauty despite, or perhaps because of this. [Bram E Gieben]

Lazy Habits

L. Pierre

Qluster

Run ‘N’ Jump, 14 Jan

Melodic, 14 Jan

Bureau B, 28 Jan

Lazy Habits

rrr

The Island Come True

rrrr

Lauschen

rrr

Lazy Habits are one of those bands that don’t need radio play, press coverage or internet hype to build their career – which isn’t to say that their summery, super-tight funk/ jazz/hip-hop blend wouldn’t brighten up our airwaves, or that the band have nothing to say to journalists – far from it, with MC Lazy’s intelligent, politicised bars displaying a restless and socially-conscious awareness.

Rather, they are the kind of band who are just so damn good live that they’re likely to be able to trade on their skills and reputation as a band, while hip-hop goes in and out of fashion. They nod to big band jazz, soul and bop while Lazy spits classic UK hip-hop patterns dripping with clever rhymes. The album is well-recorded and engineered, losing none of the live band’s immediacy. Yes, the musicianship on display means Lazy Habits are a custom fit for the cardigan-wearing, Guardian-reading hip-hop fan. But lyrically, they’re edgy and relevant.

A strong debut. [Bram E. Gieben]

Aidan Moffat’s fourth LP as L. Pierre is perhaps the most boldly ambitious and abstract yet: eschewing the electronica which supplemented the field recordings and samples used on previous outings, The Island Come True instead revolves entirely around those elements. The samples – including classical melodies, drum loops, and mournful vocal cries – are here allowed to speak for themselves.

Island consequently draws upon the haunting, evocative power of the same type of source material, simply repeated and layered, that drives The Caretaker’s work; Moffat is also obsessed with what he calls “the grit and hiss of old recordings.” Here, however, he emphasises definition and space, allowing the funereal melodies on pieces like Harmonic Avenger to the forefront, rather than burying them within layers of delay and reverb. As such, Island evinces – in an instrumental form –the same disarming vulnerability and emotional frankness which characterises Moffat’s vocal-based work. [Sam Wiseman]

The latest release from Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Onnen Bock – aka Cluster, and now Qluster – is a live collaboration with improv multi-instrumentalist Armin Metz.

Despite the additional performer, however, Lauschen is an austere listen, even by Roedelius and Bock’s forbidding standards. For the most part, the LP is comprised of sparse electronic soundscapes, loosely scattered with pulsing chords and bleeps, which swim in and out of the mix.

That minimalism means that, when the pieces acquire more structure and rhythm – as on the stuttering sub-bass beats of Erato – the music feels imbued with a disproportionate sense of weight and impact. Such aberrations, however, go against the grain of what is essentially a wilfully understated, ambient improv record. As such, Lauschen is likely to leave those without an interest in this particular niche feeling cold, while it will be a valuable addition to the Cluster/ Qluster canon for others. [Sam Wiseman]

www.lazyhabits.co.uk

www.aidanmoffat.co.uk

www.bureau-b.com/qluster.php

Toro Y Moi

Anything in Return Carpark, 21 Jan

rrrr The third LP from Chaz Bundick sees the producer’s lush, pop-oriented blend of house and hip-hop take a bold stride towards the mainstream, without sacrificing the distinctive qualities of Causers of This and Underneath the Pine. The South Carolinian has largely shaken off the chillwave tag – if it was ever of any use – in honing a sound that owes as much to the shuffling, disjointed beats of Flying Lotus as it does to radio-friendly soul and RnB. Anything in Return is at its most immediately rewarding on songs like Studies, which meshes an addictively catchy harpsichord sample within a complex, cyclical bassline, overlaying the whole with woozy, psychedelic guitar samples and Bundick’s now-familiar silky vocal delivery. As he sees it, Return is an attempt to make “sincere pop music that’s not all processed and bubblegum.” By those lights, it’s an undeniable success – and further evidence of his impressive versatility. [Sam Wiseman] www.toroymoi.blogspot.co.uk

Your Move, Raincloud

This is What’s Left Over From Nothing That’s Happened Motive Sounds, 28 Jan

rr Your Move, Raincloud – the project of 28-year-old Samuel Francis Cain – practise a kind of fragile, wilfully sentimental indie, which aims at the same sort of whimsical charm found in peers like Over the Wall (with whom Cain shares a label). What’s Left Over, however, lacks their easy enthusiasm and dynamism; instead, YMR tend to indulge in the kind of overblown crescendos associated with acts like Explosions in the Sky. Given the plethora of instruments deployed here – piano, accordion, banjo, glockenspiel and violin, among others – What’s Left Over’s sonic tapestry is well-placed to avoid the pitfalls associated with this kind of emotive tone. Yet YMR can’t resist employing familiar structural cliches, as on Double Exposure, which progresses from a Codeineesque sparse vulnerability into a stodgy, distortion-led climax. There’s an intriguing emotional rawness here, but Cain still needs to develop his own voice as a songwriter in order to channel it. [Sam Wiseman] www.yourmoveraincloud.com

42 THE SKINNY

January 2013

Boduf Songs

Burnt Up on Re-Entry Southern, 28 Jan

rrr Mat Sweet’s first Boduf Songs LP for Southern – following four on Kranky – marks an appropriate shift in direction. Where the earlier records explored the hinterlands of bleak, stripped-down folk, rarely featuring more than Sweet’s delicately-plucked guitar and deep, soft vocals, Burnt Up on Re-Entry announces a new urgency and density from the outset.

Fiery the Angels Fell begins proceedings with brooding, Slint-style fretwork and insistently scattershot percussion, before descending into a frenzied climax of QOTSA-esque bruising distortion. Elsewhere, more familiar tempos return - as on the organ-driven, gothic soundscape of Song to Keep Me Still - but Sweet’s new taste for embellishment remains evident.

Burnt Up, then, is a surprisingly diverse record from an artist previously known for his asceticism and focus. As such, it sometimes lacks the intensity of previous Boduf Songs outings; but in the breadth of its imaginative vision, it represents a welcome expansion of Sweet’s songwriting approach. [Sam Wiseman]

REVIEW: ALBUMS

Funeral For A Friend

Yo La Tengo

Micall Parkinsun

Distiller Records, 28 Jan

Matador, 14 Jan

YNR Productions, 28 Jan

Conduit

Fade

rrrr

rrrr

Me, Myself & Akai

rrr

Welsh post-hardcore outfit Funeral for a Friend aren’t exactly known for their consistency; in tandem with multiple lineup changes, the band’s track record has varied wildly since arriving to lofty acclaim from the metal community with their 2003 debut, and they’ve generally struggled to levitate beyond the arena of mushy alt-rock until 2011’s promising Welcome Home Armageddon.

The tight balance of metalcore riffs and emotionally charged hooks on this follow-up (particularly on album highlight The Distance and lead single Best Friends and Hospital Beds) harks back to their early days, but it’s far from the calculated nostalgia trip one might expect.

Conduit barely pauses to second-guess itself – there’s a thrilling sense of momentum throughout. As a result, it’s easily their most aggressively straightforward LP thus far, perhaps best thought of as their punk record: short, lean and entirely engaging. [Ross Watson]

It must be a relief to indie obscurists and what few record shop assistants remain that Hoboken trio Yo La Tengo have remained so prolific and consistent over their near thirty year history. Fade is Ira Kaplan and co’s first record since 2009’s Popular Songs, but closer in feel to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. And it’s just possible that it’s their best album since that 2000 benchmark; unlike many of the acts they share an audience with, nothing here is over-complicated.

Well You Better is pure doo wop, while Paddle Forward could comfortably take on Dinosaur Jr in the fuzzed up alt pop stakes. Pick of the bunch has to be Cornelia and Jane where drummer Georgia Hubley coos over icy guitar and gentle brass. Even three decades on, Yo La Tengo make the production of quality rock’n’roll seem utterly effortless. Fade indeed; now there’s a misnomer. [Stu Lewis]

Behind the puntastic name lies a rapper with a tasty, Silver Age hip-hop flow, keeping it loose and elastic on tracks like Return of the Blaow! Coming on Jehst’s YNR Productions, this is a confident and polished selection. Parkinsun uses some odd rhythms – the wonky, stumbling beats of Me really suit his verses, as he spits about weed, food and his talent.

It’s fairly standard braggadocio with a hint of weird imagery, a slight letdown after the psychedelic, drug-soaked storytelling of Kingdom of Fear. Parkinsun is very focused on his duties as a father and husband – his rhymes are well-written, but it’s not the most fascinating topic.

Grade & Liquor is a dark-edged, hedonistic standout with a crunk lean. If Parkinsun had explored the theme of Akai beatsmithery in his rhymes a bit more, this could have been a classic. As is, it’s competent, and shows promise. [Omar J. Kudos]

Playing Glasgow’s O2ABC on 22 Mar

www.micallparknsun.co.uk

Playing King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut on 13 Feb

www.yolatengo.com

Falty DL

Tomahawk

The Revival Hour

Ninja Tune, 21 Jan

Ipecac, 28 Jan

Antiphon, 21 Jan

Hardcourage

rrrr New York’s Drew Lustman, aka Falty DL, likes to mess with people’s expectations. Influenced by house, garage, RnB and future bass, he never settles on one style, preferring to infuse each track with a range of influences. On 2011’s Atlantis EP he almost nailed it, with a collection of tracks with a smooth, polished feel that belied their experimental bent. On his warm, inviting, third full-length album Hardcourage, he seems to have got the formula exactly right.

She Sleeps, which features a silky vocal from Friendly Fires vocalist Ed McFarlane, manages just the right mixture of summery, electronic indie-pop and smooth house. Straight & Arrow’s chopped and filtered vocals lurch infectiously away from the shuffled, low-tempo house beat. Uncea is shimmering, synth-led post-dubstep a la early Martyn, with a garage-flavoured bassline, while the organic, deep house bass of Finally Some Shit / The Rain Stopped is utterly addictive. Solid and inventive. [Bram E Gieben]

Oddfellows

rrr

Scorpio Little Devil

rrrr

Coming five years after their enjoyably leftfield, Native American-flavoured Anonymous album, Oddfellows finds Tomahawk (now augmented by Mr Bungle alumnus Trevor Dunn) revisiting the aggressive alt-rock stylings of their eponymous debut.

The band prove themselves capable of delivering the goods on giddily atmospheric cuts like The Quiet Few, but this time around the tunes are a little bit less memorable; the chugging riffs don’t hit the mark quite as often as they should; and the quartet sound noticeably more sluggish – with stale rockers like Choke Neck and Waratorium displaying scant evidence of the infectious dynamism that made them such an exciting proposition a decade ago.

Oddfellows isn’t a bad record by any means, but after the supple, psychedelic explorations of Anonymous it certainly feels like something of a regression – a serviceable but ultimately unremarkable addition to the band’s catalogue. [Mark Shukla]

To make any sense of The Revival Hour’s debut LP Scorpio Little Devil, it’s necessary to understand the commonality that binds its creators. Born either side of the Atlantic, DM Stith and John-Mark Lapham, formerly of Manchester’s The Earlies, are both gay men who were brought up in stern – if very different – religious communities. It’s unsurprising then to find their first full-length collaboration strongly bedded with themes of escapism and alienation.

Despite the deep-seated subject matter a sense of adventure runs across the record’s spine. Fusing together a kaleidoscope of genres, the duo’s ability to switch skins is absorbing. Opener Control is a skittering, effects-riddled hailstorm; the harrowing Hold Back swoons with brass and gospel choir harmonies; and Run Away’s sunkissed pop skips away like a sugar-rushing Animal Collective. A never-ending treasure trove of ideas, Scorpio Little Devil is the sound of two remarkable minds becoming one. [Billy Hamilton]

www.ipecac.com/artists/tomahawk

www.therevivalhour.com

Plantman

Acres of Lions

Everything Everything

Arlen, 14 Jan

Fierce Panda / Alcopop!, 21 Jan

RCA, 14 Jan

Whispering Trees

rrr Close your eyes during Plantman’s debut album and you’ll be transported back to an era of pre-Britpop Indie. Given Matt Randall’s (AKA Plantman) love of Go-Betweens, Sebadoh and Durutti Column, it’s hardly surprising his debut LP sounds like it’s been pulled straight out of the NME’s fabled C86 mixtape. But in a time where over-production thrives, there’s a refreshing lack of polish to this unhurried affair.

Although there’s little instant gratification to be found, tracks like the shimmering Away With The Sun and picturesque Stickman are quiet, unassuming earworms worthy of gradual pursuit. Equally impressive is the title track’s haze of trebly, mid-paced guitars and the ghostly chords of album highpoint Lunaria, both of which bare uncanny resemblance to Lou Barlow at his most introspective. At 15 tracks long, Whispering Trees could benefit from a little fat-trimming, but this is still a fine reminder of uncomplicated times. [Billy Hamilton] soundcloud.com/plantman-2

Collections

rr

Everything Everything’s mission statement is to make pop music that sounds like no one else – a mantra the Manchester-based band have regularly trotted out in interviews since gaining national attention with the multi-faceted Man Alive two years ago. Yet for all their eagerness to experiment, they remain firmly a product of their times; the combination of crashing bass drum, urgent synth lines and pleading falsetto that comprises lead track Cough Cough characterises the predominant sound of the late noughties.

Still, the quartet’s playful desire to mix things up regularly shines through here, as on forthcoming single Kemosabe – a thrilling electropop stramash that’s every bit the equal of their debut. However, the initial spark is tempered by more sedate and reflective songs like The Peaks and _Arc_, that simply struggle to ignite. The sum is not the work of a band intent on playing it safe, but neither is it quite the adventure that their outlook suggests. [Chris McCall]

www.acresoflions.com

Playing Oran Mor, Glasgow on 20 Feb

The Joy Formidable

In At The Deep End, 28 Jan

Atlantic Records, 21 Jan

rr Though the bold album cover and title strongly suggest that an extreme brand of hardcore is on the cards, Dublin’s Wounds actually tread much more palatable ground on their full-length debut. Eye-roll provoking accounts of going out and “getting totally fucked up, man” aside, this follow up to their well-received EP Dead, Dead, Fucking Dead is technically fine; vocalist Aidan Coogan rips it hard on the mic, and the rhythm section is tight and energetic, the way a punk band should be.

The problem lies more in the songwriting, which trots out too many trite clichés. Die Young isn’t wholly unenjoyable; it just doesn’t break out enough. The LP almost seems built to cater for misanthropic house parties like the one depicted in the video for latest single No Future.

But like these kinds of shindig, it’s all short-lived cheap thrills, which add up to a rather vapid and predictable experience overall.

[Ross Watson] www.fuckwounds.com

rrr

Over a year since its Canadian release, the second album from British Columbia’s Acres of Lions arrives in the UK tripping over its own peppiness and oozing calculated heartache from every gloss-clogged pore. Though smartly presented, with buffed-up choruses and radio-friendly polish, Collections is a limp, generic and bland set that solves an equation no one ever posed: what might Jimmy Eat World sound like if they took inspiration from Scouting for Girls?

Lead single Reaction carries a particularly strong flavour of the latter thanks to finger clicks and bouncy piano lines, while everything about Kids, from lyrics (“we were young and we were bright / with diamonds in our eyes / you kissed me on the summer’s edge”) to production (including mid-song crowd sing-along) strains unsuccessfully for the relative respectability of unit-shifting millennial-emo in the Saves the Day vein. The results sound cynical and watered down; undeniably proficient, but difficult to warm to. [Chris Buckle]

Wounds Die Young

Arc

Wolf’s Law

rrr “Oh wow!” exclaimed Withered Hand when he recently guest reviewed The Joy Formidable’s lead single Cholla in these very pages. “That’s a good riff, no messing about.” Whether the concept of straight-up, heavy and hook-laden guitar riffs seems a little redundant to you, or it’s your reason for getting up in the morning, it’s one of those unguarded and astute assessments that’s hard to shake off.

Wolf’s Law, the group’s second album, is stuffed to the brim with such scuzzy-pop excesses, sometimes to the detriment of the overall song, but usually carried off with such panache that it’s difficult to care. Even when the Welsh trio deliver the somewhat overblown Maw Maw Song, their unbridled gusto and apreggiated fretwork salvo will likely subdue you into some form of appreciation. It’s not subtle, inventive or particularly varied, but Wolf’s Law makes for some damn good fun, and a twinkling reminder of the instantaneous rush that only music can deliver. [Darren Carle] Playing Oran Mor, Glasgow on 26 Feb www.thejoyformidable.com

Various Artists

Stones Throw and Leaving Records present Dual Form Stones Throw / Leaving Records, 21 Jan

rrr On a rather more experimental, far-out, noise-based tip than most Stones Throw outings, this team-up with fellow LA label Leaving Records serves as a breeding ground for the more leftfield, sonically challenging artists on the periphery of the California beat scene.

There are a few familiar faces – multi-instrumental lo-fi songstress Julia Holter, who delivers a live recording of a minimal, sparse, organ-led song; Anticon alum Odd Nosdam, whose expansive, synth-driven jam Sisters hits the right euphoric notes; while experimental bass terrorists Run DMT delve into woozy psych-rock territory on the crepuscular Bardo States Dream Walker.

Elsewhere we get FlyLo-esque space-age jams from yuk. on Atimo, mescaline-spiked alt.hip-hop from Sound Wizard BZB & MC Set, wonky electro-pop from Dream Love, and drunken, jazzy hip-hop breaks and fractured booming bass from Oscar McClure. It’s a mixed bag, with the emphasis on experimental beats rather than catchy melodies, but as an introduction to a whole host of new producers, it shows a lot of promise. [Bram E Gieben]

January 2013

THE SKINNY 43

REVIEW: ALBUMS

MATTHEW E. WHITE

PERE UBU

RICK REDBEARD

SPACEBOMB, 21 JAN

FIRE RECORDS, 7 JAN

CHEMIKAL UNDERGROUND, 28 JAN

BIG INNER

rrrr As well as being the debut album from Richmond, Virginia’s Matthew E White, Big Inner is the vanguard release from Spacebomb, White’s Stax-and-Blue-Note inspired production house. Brought to wax by the nascent studio’s generouslyproportioned house band, these seven heavenly slices of country soul unfold with leisurely precision, with horns, strings, keys and guitars folded through White’s delicate baritone.

There are hints of Lambchop circa Nixon in the instrumental interplay and bittersweet air, while Jason Pierce’s gospel blues are echoed in Big Love’s lifting choir. But for the most part, White recalls an earlier songwriting vintage, with opener One of These Days unfurling smoothly like an old spiritual, and the warm chorus of Steady Pace displaying White’s self-confessed and oft-noted affinity with seventies storytellers in the Randy Newman mould. Both indebted to and reflective on its patrimonial past, this is the kind of debut on which devotional followings are founded. [Chris Buckle]

LADY FROM SHANGHAI

NO SELFISH HEART

rrrr Few bands can claim the sort of hard-earned respect accorded to Pere Ubu. The Fall are one example that spring to mind; and as with that outfit, a new LP from David Thomas’ art-rock pioneers always feels simultaneously familiar and strange. Lady From Shanghai, coming thirty-five years after their seminal debut The Modern Dance, evinces the continuing robustness and relevance of the brooding, deconstructed garage sound first unleashed on that LP. The group’s defining elements are still present: Thomas’ cryptic lyrics and playful-yet-threatening delivery; the hard-edged rock grooves, overlaid with caustic, spiky guitar lines, syncopated rhythms and unpredictable descents into freeform noise. In fact, much of Lady From Shanghai could pass for material from the group’s early days, yet it still sounds fresh, testifying to Pere Ubu’s unique sound. They may have spawned plenty of imitators, but thirty-five years on, there’s still no other outfit that sounds quite like them. [Sam Wiseman]

rrrr Rick Anthony’s intentions with his piratical alterego Rick Redbeard were laid out earlier this year via his split single with Adam Stafford, another wayward soul of the Scottish indie music scene. Anthony’s effort, Now We’re Dancing, followed a more traditional path of finger-picked guitar and folk confessional than might have been expected by fans of his work elsewhere, but it provides a suitable blueprint to this long-incubating debut.

Yet at the same time it’s not the huge leap from his role as The Phantom Band’s frontman that it may at first seem; at their heart, The Phantoms tend to opt for a dark folk, sea-shanty core amidst all the sonic experimentation and in that respect, No Selfish Heart could be seen as Redbeard pulling back the curtain. It works too, Anthony no longer the menacing harbinger of yore, more a gentle, yearning soul on the wistful Kelvin Grove and the simple yet beautiful send-off of the album’s title track. Avast ye landlubbers. There be treasure here.

[Darren Carle]

CUDDLY SHARK

FAT GOTH

INDIANS

ARMELLODIE, 28 JAN

HEFTY DAFTY, 28 JAN

4AD, 28 JAN

THE ROAD TO UGLY

rrr Few bands have monikers as apt as Cuddly Shark’s; fun and loveable, but sharp in tooth. Like last year’s Body Mass Index EP and their self-titled debut before it, The Road to Ugly overflows with energy and ideas, with the Glasgow-based trio hopping genres with spiky nonchalance. Not everything fully works, but that only confirms one of the band’s most endearing traits: a refusal to play it safe.

Body Mass Index returns as bonkers as before, furnishing the album with its title and supplying its most Marmite moments.

Indeed, throughout the record, Colin Reid’s off-key yaps take a bit of acclimatising to (particularly the pretty fly Dexter-echoes on Pull the Finger Out), but their distinctive flavour soon convinces. Elsewhere, more straightforward numbers like My iPod Made Me Do It give a good account of the accomplished rock chops that lurk beneath the quirk, its dynamic riffage confirming the seriousness of Cuddly Shark’s abilities. [Chris Buckle]

STUD

SOMEWHERE ELSE

rrrr

PLAYING BROADCAST, GLASGOW ON 31 JAN

“I think you’ve got too much time on your hands,” deadpans Fraser Stewart at the conclusion of the magnificent Debbie’s Dirty Harry, one of the stand-out tracks on this blistering second album from Fat Goth. On the contrary, this Dundee power trio make for captivating company on record; even at 48 minutes in length, you’re still left wanting more.

Stud marks a significant step up for the band, aided in no small part by the addition of former Laeto bassist Kevin Black. Forming a solid rhythm section alongside drummer Mark Keiller, lightning-quick movements propel Stud into the fast lane, with Surf’s Down leaving the listener giddy from its sheer energy.

Stewart’s roaring vocals and acerbic lyrics meanwhile recall Mclusky at their most belligerent, yet this is the sound of a band comfortable in their own skin, unafraid to bring out the acoustics for Pinball Moron – a charming duet with Alice Marra of The Hazey Janes. With this as their latest calling card, Fat Goth should have no problem becoming an in-demand ticket. [Chris McCall]

WWW.CUDDLYSHARK.CO.UK

PLAYING KING TUT’S NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION ON 11 JAN FATGOTH.BANDCAMP.COM

rrr One year ago, Indians – aka Copenhagen’s Søren Løkke Juul – had yet to release a song or play a gig. Now he’s got 4AD backing his debut album, a tour log featuring support slots with the likes of Beirut and Perfume Genius, and a fair bit of (deserved) buzz to boot.

But if the speed of his naught-to-lots trajectory seems rushed, the calm confidence of Somewhere Else provides immediate reassurance, with an impressive opening run of tracks that pairs the fresh (Birds’ fluttering euphony) with the already familiar (the gentle embrace of New; the barely-there sparkle of Magic Kids), ably affirming his readiness.

Admittedly, small doubts later set in thanks to directionless stretches that, while reinforcing the record’s dreamlike atmosphere, lack the spark of highlights like La Femme or the theramin-infused title track. But on those occasions where Juul’s stars align and he hits the sweet spot, the effect is heavenly. [Chris Buckle] WWW.HEYIAMINDIANS.COM

SATELLITES

BIFFY CLYRO

THE ASPHODELLS

VESTERBROTHER, 21 JAN

14TH FLOOR, 28 JAN

ROTTERS GOLF CLUB, 4 FEB

SATELLITES.01

rrr Satellites.01 originally touched down in early 2011, in a limited run that was evidently too niche for such an ambitious-sounding record. Though imperfect, these smartly-presented transmissions certainly merit wider exposure, with the album’s finest moments raising the nape hairs and triggering goosebumps.

Satellites is the nom-de-plume of Johnny Vic, whose baritone vocals signal The National as a key influence, with his delivery in Where Love Lies Bleeding particularly Matt Berninger-ish. But Vic doesn’t always balance rousing grandeur and reigned-tight emotion with the same poise as the aforementioned Ohioans; the build-and-release surge of Mindreading, for instance, steers close to Snow Patrol at their most efficiently stadium-hungry.

Yet by the time Sale of the Century rolls around, faith is restored, its symphonic splendour reaching for the stars without pandering.

Satellites.02 will follow in March; if it shows a little more willingness to eschew tried-and-tested sounds, Vic could be onto something very special indeed. [Chris Buckle]

RULED BY PASSION, DESTROYED BY LUST

OPPOSITES

rrr Double albums are usually a daunting prospect for musicians and listeners alike, but it’s a move that makes sense for Biffy Clyro, an outfit who went from making abstract alternative rock in their early years to busting out fiery stadium sized anthems in the last few.

On paper, Opposites might allow the Ayrshire trio to flex their creative muscles and cover all bases with time left over to experiment a little too. On paper...

Lead single Black Chandelier is what has become textbook Biffy: mid-tempo, soaring chorus, weird lyrics and a heavy bridge. There’s more than a few potentially big, perfectly serviceable singles across these twenty tracks, but despite the big production values and wide array of sonic decoration, the band play it all too safe for an idea so ambitious. When they do misbehave, it’s more of a quirk than a daring detour. Still, those who enjoyed Only Revolutions’ radio friendly poprock nuggets will find plenty to savour here; just don’t expect anything quite so gripping as their 2004 opus Infinity Land. [Ross Watson] PLAYING ABERDEEN AECC ON 31 MAR AND GLASGOW SECC ON 1 APR

rrrr Andrew Weatherall’s collaboration with Timothy J. Fairplay (ex-Battant) immediately comes with a weight of expectation – after all, Weatherall was the man who produced the seminal dance/indie crossover album Screamadelica, not to mention the production history under his own name, and the moniker Two Lone Swordsmen. The Asphodells project offers a selection of tracks linked by an aesthetic that is equal parts spaced-out disco, shimmering post-punk and classic house, techno and electro. It’s all solid – each repetitive groove given just enough space to shine.

When it really takes off, as on the melodica-inflected punk-funk of opener Beglammered, or the even more New Order-influenced The Quiet Dignity (of Unwitnessed Lives), it’s an absolute joy to experience.

Arguably, Passion / Lust is a record out of time, engaging more convincingly with the heritage of British dance music than its present or future. But as a masterclass in the marriage of guitars, synths and club beats it is virtually peerless, with an understated, fragile beauty.

[Bram E Gieben]

EP REVIEW

THE TOP FIVE

TRUANT / ROUGH SLEEPER

1

BURIAL

HYPERDUB, OUT NOW

rrrrr After Kindred, it was clear that reclusive producer Burial was reaching for the next plateau. Like those tracks, Truant and Rough Sleeper both clock in at around 12 minutes; each one containing several distinct movements.

Truant begins with narcotic, static-laden 2-step, before abruptly breaking into a more bass-led, darker, dub techno-edged sound. Vocals pitch in and out of the tense, claustrophobic mix – this is more lo-fi, twisted territory than Burial has ever explored before, with a midsong breakdown that sounds like early Prodigy synth-stabs recorded onto hissing ferrous tape and listened to through a cough-syrup haze.

Rough Sleeper begins with hushed reverence, breaking into minimal 2-step with gorgeous, soulful vocals hidden in amongst the everpresent static. It’s indescribably lush – at once melancholic, and more

44 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

uplifting than anything in Burial’s prior output. The second movement is even more unfamiliar territory – an ascending, major-chord melody, house rhythms and breathy male vocals produce perhaps the most mellow, transcendent mood of the EP, evoking rain-slick streets caught in a burst of sunlight as the clouds briefly part – a revelatory moment of light.

Defiantly uncommercial, pushing notions of EP and album to the side in favour of creating immersive, beautifully-realised sonic sculpture, and released with little fanfare or effort to court the press, Truant / Rough Sleeper continues to display Burial’s mature, consistently exciting and challenging output, post-Untrue.

[Bram E Gieben] WWW.HYPERDUB.NET/ARTISTS/VIEW/BURIAL

2 3 4 5

THE PICTISH TRAIL

SECRET SOUNDZ VOL. 2

THE ASPHODELLS

RULED BY PASSION, DESTROED BY LUST

RICK REDBEARD

NO SELFISH HEART

THE REVIVAL HOUR

SCORPIO LITTLE DEVIL

FAT GOTH

STUD

REVIEW: ALBUMS

The Dirty Dozen

Requesting we keep the identities of the artists secret (“I’m going to try and guess”), Julian Corrie aka Miaoux Miaoux slips on his critic’s hat. “This reviewing gets harder as you go along,” he laughs. “I’m feeling my brain starting to melt a little...”

Interview: Chris Buckle photography: vito andreoni

Biffy Clyro – Black Chandelier (14 Jan, RCA) Is this Frightened Rabbit? It sounds a little bit like them, but he’s not got quite the same voice... I think if I was 14 I’d be mega into this. It’s alright, there’re some nice ideas… Is it Biffy? I have a lot of respect for Biffy Clyro, because they’ve been in it for so long. I wouldn’t buy it or choose to put it on the stereo but I think they’re very good at what they do. I’ll give that 7.

Sinéad O’Connor – 4th and Vine (28 Jan, One Little Indian) I’m quite into a lot of folk stuff – I do like a bit of, you know, tales of woe and doom… This is fine.

It’s just fine. She’s got a nice voice, so 6 out of 10. Who is it? Sinéad O’Connor, really? Wow, I’m surprised actually. The only thing I know about Sinéad O’Connor is when she went Rastafarian and did that terrible TV interview. I think we do need more of that sort of thing in music – people just being a little bit weird. Everything seems very bland at the moment and, I don’t know… actually, I can’t say everything’s bland, cause it’s clearly not, that’s a stupid thing to say. But I really like it when artists are just a bit more like an artist, in the truer sense of the word, where they create this sort of slightly strange world. I like eccentricity a lot.

Devlin Feat. Diane Birch – Rewind (28 Jan, Island) [About a minute in] No, no, I’m done. Can you turn that off actually, I don’t want to listen to it. Eminem just did this so much better 10 years ago. It has that chord sequence that drives me fucking nuts, it’s in every song ever. It’s literally everywhere.

We’ll give it a 3 because the production’s good.

Tomahawk – Stone Letter (28 Jan, Ipecac) The production’s really good on this too – that’s really a skill, to make heavy records sound good. I don’t care for the song though. Who is it?

The Skinny: Tomahawk – one of Mike Patton’s bands.

Really? Somebody introduced me to Fantômas recently, and it was one of those occasions where I just thought ‘what the hell is this shit?’ I thought that the first time I heard Deerhoof, who went on to be one of my favourite bands, and Fantômas was the same – it just completely baffled me. I still don’t quite get it, but Mike Patton is definitely some kind of insane genius. I’m a little bit disappointed actually, having heard what he can do, with Fantômas and Mr Bungle. I think I’ll give it 4, because I know that he can do better. Actually, I said I didn’t want to be influenced by the artist, so I’ll stick with my first thought – 5.

Teleman – Cristina (14 Jan, Moshi Moshi) They’ve studied at The xx production school haven’t they, with that reverby guitar. It’s a really popular sound just now. This is the first thing we’ve heard that I would maybe consider listening to for fun. But I’m not sure yet… There’s maybe a lack of personality, because I’ve heard those production sounds so many times before.

The Skinny: This is the band’s debut single.

Really? I’m surprised, because it doesn’t sound like a band making many mistakes; it sounds like a band being super-safe and ticking all the right boxes. I want a debut single to be a little bit risky, and this doesn’t really have any risk to it at all. But I prefer this sort of sound to other kinds of sound, so 6.

SINGLE OF THE MONTH #1: Roger Miller – Big Steam (7 Jan, Good Road Records) I like those opening chords – that’s guitar how I want it to be played, like nasty and dissonant.

Can you turn this up? That’s a good sound, it’s got a sort of swagger to it. It had me from the intro to be honest. That’s a guitar having a bad time…

Yeah, that guitar solo is wicked. It’s got balls. We’ll give it 8.

Booty Luv – Black Widow (20 Jan, Pierce Entertainment) Nah – it’s just the same as a lot of commercial dance music. I was half-expecting it to drop into an extremely dirty half-time bass line, and if it had done that it would have got an extra point.

But it didn’t, it’s just really vanilla. I mean, it’s well produced again, so points for that, but I really don’t like it at all, so 2.

Villagers – Nothing Arrived (14 Jan, Domino) This sounds like Arcade Fire – I quite like Arcade Fire, and I quite like this as well. They’re doing a lot with quite a small amount of material. That bass part is good – it’s the same sequence but just changing the root note, which I like to do a lot.

Yeah, I like this, it’s nice. 6 and a half.

Christian Rich feat. Angela Mcluskey – XIX (28 Jan, Good Luck Chuck) Is this Starslinger? No, don’t tell me! I like it, this is exactly my sort of thing. It sounds like Flying Lotus – it’s obviously not, but I imagine it’s someone related to Brainfeeder… I would chill out that compression a little bit though – I know that’s kind of the point, but it can make you feel a bit seasick sometimes. Who is it?

The Skinny: Christian Rich – production credits include NERD, Chris Brown…

So quite commercial… It’s interesting that they’re taking an edge from Brainfeeder, who’ve basically been doing this sort of thing for years. Yeah it’s nice – 7. I’ve got to stop using the word ‘nice’, it’s pathetic. Everything’s just really nice…

Delphic – Baiya (28 Jan, Polydor) I simultaneously admire and detest this sort of homogenous production – it’s amazing how it falls

onto your ears and everything just sounds right, but then you dive in there and there’s a ridiculous amount going on. So to be able to get that all to gel is a really good skill I think. But it’s like having sex with an android: it’s sex, but at the end of the day you feel a little bit used. Because music is a very emotional thing and this has been so well engineered that, while it gets you there, you feel a little bit dirty that you’ve let it. I’ll give it… 6.

Everything Everything – Kimosabe (14 Jan, RCA) [Ten seconds in] This is Everything Everything.

I think they’re a frustrating band because they showed so much potential on that first album, but didn’t quite realise it. [chorus starts] Yeah, that bit just kind of ruins it – it’s all going a bit V Festival 2013. Even though their first record was megaproduced, some of it was bonkers, with really interesting progressions. I don’t think this is their strongest song, but I respect them as a band – I’m just waiting for them to do something really, really good, because I think that they can. I like that bass line… [chorus starts again] and then it goes rubbish there. But I prefer this to their last single – 7.

SINGLE OF THE MONTH #2: Foxygen – Shuggie (22 Jan, Jagjaguwar) Is this Foxygen? I heard this literally just this morning. I actually quite like it, it’s a bit like Beck crossed with Jonathan Richman. This is a perfect example of a debut single that has loads of character and interesting ideas; they’re making a statement about themselves as an artist, as opposed to that one earlier that basically sounded like The xx. This has life and energy about it. I’ll give that 8. Can we make that joint single of the month with Roger Miller? I really like his Mission of Burma guitar solo-y madness, but Foxygen’s good for entirely different reasons. www.miaouxmiaoux.com

January 2013

THE SKINNY 45

music

Hostile Ambient Takeover

As seasoned players from Dundee’s alternative rock fraternity, Fat Goth aren’t exactly shy of riffs on their startling second album, but they’re not scared of rolling out the ballads either. Turns out they’re taking sexy back Interview: Chris McCall Dundonians are used to defending their city.

In times gone by, Dundee was besieged by armies from both the north and the south. Today, it is the frequent butt of jokes. There are few Scottish comedians who have not rubbed their hands with glee when an audience member has proudly announced that they hail from the City of Discovery.

Of course, it’s a totally undeserved reputation, and Fat Goth are another in its lineage of exceptional bands that prove there’s more to write home about than Jute, Jam and Journalism. The power trio are one of the standard bearers of the city’s thriving music scene, and with a fully-charged second album, Stud, out this month, they’ll be one of the most talked about bands from these quarters in 2013 if there’s any kind of justice. Just ask new music guru Vic Galloway, who, after recently witnessing the group tape a steamrollering live session for his BBC radio show, declared that they were his “favourite rock band on the planet.”

The Skinny caught up with Fat Goth shortly before Christmas, and found a band that are quietly confident in their ability to dish out thunderous riffs to the citizens of their hometown and beyond.

“Being Dundee natives, we’re extremely proud of our local scene and always have been,” explains guitarist and band leader Fraser Stewart. “The bands and artists we share stages with here are our contemporaries, and I’ve always drawn influence from them just as much as any other music I listen to. The Hazey Janes are old school friends of ours and they continue to fly the Dundee flag everywhere they go. Their very own Alice Marra was kind enough to sing on Pinball Moron from our new record, which will hopefully take some folk by surprise.”

Fat Goth’s genesis came about in 2007 when Stewart and school friend / drummer par excellence Mark Keiller started to juggle duties between post-punk combo Alamos and a fledgling tonguein-cheek metalcore unit called Perineum. Alongside bassist and fellow Harris Academy alumnus Allan Mitchell, they jammed whenever Alamos had time

46 THE SKINNY

January 2013

photography: Beth Chalmers

off, eventually shedding their old moniker because, as Keiller recently jokingly remarked in hindsight on Twitter, “it was far too silly.”

The trio soon branched out on their own, and their early releases generated enthusiastic comparisons to such mighty noise rock legends as The Jesus Lizard and The Melvins. But it was as much the band’s new name that captured attention, which as Stewart freely admits, is no bad thing when you’re trying to stand out from the crowd. “I just loved the idea of a ridiculous and funny name.

Most folk seem to enjoy it, but there have been a few who appear to have no sense of humour and have decided to completely dismiss our music before even hearing it as a result.”

Fat Goth would like to go on record to state that they have no issues with any overweight individuals with a penchant for wearing black leather and eyeliner. “I think [fat goths] would probably like our music, or at least appreciate the themes and motifs found within it,” adds Stewart. “Depression, alienation, sexual frustration, anger, violence, black comedy – Fat Goth has it all! I tried to explain this when we did our BBC session a while ago, but it kinda sounded like I was just having a go at obese people.”

Having helped the Goth record their wellreceived debut album Mindless Crap in 2009 and the EP DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!!!! the following year, Mitchell has since left the group to emigrate to Australia in 2011. Bass duties were soon picked up by Kevin Black, a former member of criminally overlooked victory rock greats Laeto – a move which Fat Goth considered to be a real coup.

“Mark and I went to see Idlewild play in the Marryat Hall during their 100 Broken Windows tour and Laeto were the support,” Stewart remembers.

“It was the first time we had seen a local band demonstrate such a level of musicianship and our young, uninitiated minds were suitably blown away. I remember being somewhat perplexed by the fact there were next to no vocals, but that was long before my own investigations into and

general appreciation of beard-stroking post-rock.

Once Laeto started blasting audiences with their later feel-good, Van Halen-influenced stuff, we began to think they were maybe nice guys and not the unapproachable and intimidating figures we always assumed. A few drinks together at a show one night marked the start of a beautiful, touching and cherished friendship.”

Sadly for Laeto’s faithful following, Black says there is little chance of the quartet playing live again anytime soon. “February marks the 15th anniversary of the first gig that we ever played,” he says. “We will certainly be meeting up and having some fun, although that is unlikely to be in the form of a show or anything like that, more four friends getting together.”

Meanwhile, with Black in the fold, Fat Goth Mk II have wasted no time in hitting the road to play tirelessly across the country, sealing the band as a formidable live act and increasing their playing proficiency to frighteningly impressive levels. Of course, the key question becomes: Can they also hack it on record?

Stewart is confident that the answer is ‘Yes,’ and that a simple comparison between both records to date demonstrates the point. “I would say the major difference between the two is the fact Fat Goth was a fully gig-worthy outfit by the time we did Stud. Before, the band was little more than a recording project, and we didn’t play our first show until after the release of Mindless Crap. I never really intended Fat Goth to play shows. I just wrote a bunch of tunes and thought it would be cool to record them while we had the chance.

I’m still extremely proud of Mindless Crap but the difference in performance on both records is very noticeable to me. The music of Stud is tighter and more visceral, which is what we strive for whenever we play live, so I’d say it’s a better representation of the band.”

Stud certainly evokes the memory of Mclusky at their most belligerent, but this is a record that contains far more diversity than sharp riffs and fast

drumming will allow. Pinball Moron, the aforementioned duet with Alice Marra, is a country-tinged gem and gentle proof that Fat Goth go beyond hard rocking. Indeed, Stewart is keen to talk about his new-found enthusiasm for ambient music. “I purposefully go to bed early so I can listen to that stuff on my headphones and gently drift off into slumberland,” he admits. “If nothing else, they help to drown out the screaming voices in my head.”

Jokes aside, the band’s dextrous sensibilities push them beyond the perceived limitations of amped up garage rock. “I hear so many rock/ punk/metal bands do the loud, abrasive noise thing,” says Stewart. “As much as I enjoy that stuff and try to incorporate it into what we do, I also fully appreciate a well-crafted pop song and I feel that has just as much reason to influence us. Fat Goth isn’t scared to turn things down on occasion and knock out a nice ditty or ballad.”

Clearly, Stewart – who at one point recorded under the guise of dark folk troubadour Uncle Fritz – has a softer side to his songwriting. Having named the album Stud, would it be fair to assume that the lads are a hit with the fairer sex? “This assumption is filling me with hilarity and sorrow in equal measure!” he counters. “Someone like Prince has made an entire career discussing sex in his work, and if I was to guess, I’d say he’s had a pretty amazing time of it. It makes me think ‘why can’t Fat Goth do the same?’ Our take on the subject in our own work isn’t as glamorous or perhaps appealing – more Mötley Crüe than Marvin Gaye – but there’s definitely a similarity in theme... the next Fat Goth album will be more ‘Aye! Come on! Let’s have ourselves a time,’ instead of the ‘Oh man, you’re so unbelievably fine and I’m so horrifically rank’ vibe throughout Stud.”

Ladies, roll up.

Playing Aberdeen Cellar 35 on 4 Jan; Glasgow King Tuts on 11 Jan, Edinburgh Electric Circus on 1 Feb and Dundee Non-Zero’s on 9 Feb. Stud is released via Hefty Dafty Records on 28 Jan www.fatgoth.bandcamp.com

THE CINESKINNY: BACK WITH A VENGEANCE EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE DAILY GUIDE TO THE GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL, THE CINESKINNY RETURNS IN FEBRUARY WITH ALL THE EXCLUSIVE NEWS, REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS YOU COULD POSSIBLY NEED TO HELP NAVIGATE GFF'S EXPANSIVE PROGR AMME. KEEP AN EYE OUT IN VENUES AROUND GLASGOW FOR YOUR COPY

VOODOO

OODOOV

ILLUSTRATION: EDWARD MCGOWAN

WWW.THESKINNY.CO.UK/CINESKINNY

EVERY TUESDAY FREE 11.30-LATE WITH DJ DUNCAN HARVEY

N I C E N S L E A Z Y WWW.NICENSLEAZY.COM JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 47

clubs

PREVIEWS

CLUBBING HIGHLIGHTS

January’s clubbing highlights, including Afrocentric Black Acre star ROMARE at Highlife, HANS BOUFFMYHRE at Trash!, ALEX SMOKE at Oddio, the Weatherall-approved Crimes of the Future, RITON at Bleep, and RL GRIME at Witness WORDS: OMAR J KUDOS

ILLUSTRATION: WWW.VERBALSPICKS.COM

JANUARY IS traditionally a bit of a featureless wasteland in the club scene, with punters too broke to go out, and promoters unwilling to gamble money on a big-name booking for the same reasons. After the sturm und drang excess of Hogmanay, people are more likely to take a break, and chill inside with cups of Bovril and a cheeky six episodes of Breaking Bad than they are to come and cut loose on the dancefloor. And yet, January offers a plethora of recession-busting free and cheap nights from local promoters, and the odd international guest thrown in for good measure.

So we recommend you un-glue yourself from the custom-fitted butt-groove of your sofa, fill your pockets with left over cutter from Chrimbo, and head out into the winter night for some top-notch hedonism! But where do we go, we hear you cry?

Fear not! The Skinny has the inside dope on the best fun to be had in front of two turntables and a speaker stack. Read on...

First up is a mighty clash between two Edinburgh techno mainstays, who both did a bloody good job of reinvigorating the party scene in the capital in 2012. The Unseen crew take on ETC (Edinburgh Tekno Cartel) at east-coast techno’s ancestral home, Studio 24, on 4 Jan, and it’s completely free. With a collective resident list that is pretty much a who’s who of Edinburgh techno – featuring Neil Templar (Dogma), Patrick Walker (Forward Strategy Group), Alias23 and Toxicologist back to back, and a live set from Morphamish (Black Lantern), the night promises Unseen’s trademark ‘pitch-dark voodoo beats’ alongside the tougher sounds of the ETC crew, spinning everything from dubstep and jungle to hadtek and gabber. It remains to be seen whether this four-to-the-floor face-off will culminate in sweet, beautiful electronic lovemaking or a teeth-bared techno deathmatch – the only way to find out is to get your arse down there.

Just up the M8 on 5 Jan, the ever-inventive, globetrotting sounds of Auntie Flo and Esa’s popular Highlife bash are rounded out by the sounds of high-intensity, Afrocentric percussion maestro Romare. Get yersel’ down to La Cheetah and experience the exotic sounds on offer for a measly fiver. Meditations on Afrocentrism, Romare’s debut for the ultra-hip Black Acre label (which also features Scottish artists such as Loops Haunt and Akira Kiteshi) was a blistering four track collection of hyper-intelligent techno and bass music with a suggestive, political edge. His set for Highlife should be a real eye-opener, not to mention an epic booty-shaker.

The first big weekend of the year in Glasgow really kicks off on 12 Jan, with Subculture welcoming Numbers beatsmith Jackmaster to the decks at Sub Club, joining long-serving ressies Harri & Domenic. Meanwhile, The Berkeley Suite sees the second outing for new kids on the block Oddio, who welcome Soma signing and deep techno pioneer Alex Smoke, who celebrates the launch of his new album Wraetlic. Smoke’s back catalogue is impressive, taking in moments of deep, bass-driven house of 2006’s Paradolia, and more recently the minimal tech of 2010’s Lux. His new album promises similarly restrained, minimalistic pleasures. Oddio is the cheaper option, at just a fiver.

Back in Edinburgh on 12 Jan, the Musika crew return to the fray just weeks after their epic Hogmanay blowout, welcoming their residents crew of Laurie Neil, Kirk Douglas (not that one), Jamie McKenzie and Derek Martin to the decks at The Liquid Room. Expect house, techno and deep, deep grooves from a night with a blistering reputation as one of the best places for upfront house and techno in the capital.

Are there Thursday parties in January? You bet your ass! On 17 Jan, Edinburghers can get down

48 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

to the bass-heavy, broken beat sounds of French DJ Plezier, who joins the iAM residents Beta & Kappa for a session at Cabaret Voltaire. It’s free if you visit their website (iamclub.co.uk), or just a few quid on the door. You can currently grab Plezier’s two-track Baby EP from his Bandcamp on a paywhat-you-want basis (plezier.bandcamp.com).

On 18 Jan, the Axis crew are joined by Turbo Recordings star Duke Dumont, who joins the party for a genre-busting run through electro, techno and dubstep. Dumont has completed some high profile remixes for the likes of Lily Allen, Bat For Lashes and The Mystery Jets. Get thee down to The Caves to partake. Up in Dundee, the Mungo’s Hi-Fi crew take over the Reading Rooms, with guest selectors Chungo Bungo and Miss DLove bringing the roots, reggae and skanking dub sounds.

On 19 Jan, ETC return again with their first birthday party, with the usual fancy dress madness, this time on the theme of Away With The Space Trash Fairies. Interpret as you will – it’s a fiver in costume, more without, and takes place at Teviot.

The Trash! Crew have a special date with Sleaze Records techno-heads Hans Bouffmyhre and Lex Gorrie, over at the Citrus Club in Edinburgh.

Bouffmyhre started plying his trade in Glasgow, and now has releases on Perc Trax, Harthouse and Soma, not to mention his own label. Catch him in action on 20 Jan. Back in Glasgow on 25 Jan, the Andrew Weatherall-approved Crimes of the Future night returns to Glasgow’s Berkeley Suite for another meagre fiver, with residents Scott Fraser and Timothy J. Fairplay (Weatherall’s collaborator for the much-touted new project The Asphodells – see our feature in this month’s issue) manning the decks to play a selection of Krautrock, electronic, dub and everything inbetween. This night’s gaining a solid reputation – you’d be advised to check it out before the queue goes mental, Optimo-style.

If you happen to be up Dundee way on 25 Jan, you’d be well-advised to check out eclectic beatsmith Riton, who headlines the fourth birthday party for local lads Bleep at the Reading Rooms.

Fresh from his collaboration with DJ Mehdi (under the name Carte Blanche), Riton is working on material for a planned new album, his first under the Riton name since 2004’s vocal-heavy Homies and Homos.

And speaking of Optimo, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention their very special soundclash with the cheeky young iAM scamps on 29 Jan at the Sub Club, which they’re touting as a ‘very special’ Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas-themed party. As you already know, the Optimo boys go all-out when they throw a theme party, so expect zany decorations, a carefully-curated playlist and a weird and wonderful crowd. We predict madness, and again, it’s just a fiver.

Wrapping things up for January, rising futurebass star, Los Angeles’ RL Grime joins the Witness crew at Sneaky Pete’s on 30 Jan, with a super-cheap party (just three quid!) that will feature garage, dubstep and bassline house. RL Grime’s speaker-busting, acid-meets-post-dubstep track Trap On Acid was a convention-busting techno / trap hybrid,and bodes well for an explosive night at Sneaky’s. It’s free for members, so the Witness faithful should be packing out the dancefloor for this session.

And that’s it for January, with what looks like an exciting start to the year – keep it locked on to The Skinny’s highlights column for the finest monthly selection of spinners, sinners and winners north of the border – and be sure to check our Listings for late additions! We’ll see you back here in February, when we’ll be sharing the love and Valentine vibes.

Check it!

PHOTO: DASHA MILLER

REVIEW: PREVIEWS

DJ CHART: GERRY BLYTHE (NEW LIFE / KILL YR IDOLS) NEW LIFE and KILL YR IDOLS resident GERRY BLYTHE brings us a DJ chart full of the kind of upfront, sexy, classic house and disco tracks that have been turning heads at Bar Bloc and the Berkeley Suite, including tracks by Andy Stott, Todd Terje and Adult WORDS: OMAR J. KUDOS GERRY BLYTHE is a resident DJ at two Glasgow nights, Kill Yr Idols (which runs every third Saturday of the month at the Berkeley Suite), and New Life, which has irregular dates monthly at Bar Bloc and other venues. Both are genre-bending nights of diverse electronic sounds, both classic and bang up-to-date, which make them a chaotic, unpredictable joy to attend. New Life also regularly features live performances from well-established and up-and-coming Glasgow bands and producers.

In this month’s issue, Gerry gives us a rundown of his ten favourite dancefloor smashers du jour, ranging from lo-fi techno to upfront electro and post-modern house.

ANDY STOTT – Luxury Problems [Modern Love] The title track from one of the albums of the year is beautifully haunting with so much going on underneath the surface. Out now on Manchester’s ultra-hip Modern Love label, also home to Claro Intellecto and Vatican Shadow.

ELSTER CLUB – Slow Down Disco (Nevada Base Scat Dub) [unsigned] Hearing Nevada Base’s sound develop throughout the year was a real highlight for me and I have high hopes for them in 2013. This remix for former member Johnnie’s band Elster Club is a disco/ synthpop hybrid of the highest order. This one’s available as a free download from Nevada Base’s Soundcloud page.

DANIEL AVERY & DEADSTOCK 335 – Magnetic EP [Optimo Music] Amazing stuff from Glasgow’s own Optimo Music.

The whole EP is great but for me B-side track Commercial Suicide just about shades it.

TODD TERJE – INSPECTOR NORSE [Olsen / Smalltown Supersound] One of the songs of 2012 and an instant classic.

The track still gets a great response months after its release and with it Terje proves he’s not just the greatest remixer in the universe – he’s a force to be reckoned with as a producer in his own right.

ADULT. – Contagious [Ghostly International] Its easy to forget just how popular Adult. were when Resuscitation first dropped in 2001. The

album has so many seminal tracks and it’s a real personal favourite of mine. After many years of being out of print it has finally been reissued by Ghostly International – well worth checking out if you missed it first time around.

Visit our awardwinning independent coffeehouse for great coffee roasted on site We're open 7 days for brilliant breakfasts, organic breads and cakes from Tapa organic bakery, organic beers and wines, and free wifi

721 Pollokshaws Rd Glasgow, G41 2AA Tel 0141 423 9494 @tapaorganic www.tapacoffee.com

GEEEMAN – Bang’t [Clone Rotterdam] 2012 was a great year for Clone and this track from the Jack For Daze series was a highlight.

Back to basics, and further, proving that sometimes all you need is hand claps, a bass line and a looped vocal. Simplicity in its essence.

COLONEL MUSTARD & THE DIJON 5 – Dance Off (Magic Daddy Defilement) [unsigned] One of Glasgow’s most underrated producers, who has released on OSCARR / Optimo and Stuff Records, remixes one of Glasgow’s most unique bands, Colonel Mustard & the Dijon 5. On paper it just shouldn’t work but it does, amazing stuff.

This one’s also available as a free download from Magic Daddy’s Soundcloud page.

JULIO BASHMORE – Au Seve [Broadwork] The first release from Bashmore’s own label Broadwork was a huge hit in 2012. Some people didn’t like it so much but the intro alone had me hooked right away. Classic house vibes.

LOGO – Fabrice [Kitsune] Short, clocking in at under three minutes, but very, very sweet. This track is epic in so many ways and it’s the best thing to come from Kitsune in ages.

Squelching acid bass and 808 kicks – an instant classic.

GOLDEN TEACHER – Dante And Pilgrim [Optimo Music] A bit of a cheat, as the album isn’t even out yet – consider this an advance heads-up. I was lucky enough to get an early demo version of the track (then called L’Historie D’un Garçon) and it’s one of the most exciting things to come out of Glasgow in years. I have absolutely no doubt this band will be huge this year.

NEW LIFE RETURNS TO BAR BLOC ON 21 FEB. THE NEXT KILL YR IDOLS PARTY IS AT THE BERKELY SUITE ON 23 FEB TWITTER.COM/NEWLIFEDJS

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 49

REVIEW FILM

film

january EVENTS

zero dark thrity

Zero Dark Thirty

The Sessions

Director: Kathryn Bigelow Starring: Jessica Chastian, Jason Clarke, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Ehle Released: 25 Jan Certificate: 15

Director: Ben Lewin Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood Released: 18 Jan Certificate: 15

rrrrr

rrrrr

Kathryn Bigelow’s astounding new film opens with the horrific sounds of 9/11 played over a black screen and it ends with the death of Osama bin Laden; its subject is the journey from point A to point B. Reuniting with The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal, Bigelow has crafted a riveting, entirely convincing procedural that shows us the long, frustrating pursuit of bin Laden through the eyes of Jessica Chastain’s dogged CIA agent. Boal’s journalistic construction of this decade-long hunt is episodic, but Bigelow’s command of the material (and the vital contribution of cinematographer Greig Fraser and composer Alexandre Desplat) ensures that every scene is gripping, immediate and respectful of the audience’s intelligence. Some commentators have accused the film of glorifying torture, but that is a glib and reductive analysis. Zero Dark Thirty is always aware of the moral and political complexities of war, but what makes it a great work of cinema is its awareness of the human cost above all.

[Philip Concannon]

With the majority of American films being terrified of approaching sex in anything like an honest fashion, the frankness and good humour of The Sessions is a welcome surprise. Not only does it deal with sex in a straightforward manner, but it also deals with the equally sensitive themes of disability and religion, all of which writer/director Ben Lewin pulls off skilfully. John Hawkes plays polio survivor Mark O’Brien, left largely paralysed from the neck down but determined to lose his virginity, which is where sex surrogate Helen Hunt comes into the picture. The warm, funny and neatly understated performances that Lewin draws from these actors (William H. Macy and Moon Bloodgood also excel) make up for his mundane TV-ish direction, but while The Sessions is a witty and moving film, there is one nagging caveat. For all of the film’s sexual openness, the double-standard of allowing Hunt to perform fully nude throughout while coyly covering Hawkes’ lower half is an egregious misstep. It seems some things are still taboo. [Philip Concannon]

Lincoln

Les Misérables

Director: Steven Spielberg Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook Released: 25 Jan Certificate: 12A

Director: Tom Hooper Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe. Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter Released: 11 jan Certificate:

rrrrr

rrrrr

Much has been made in the US press of Daniel Day-Lewis’s decision to adopt a high, reedy voice (instead of a stentorian baritone) to portray sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln, but for the non-American viewer, not schooled in Lincoln lore from an early age, this doesn’t prove distracting, despite the occasional hint of Grampa (Abraham) Simpson. Spielberg’s Lincoln is resolutely not a biopic, rather a vignette of the events leading to the pivotal moment in American history when slavery was finally abolished. We learn little about Lincoln’s journey to the White House; we don’t hear his famous Gettysburg address (except through the mouths of a few soldiers); at times, the intricacies of passing amendments in congress can be a little mystifying. But this is a warm, celebratory film, handsomely shot, with a subtle, sympathetic central performance from Day-Lewis, and tremendous support from Tommy Lee Jones, more craggy and engaging with every role, as sarcastic, flamboyant abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. [Jenny Munro Hunt]

Les Misérables, Tom Hooper’s follow-up to Oscar-bothering Heritage bromance The King’s Speech, offers all the pageantry of the 80s stage phenomenon, but also an arresting cinematic experience. Spanning 20 years from 1815 as France is engulfed by revolution, Hugh Jackman plays Jean Valjean. Released from a chain-gang to an equally bleak existence as parolee, Valjean is dogged by guilt and his former jailor Jarvet (Russell Crowe) as he encounters a variety of characters, each offering the ex-con a stab at redemption.

While the grander set-pieces astound, it’s the tightly framed, single-take delivery of the famous solos that provide intimate, emotive heft – Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne’s numbers are particularly devastating. The riotous Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen stand out as rapscallion landlords, the Thénardiers.

Crowe’s tuneless drone even endears in conjunction with his thinly-veiled glee at tackling a new genre. A bold filming of a theatrical classic, anyone with a fondness for the original production and a wee greet will lap this up. [Chris Fyvie]

V/H/S

The Wee Man

Director: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence Starring: Joe Swanberg, Hannah Fierman, Calvin Reeder Released: 18 Jan Certificate: 18

Director: Ray Burdis Starring: Martin Compston, John Hannah, Patrick Bergin, Stephen McCole, Laura McMonagle, Denis Lawson, Rita Tushingham, Clare Grogan Released: 18 Jan Certificate: TBC

rrrrr

rrrrr

Conceived and co-produced by Bloody-disgusting.com’s Brad Miska, V/H/S unites horror movie formats past (the anthology) and ever-present (found-footage), yet fails to fulfil its grisly potential. While the wraparound tales are rarely a highlight of such horror anthologies, Adam Wingard’s puerile and boring effort is particularly tiresome, while Ti West – director of the superb The Innkeepers and The House of the Devil, and therefore perhaps the contributor with the most genre pedigree – disappoints with a pedestrian stalk-and-slice trifle.

Throughout, the found footage conceit is overplayed, fostering a moribund monotony on what might have otherwise been a diverse omnibus, but it’s not all such a slog. Just about making it worthwhile are Joe Swanberg’s enjoyably daft offering, which delivers V/H/S’s most effective stingers despite its canny absurdity; and an intense finale from the Radio Silence collective, which side-lines story for an all-out assault on the nerves. But these late entries can’t salvage an otherwise stale collection that quickly outstays its welcome. [Chris Buckle]

This is the hagiography of St Paul – Ferris that is. The Glasgow gangland hall-of-famer whose life is laid out here on celluloid, yet left untarnished and in no way deconstructed. These are gangster gospels and like the good book itself seem comfortable in their mythologising. And this is how we begin, with cold monochrome stills of the gritty Glasgow of legend before moving onto the soft focus seventies sentimentality of Ferris’s youth. It picks up nicely as he cuts his way to the top of the criminal hierarchy but compared to his harsh but enjoyable autobiography this is a sanitised version; an undeniably watchable criminal soap opera offering personal redemption. The cast, formidable on paper, prove slightly less so on screen. Bergin seems intent on revenging Connery’s Untouchables accent by slipping into broad Irish as Glasgow Godfather Arthur Thomson Snr. Yet he still exudes a certain required menace which eludes some others here. Overall this is an interesting true story, only flawed in this standardised telling. [Alan Bett]

50 THE SKINNY

January 2013

What better way to kick off the new year than with one of the worst films ever made, Showgirls (14 Jan, GFT)? Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 tale of a girl’s rise to stripping stardom in Las Vegas picked up a whopping seven Razzies on initial release, with lead Elizabeth Berkley’s breasts even winning the Worst Screen Couple award – to be fair, they feature in almost every scene. Also starring Kyle MacLachlan and Gina Gershon, today this naked disaster is a camp, cult classic.

The DCA in Dundee is screening What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? on 20 Jan, starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. What starts as a twisted melodrama turns into an over-the-top psychological thriller, as the two veteran actors valiantly try to out-act each other. On paper, Davis may appear to be victorious – she gained her eleventh Oscar nomination for her portrayal of former child star ‘Baby’ Jane Hudson – but Crawford refuses to go down quietly as her sister Blanche, a Hollywood star now crippled after an accident.

The Introduction to European Cinema season returns this month, with an entirely new line-up.

Working with the University of Edinburgh’s Film Studies department, this programme of eight films, running from 16 Jan-6 Mar, are part of various courses at the university, but are also open to the public. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Day of Wrath begins the season, followed by Nicolas Roeg’s directorial debut, Performance (23 Jan), and François Truffaut’s romantic classic, Jules et Jim (30 Jan). Each screening is introduced by one of the University’s lecturers.

jules et jim

The Art School Union in Glasgow is hosting the latest Trashkino event on 16 Jan. Screening an eclectic selection of underground, arthouse, and experimental movies, this month’s pick is Bad Boy Bubby, a black comedy featuring incest, abuse, and murder, that has been compared to works by David Lynch and John Waters. The event is free, so don’t miss this opportunity to see this bizarre, disturbing, yet oddly poignant film.

One of the most influential American films of the 1990s, Pulp Fiction revitalised John Travolta’s flagging career, brought together one of the finest ensemble casts to date, created an iconic new dance routine, and answered that age old question: what do the French call a quarter pounder with cheese? With Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Django Unchained, released this month, head to the Filmhouse on 29 Jan to see how it compares to this, his second and, arguably, best directorial effort. [Becky Bartlett]

pulp fiction

REVIEW: DVD

Forbidden Games Director: Rene Clement Starring: Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Lucien Herbert Released: 7 Jan Certificate: 12

rrrrr When five year old Paulette, traumatised by witnessing the violent death of her parents only a short time before and still clutching the corpse of her little dog, appears on the doorstep of the Dollés, the rough but kindly peasant family take her in. They, too, have an injured family member close to death.

As his condition worsens, Paulette forms an intense bond with the family’s ten year old son, Michel, and they begin enact secret rituals in an attempt to cope with the reality of loss and death.

Set in 1940 as the Germans march into France, Forbidden Games is an absorbing portrait of the hardscrabble existence of the rural poor, for whom the war only intrudes in the sound of aeroplanes overhead and bombs in the distance. It is also a profound, and profoundly moving, study of the trauma that war visits on those least able to understand it, and has two performances by child actors of uncanny power. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

Baytown Outlaws Director: Barry Battles Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Eva Longoria, Paul Wesley, Daniel Cudmore Released: out now Certificate: 15

rrrrr The Baytown Outlaws is one of those films that come trailing the epithet ‘Tarantino-esque.’ The common denominator here is a cast of lowlifes waving their guns and talking trash. Throw in some over-the-top bad guys, some fancy camera moves and garish filters and, voila, we have Tarantinoesque. Or rather, we don’t. What is ignored by these comparisons is that Tarantino always ensures he has rock solid foundations for his more outlandish flourishes.

So, if you’re going to conjure up a gang of crazybiker-chick-assassins dressed like Christina Aguilera circa-Dirrty, or dreadlocked road pirates driving a truck with a crow’s nest, or Native American bikers who use bows-and-arrows and scalp their victims (did someone miss their cultural sensitivity training?), then at least make sure that their scenes are not a complete anti-climax. And don’t rely on Billy Bob Thornton to save the picture with a performance that he quite literally phones in on his mobile.

[Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

The Woodsman and the Rain Director: Shuichi Okita Starring: Koji Yakusho, Shun Oguri, Released: 28 Jan Certificate: 12

rrrrr When a film crew arrives in a small town in rural Japan, Katsu, a recently bereaved lumberjack, is initially unimpressed. But, after he is drafted by the assistant director first as a local guide and then as a reluctant zombie, he is bitten by the filming bug. He forms an unlikely friendship with the film’s painfully young and chronically shy director (Shun Oguri), who, when asked what his film is about, replies: “It’s about zombies swarming and doing stuff.”

The Woodsman and the Rain perfectly captures the way in which film crews gradually take over an area and the lives of its inhabitants one “small favour” at a time. The great Koji Yakusho brings a winning lightness to his performance as the taciturn Katsu. Director Shuichi Okita paints an affectionate and witty portrait of the business of exploitation film-making, framing his shots with a telling and understated elegance, and keeping the pace gentle enough for even the slowest-moving zombie.

[Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura Starring: Gaku Hamada, Eita, Ryuhei Matsuda Released: 14 Jan Certificate: 15

rrrrr This gentle Japanese film starts out as a nice guy, and nobody really likes a nice guy; they never get the girls. A meandering story of love, dogs and Bob Dylan is all very comfortable and cute but will have you tuning out. Then it flips. One character tells another “You’ve come into a story which is not your own,” and so it would seem if you had left the room to make tea at this point.

The sun sets on the twee opening and blood is drawn as pet mutilators are pursued through the sliding doors of alternate realities. It’s a dark, winding narrative with shocking scenes coming out of the blue, like being told horrible, unexpected truths in a glacial monotone. Reminiscent of Chungking Express in its two tone set up, and like that masterpiece it has a significant song as motif.

This time Blowing in the Wind, ‘the voice of God’ echoing through its surreal scenes. [Alan Bett]

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Director: Alain Resnais Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Pierre Arditi, Released: 7 Jan Certificate: PG

rrrrr Half a decade since his hypnotic feature debut Hiroshima Mon Amour, Alain Resnais’ latest reverie dissects many of the same themes: love and death, performance and identity, time and memory.

A meta-adaptation of two works by playwright Jean Anouilh, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet is overtly intellectual and formally audacious. Yet, as its title suggests, it’s lithe and playful with it, with a who’s who of French cinema playing fictionalised versions of themselves, summoned together to commemorate a departed dramatist friend.

As the thespians (including Lambert Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny and Michel Piccoli) watch a recorded performance of the deceased’s magnum opus Eurydice, they begin to interact with the onscreen Orphean drama, revisiting past roles while their surroundings shift and change around them. It’s an adventurous and cerebral undertaking, and while arguably more interesting in concept(s) than execution, it’s pieced together with skill by a filmmaker who, at 90, has evidently lost none of his passion for the art-form. [Chris Buckle]

Dark Nature Director: Marc de Launay Starring: Len McCaffer, Imogen Toner, Vanya Eadie Released: out now Certificate: 15

rrrrr The novelty value of a slasher film set in Scotland isn’t enough to save Marc de Launay’s confusing misfire. A sour-faced family of luvvies have a miserable time of it in the countryside and have to defend themselves against a deranged gamekeeper. Rather than fully embracing this simple concept, the script clumsily attempts to foster a sense of mystery and menace akin to the best of Peter Weir. But on a micro-budget and without the talent to support that vision, it comes across as pretentious and jarringly bad.

Worse still are the universally am dram performances. The family in particular are unconvincing except as bored actors reading from a script. Truly an ordeal for all the wrong reasons, it makes River City look like a Scorsese masterpiece. There are some terrific Scottish actors out there and some great directors, but none of that talent is evidenced here. Dull, amateurish and about as entertaining as a wet weekend in Millport. [Scotty McKellar]

January 2013

THE SKINNY 51

MONIKA SOSNOWKSA INSTALLATION VIEW COURTESY THE ARTIST AND THE MODERN INSTITUTE/ TOBY WEBSTER LTD, GLASGOW

ANDY HOPE 1930 DETOUR BLEU COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HAUSER & WIRTH

MONIKA SOSNOWSKA THE MODERN INSTITUTE UNTIL 16 FEB

ANDY HOPE 1930

rrrrr

INVERLEITH HOUSE UNTIL 20 JAN

rrrrr Meeting dinosaurs and partaking in a bit of evolutionary time travel are not everyday occurrences, but according to the work of artist Andy Hope 1930, they really ought to be. Inverleith House plays host to the first UK museum exhibition for the Berlin-based artist, who changed his name from Andreas Hofer in 2010 to create a fictional character for himself. Walking through the gallery, you meet a host of characters, ranging from dinosaurs, cowboys, time-travelling fish and cultural icons such as Linda Lee as Supergirl and French proto-surrealist Raymond Roussel.

That 30 of the 41 works on display were made in 2012, which makes the exhibition extremely current.

The show brings together the artist’s long-standing preoccupation with comics, sci-fi and the natural world. Indeed, he was inspired by a previous visit to

PHOTO: KEITH HUNTER PHOTOGRAPHY

art

REVIEW

the Botanic Garden’s Fern House, thus providing a context for the exhibition and the work F for Fish, where a time-travelling fish has inadvertently ended up as a fossil encased within a section of limestone.

But the piece that really brings the exhibition together is The Educational Dinosaur Movie Hall, in which an audience of prehistoric animals including a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Pterodactyl watch an animated film from the 1930s. The cardboard box-sized peep-show installation straddles the boundaries of time and reality, but is also humorous and fun. In this work, Hope 1930 is making the seemingly implausible plausible, questioning if it is so ridiculous for dinosaurs to be watching a B movie from the 30s. In the artist’s world of time travel, scifi and evolution, anything is possible. [Katie Rice] WWW.RBGE.ORG.UK/THE-GARDENS/EDINBURGH/INVERLEITH-HOUSE

Here, as ever, Monika Sosnowska’s inquiry into the psychology of architecture is writ large. Four architectonic structures dominate The Modern Institute’s Osborne Street space, their scale belonging to a much larger environment.

A freestanding metal industrial entranceway has been forced into a concertina shape, stretched out across the floor like a pop-up card, referencing zig-zag fire escape stairways as generic architectural tropes.

It also recalls Martin Boyce’s 2009 show where he installed an upended park bench, suggestive of undulating waves, in almost exactly the same position.

But unlike the tarnished, peeling bench, the surface of Sosnowska’s structures is immaculate – they have been painted after she has pushed and pulled and misshapen them.

Huge steel rods bent like plastic drinking straws are anchored inside concrete balls. The balls are gritty, as if they’ve rolled and picked up dirt. Stones, sand, coloured threads and even bits of tinsel are

lodged in there, though the overall look remains industrial.

The curling black rails of a factory ramp are reminiscent of a spiral staircase or an Art Deco structure, as well as the Warsaw factory site that they reference. But the rails are cut from a flat sheet of steel, approximations not up to standard for actual use, making them model-like and suggestive of Constructivist sculpture.

Sosnowska’s reconfiguration of the structures has misshapen them far beyond use, but they couldn’t have been used anyway, being crudely joined flat cut-outs of the constructs they reference. Despite having no firsthand knowledge of these buildings, you still get a sense of the structures’ impotence and defunctness. Lifted from a precise context, copied crudely, and transported to another setting, they become so generic as to represent merely a type – a type of art, of architecture; something unknown and yet recognisable. [Jac Mantle] WWW.THEMODERNINSTITUTE.COM/

ADVERTISING FEATURE: OWN ART

OWN ART AT INGLEBY GALLERY WORDS: JAC MANTLE

FEW CITY galleries are set against as beautiful a backdrop as Edinburgh’s Ingleby Gallery. Tucked behind the sprawl of Waverley Station, Ingleby is a sleek white cube with a view south-eastward to the untamed wilderness of Arthur’s Seat. You couldn’t get a better picture if you brought Sir Edwin Landseer back from the nineteenth century and had him paint it for you. And all those deer roaming around Princes Street would be mayhem.

Ingleby have made the most of this prime location with their Billboard for Edinburgh project.

Four times a year, they invite artists to decorate a billboard on the exterior of the gallery. Past commissions have included Ryan Gander, Tacita Dean, Ugo Rondinone and Craig Coulthard, the artist who recently built a full-size football pitch in a forest in the Borders. The ambitious public artwork saw men and women from around the world who now live in Britain play two amateur football matches, entering into the debate over whether Team GB would have a football team in the London Olympics.

The current billboard, by Susan Hiller, has evolved from her Homage to Marcel Duchamp series, in which she explores the phenomenon of ‘aura photographs.’ A technique perfected in the 1970s, the aura photograph is a Polaroid image that brings together a picture of the subject and the reading of a hand sensor that measures their heart rate and electrodermal temperature. Hiller

has been an avid collector of these images for years, constructing an extensive typology of coloured light casts, some of which she brings together in a multicoloured composition on the billboard.

As part of the Billboard project, artists also produce the image as a signed limited edition of 50 prints, which you can buy through the gallery, in turn going back into realising the project.

Unusual among privately-owned galleries in that it programmes offsite projects as well as gallery exhibitions, Ingleby is also marked out by showing the work of early career artists as well as established ones. It recently showed the work of ECA graduate Kevin Harman, who famously smashed a metal scaffolding pole through the window of the Collective gallery and presented the video footage for his masters degree show in 2009.

Harman’s show at Ingleby is less controversial, but similarly implicates the viewer, the other works in the gallery space and the street outside the gallery window. Titled When a tree falls, it includes a new sculpture in the form of a double-sided mirror which is framed in hand-carved oak and suspended from the ceiling, visible from the street. A small, single padlock between the two glasses seemingly holds them together whilst simultaneously locking itself into its own reflection. Rarely do you come across a gallery that both works with unpredictable enfant terrible types like Harman and waits on you with glasses of

Galleries across Scotland are members of the Own Art scheme. By offering interest-free loans of £100-£2,000 through Own Art, buying an original piece of quality contemporary art or craft couldn’t be easier. For more information about Own Art and a list of participating galleries see the Own Art website: www.ownart.org.uk Look for the pink logo. (representative 0% APR)

52 THE SKINNY

JANUARY 2013

SUSAN HILLER, LARGE STUDY FOR 'HOMAGE TO MARCEL DUCHAMP' BILLBOARD INSTALLATION (2012) COURTESY THE ARTIST AND INGLEBY GALLERY

bubbles at previews nights.

Harman’s Big Bang print is still available to buy from the gallery, where there is a wide selection of prints and artist books by a top roster of artists.

Ingleby is a peaceful, bright and airy place and you can easily spend whole afternoons choosing and perusing the works on display in the glass vitrines.

Current highlights include prints by artist and writer Harland Miller, whose paintings are showing in the gallery until 26 January. At first glance depicting the

covers of worn Penguin paperbacks co-opted by vintage shops everywhere, up close the paintings are just as rude and unapologetic as Harman’s work.

Dirty Northern Bastard by D. H. Lawrence and This Is Where It’s Fuckin’ At are two such delightful titles.

Now don’t say I didn’t warn you.

INGLEBY GALLERY OFFERS OWN ART TO HELP SPREAD THE COST OF BUYING ART. BUY ONLINE: WWW.CULTURELABEL.COM/SHOP/I/INGLEBY-GALLERY WWW.INGLEBYGALLERY.COM

Offer subject to age and status. Terms and conditions apply. You will need a UK bank account that can handle direct debits, proof of identity and address, and you will also need to be over 18. Own Art is operated by ArtCo Trading Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arts Council. Registered address: Arts Council England, North East, Central Square, Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3PJ

249 West George Street Glasgow G2 4QE

REVIEW

HARLAND MILLER INGLEBY GALLERY UNTIL 26 JAN

HARLAND MILLER, INCURABLE ROMANTIC SEEKS DIRTY FILTHY WHORE (2012) COURTESY THE ARTIST AND INGLEBY GALLERY

Harland Miller’s first exhibition in Scotland draws on his parallel career as a writer in his almost obsessive adaptations of Penguin book covers from the 1930s-60s. The show comprises a selection of large canvases and smaller works, including studies whose ostensible nostalgia belies their aggressive pessimism.

Immediately recognisable as copies of book designs seen in vintage shops everywhere, their form is reassuring in its familiarity. But Overcoming Optimism throws off the rose-tinted spectacles British culture has taken to wearing of late, replacing traditional Penguin fare with titles such as Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore and Heroin, It’s What Your Right Arm’s For. In his use of anti-romantic, anti-merchandising slogans Miller risks accusations of cliché, but by his own admission, his work satirises such “introspective stuff” and “macho shit.”

His personal experience of the publishing industry (his debut novel Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty was published in 2000) suggests that his real concern is the way in which literary politics and authorial interiority are sanitised by cosy packaging.

Nevertheless, born in the ‘grim north’ in 1964, Miller is not entirely damning of Britain’s tendency towards melancholy nostalgia. The geometric lines of classic 50s Penguin designs are disrupted by dripped and smudged paint and the artist’s pencil annotations, mimicking the wear and tear of a wellthumbed, rain-soaked volume. Browning pages are visible behind ageing covers and peeling spines.

Indeed, the works possess at once the tactile appeal of a good book cover and the visual impact of poster art. When viewed collectively, the large vertical canvases are imposing in their dynamic, painterly calm. Miller welds graphic and fine art to produce a visually arresting and tonally unified exhibition. [Eleanore Widger] WWW.INGLEBYGALLERY.COM/EXHIBITION/CURRENT

GET INVOLVED WE'RE LAUNCHING A MANCHESTER & LIVERPOOL EDITION THIS YEAR AND LOOKING FOR WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORS TO GET INVOLVED! KEEP AN EYE ON WWW.THESKINNY.CO.UK/ABOUT/GETINVOLVED FOR MORE INFO

PHOTO: MARY FREEMAN

rrrrr

JAMIE FITZPATRICK THE TELFER GALLERY

rrrrr Into the Hands of Housewives and Children continues Jamie Fitzpatrick’s fascination with the contentious issue of genetic research. The show takes its title from an article by outspoken theoretical scientist Freeman Dyson, on the domestication of biotechnology. The article foresees an Open Source future for biotechnology, wherein transgenic engineering will be commonplace and designing genomes will be a new art form practicable by everyone, like painting or sculpture.

The loaded, emotive tone of the quote (surprisingly, written in 2007, despite its dated disparagement of ‘housewives’) seems to imply irresponsibility on the scientists’ part – and a strong moral position staked by the artist.

Fitzpatrick, though, is being typically provocative.

Alongside some new ceramic works, he has presented his trademark ‘bastard taxidermy.’ A winged fox on the prowl pitches forward, nose to the ground, because its front legs are those of a much smaller animal. Even more disturbing, a waxy cock protrudes from its temples. Elsewhere, a swarm of disgusting winged creatures is suspended overhead

– right over your head, at close proximity, so that animals the size of cats could at any time snag their strings and drop their dead weight on you.

The ceramic works are no less crude. Titled Wedg Wood, the wall-mounted ceramic garlands of fruit and flora reference the blue and white stoneware of 18th Century potter Josiah Wedgwood, which were made widely affordable by innovations in mass production. Among flesh-toned squashes, marrows and bananas grow a penis and testicles, while the centres of delicately cut petals reveal discreet but unmistakable nipples.

In likening biotechnology to industrialisation, Fitzpatrick is suggesting that it will be the most important leap in technological progress in the 21st century. His ceramic assemblages are a succinct illustration of the ensuing possibilities, if less dynamic and viscerally affecting than the fox with a cock in the corner.

[Jac Mantle] RUN ENDED WWW.THE-TELFER.COM/INDEX.PHP?/INTO-THEHANDS-OF-HOUSEWIVES-AND-CHILDREN

TRISHA BAGA HOLIDAY

Estrangement Fatma Bucak Larisa Daiga Evariste Maïga Samuel Williams

Sat 8 December 2012–Sun 27 January 2013 Dundee Contemporary Arts Exhibition open: Tue–Sat 11:00–18:00, Sun 12:00–18:00, Thu 11:00–20:00. Closed 25 & 26 December and 1 & 2 January. Admission free.

Preview: Thursday 17 January, 5-7.30pm In-Conversation Event: Friday 18 January, 12.30 - 1.30pm Exhibition: 18 January - 16 February 2013 Mon - Fri 9.30 - 5, Sat 10.30 - 4.30

Cooper Gallery

DJCAD,University of Dundee, 13 Perth Road, Dundee, DD1 4HT www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 53

PREVIEW

A Taste of Honey

theatre

The Lyceum

Written by an 18 year old, A Taste of Honey introduced a fresh new voice to the British stage, challenging the lazy assumptions of class prejudice and refusing any easy answers to complex social questions.

Sounding more like the latest new playwright than a British classic, A Taste of Honey is revived at The Lyceum under the direction of Tony Cownie with an added poignancy due to author Shelagh Delaney’s death last year.

“When A Taste of Honey opened in 1958 it revitalised British Theatre,” says Cownie. “It inspired a new generation of writers and performers to tell their own stories in their own words.” Alongside the other angry young authors, who defined the ‘kitchen sink’ genre of social realism – still seen in the films of Ken Loach – Delaney demonstrated that theatre need not be a bland, hollow entertainment.

Unfortunately, as Cownie suggests, the agenda is still relevant today.

“The voiceless were given a voice,” he continues. “Racism, sexism, homophobia and the stigma of unmarried mothers given a platform for real hands-on debate.” The importance of political drama has become obvious as the ConDem government become more brazen in their austerity measures, and the disenfranchised are further disadvantaged.

“The dramas of the tenements, housing estates and bingo halls, social depravation and the experience of the forgotten backbone of our society were suddenly taking centre stage,” says Cownie. A Taste of Honey is no period piece, but ready to stand alongside the increasingly engaged theatre of Scotland’s contemporary angry young playwrights. [Gareth K. Vile] A Taste of Honey By Shelagh Delaney, 18 Jan-9 Feb www.lyceum.org.uk

the Maids

Venue of the Month: The Citizens The Skinny speaks to Dominic Hill, artistic director of the Citz interview: Gareth K Vile

photo: tommy ga-ken wan

Birds of Paradise – In An Alien Landscape

In An Alien Landscape is a co-production between Birds of Paradise theatre company and The Beacon. It emerges from playwright Danny Start’s residency with BOP, supported by the Playwright’s Studio.

Telling the story of Albie, who comes out of a coma to find himself compelled to paint, it discusses how art can be created to make sense of life.

Founded in 1990 by a group of disabled activists as part of the Glasgow City of Culture, BOP has always sought to encourage inclusion of disabled people in the arts. Their efforts have contributed to wider accessibility to colleges, training, and career development for disabled artists, while their own productions have become adventurous in finding new work and serious content.

In An Alien Landscape, says playwright Danny Start, “is based on true life experience. [Protagonist] Albie is based upon a friend of mine who struggled with a super-abundance of creativity after experiencing a double brain haemorrhage. For Start, the play reflects his own struggles. “My epilepsy has given me a particular outlook on life, where timelines cross and weave so close to the surface of everyday reality.

I saw, in Albie and my friend, my own experience writ large and out of control – and this is what fascinates me.”

BOP’s reputation has been built on solid scripts and a faith in the potential of disabled artists to make work that does not need to be patronised. In An Alien Landscape allows a new voice to speak of their experience. [Eric Karoulla and Gareth K Vile] Fri 1 Feb, The Beacon (Greenock), 7.30pm, £10/£8 01475723038 | www.beaconartscentre.co.uk Thu 7 Feb, Byre Theatre (St Andrews), 7.30pm, £11/£9 01334 475000 / www.byretheatre.com Fri 8 Feb, Macrobert (Stirling), 7.30pm, £10.50/£9/£7.50/£5 Sat 9 Feb, The Brunton (Musselburgh), 7.30pm, £11.50/£9.50/£6.50 Mon 11-Wed 13 Feb, The Arches (Glasgow), 7pm, £9/£6 (Mon) £11/£7 (Tue/Wed) Fri 15 Feb, Cumbernauld Theatre, 7.45pm, £9/£7

Last year, the arrival of Dominic Hill as artistic director of the Citizens was greeted with delight. Charging straight in with three heavyweight numbers – King Lear, Betrayal by Pinter and a Beckett double bill – Hill was making a clear announcement that his leadership would continue the legendary era of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald (1969- 2003), when the company became famous for reinterpreting classic texts in a funky, modern style.

After a successful Autumn Season, which saw Hill take a back seat as Glasgow Girls reimagined musical theatre as politically vibrant, the Spring Season seems to be taking the original promise forward.

Hill’s having a crack at Doctor Faustus, one of the few plays from the Elizabethan era to have a reputation that matches a Shakespeare, Stewart Laing is getting busy with The Maids – Laing’s maverick style perfect for Genet’s snide look at power hierarchies and the failed holiness of the criminal – as well as bringing back his Salon Project, which dresses the audience up in period clobber. Meanwhile, a team-up with the Lyceum has Donna Franceschild replay her TV drama Taking Over the Asylum on the stage. The season ends with another Hill direction, a pair of Caryl Churchills – Churchill has been called the greatest living playwright and has a scathing feminist bite to her writing.

Hill is clearly making sure that the Citizens has a clear identity.

Over the years – it opened as Her Majesty’s in the late ninetenth century – it has been mercurial: sometimes known for its democratic inclusiveness (cheap tickets for local residents, the foundation of a theatre company based on an early draft for a Scottish national theatre), its excellent work for young people (TAG is still an important

54 THE SKINNY

January 2013

part of the brand) or, as from 1969, a hotbed for experiment with the classics of British theatre.

Without necessarily going the whole ‘new writing’ route – it is clear that The Traverse in Edinburgh is enthusiastic on this – Hill’s season sees theatre as contemporary and relevant. His Faustus promises a swipe at consumerism, and Churchill’s Far Away is a dystopian horror that demonstrates how visceral a script can be.

But it is The Maids that kicks off the year. Stewart Laing might come from a familiar Scottish tradition of the director who designs, but his recent productions have seen him deconstruct the very nature of performance. The Salon Project mixed up the talents of visual artists, costumiers and public thinkers and by taking on Genet’s story of two women who would like to be glorious killers, he is grappling with one of France’s most sensational authors.

Moving into February, as a contrast, there is the anti-sectarian Divided City, directed by Guy Hollands, who has been making work for the venue for the best part of this decade. Although taking place over in Hamilton, it is a fine example of how the new Citizens is not afraid to reach out and tackle a tough problem.

With Hill delivering on his promises, Hollands moving out into the community, and Laing breaking various social taboos and theatrical presumptions, the Citizens is looking healthy. There’s plenty of nonsense written about how the venue reflects its Gorbal’s location – tough, determined, whatever – but here’s a programme that is setting the pace for performance that respects the old and enters the new.

The Maids, 17 Jan-2 Feb, 7.30pm www.citz.co.uk

Tue 26 Feb, Paisley Arts Centre, 2pm, £3 www.thearches.co.uk/events/arts/in-an-alien-landscape

REVIEW

comedy

WHAT’S ON

the TALENT 2013

I WAS A MISOGYNIST COMEDIAN

Mon 18 February 2013

Comedian Michael J Dolan takes himself to task for allowing himself to write misognystic jokes IN JUNE this year I put out my first stand-up record. Self-released, I tried to rattle up some press but mostly I was told to shove it. In the end I managed to get two reviews on indie comedy blogs and I was grateful for those. One was lovely.

Enthusiastic, positive, the kind of thing I was hoping for. The other called me a misogynist and compared me to Bernard Manning. I was a little bit fucking shocked.

My initial reaction was that this was clearly wrong. The writer had brought an agenda to the review, she’d mapped her own paranoia onto an entirely inoffensive show. I tried to laugh it off, forget about it but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop analysing my act, looking for where I’d crossed the line.

I don’t consider myself a misogynist, but then I’m pretty sure most misogynists don’t. That doesn’t mean they don’t hate the living shit out of all women, they just don’t know that they do.

Was I one of these deluded nutcases? Roaming the land’s stages barking sexual threats at terrified women all the while still thinking myself ever so modern?

I called a friend (hey, look at that, some of my best friends are women). Well-read when it comes to contemporary feminism, little gets past her. I thought she would tell me the reviewer was full of shit, that I had nothing to worry about and that would be that. I asked her straight if she thought that any of the material was misogynistic. She said yes.

Fuck.

We went through the show and she pointed out parts she wasn’t comfortable with. It was awful. I had been proud of this show, but looking at it now there are things I’d change. Some jokes I would remove entirely. Individually, they feel borderline.

Together, they work to colour the whole in a nasty woman-hating hue. There’s one joke towards the end of the record about tying up an ex and burying her alive which I now definitely consider to be the worst bit. That joke specifically is predicated on an act of violence against a woman and I believe that it speaks of a bigger problem in comedy.

I offer this observation, not as a defence, but by way of explanation. It’s easy to lose sight of yourself as a comedian. In most comedy clubs I performed in that joke would easily get the biggest laugh of my set. It was such a sure-fire hit that I’d close on it. On the record however, in front of the slightly hippie crowd at XS Malarkey in Manchester, it receives a deservedly muted response (and I’m flustered by that, you can hear it in how I move into the next routine).

The truth is that misogyny is rife in British standup right now. Step into any comedy club and see how long it takes until one of the acts calls a woman from the audience a slut for a cheap laugh.

See how many jokes revolve around the comic visiting violence on some imaginary girl and marvel at how well those jokes are received. Or just count the rape jokes. There may only be a few, but there will almost certainly be one or two.

Except that it isn’t just one or two. The defence so often used is that they’re only jokes. They’re not to be taken at face value, we obviously don’t mean it. But you’ll rarely hear a contemporary act try to justify racism that way. We know that in a culture of racism every racist joke contributes to that culture and that none of them are acceptable.

This is no different. In our culture of misogyny, of violence against women, every misogynistic joke contributes.

I wasn’t vigilant enough. I let things into my act that I shouldn’t have. I believe we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than we currently do and think beyond just crowd pleasing. The crowd don’t necessarily know what’s best for us.

The racist comedians of old were left behind as the rest of the world moved on, some wilfully refusing to change, some genuinely unable to see what was wrong with what they did. A new generation of comedians are about to be left behind.

Those peddling misogyny, homophobia or other varieties of hate to drunks who don’t know better are going to find themselves out of favour.

Usually when a comedian apologises for the horrible shit they got caught saying, it’s a climbdown for PR purposes. That’s not what this is. I know this because I didn’t really get caught. Sales of the record were insultingly low and not even my friends read the reviews, so I’m pretty sure no other fucker read them either. I’m not saying the work I put out is indefensible, just that I am no longer willing to defend it. Except maybe the cat bit.

Finally then, the worst part of this. After five months agonising over the content of my act and wrestling with all this self-loathing, after writing this piece which has taken me all of those months, I re-read the review in question only to find that it doesn’t actually call me a misogynist, it just says that some of my jokes about women are a bit shit.

Which they are.

Evidently I’ve got my own paranoid agenda.

I hate myself.

YOU CAN STILL ADD TO MICHAEL’S “INSULTINGLY LOW” SALES FIGURES BY DOWNLOADING THIS SHOW FROM BANDCAMP

Tue 19 February 2013

THE DRUMMERS OF JAPAN

BRENDAN COLE LICENCE TO THRILL Wed 20 February 2013

Fri 22 & Sat 23 February 2013

£10 STUDENT STANDBY TICKETS

*

BOX OFFICE 0131 529 6000

edtheatres.com

*Available in person after midday on the day with valid ID. Booking fees may apply. Registered charity SC018605.

MICHAELJDOLAN.BANDCAMP.COM

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 55

books

REVIEW

Maement

Spinach Soup for the Walls

by Various

By Lynn Harkes

rrrrr Maement is a nifty new writing journal, named for an old Scots word for ‘moment.’ No star rating here, because we let the Maement writers review their own book... in one sentence each.

Alana Calvert began, with this well-composed one-liner: “Probably one of the only cases where popping your publishing cherry has been pleasurable.” After begging off for more time, Kirsty Grant came up with: “You need to take a ‘moment’ to read this collection by new Scottish writers,” then put her head in her hands... “shut up, right, I know it’s cheesy.” Nadia Ness summed up the collection as “Growing up, falling in love, falling out and growing old,” greeted with a moan of “Aw Nadia, how can we top that one?” Alex McConnell tried the direct route with “This is a good moment for young Scottish Creative Writing.” Lewis Cheung went more direct with “It’s worth a shout,” revised later, to “It’s definitely worth a shout.” Lucy Hay elaborated: “Give us a chance, give us a read, buy the book.” And Judith Lodwick was more lyrical: “Maement tries to conceptualise the parts of people’s lives that are fleeting, and at least the easy ones will be there forever.” Take a look.

You can buy Maement from their website, and later, on Amazon

tech

www.maement.co.uk

There is no doubt this book has good intentions: beautifully written and graciously told, Spinach Soup for the Walls is a memoir of one woman’s travels and personal growth which aims to inspire the message in anyone who reads it that ‘all will be well.’ Harkes’ grasp on life is extraordinary, and certain chapters such as The Saddest Farewell, where Harkes discusses the loss of her father, are deeply touching, as they should be.

However, even with Harkes’ globe-trotting revisited, the book somehow seems uneventful, and in regards to continent-jumping, concentrates on the more mundane aspects of travelling such as the transportation and set-up of her many new homes (yes, many. All is indeed well).

As beautifully written as it is, her description throughout is consistently verbose, which unfortunately may lead readers to check once too often when one chapter ends and the next chapter begins. Nevertheless, and more importantly, her spiritual journey and state of mind, from despair to joyful living, is the intent. It is written with an honesty and integrity which doesn’t seem forced.

Spinach Soup for the Walls offers touches of Eat, Pray, Love, but on a smaller scale, if that’s a recommendation. [Amy Balloch]

The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard

By Tom Léger and Riley MacLeod (editors)

rrrrr Showcasing short fiction with transgender themes, The Collection differs from its predecessors through its prioritisation of the perspectives of transgender people themselves. There are no morality tales here of cis people overcoming bigotry through a chance meeting with a transgender person, and neither is there room for the oversimplified trope of someone coming to terms with a feeling that they’re ‘trapped in the wrong body.’ The Collection’s protagonists are trans people with other things going on in their lives besides being trans – however, the stories here recognise that their gender identities inform how they experience these other things. Spanning a range of genres, this book succeeds in presenting an overall high quality of writing. Standout pieces include Casey Plett’s Other Women, a hugely relatable story of a queer trans woman returning to her hometown for Christmas; Red Durkin’s A Roman Incident, about a teenager whose ticket out of small-town Alabama is a speed-eating contest; and Ramona’s Demons, Susan Jane Bigelow’s engaging supernatural adventure. Although these highlights focus on trans women, the book also offers worthwhile reads about trans men and those who don’t fit into the gender binary. A groundbreaking anthology – here’s hoping for a sequel. [Nine] Out now. Published by Topside Press. Ebook

Through a Touchscreen Darkly

3D Printing: It’s not quite ‘there’ yet, still out of reach of having a cheap desktop box churning out Kinder Egg toys, but it’s close enough that there are online services where you can submit a 3D model (or choose one you like), pick your material, and in a few days you’re sent a real-world printout you can hold in your hand. Have a cool jewellery or phone stand idea? Print away. Buying something that has been stored in a warehouse will stop mattering – for digital, you can download, and for physical, you can now download that too.

THE FEED

Tech & TV: It was supposed to happen this year, with all the hoopla at CES, but there was too much faff and not enough substance, between YouView limping out of the gate and the Nexus Q not even making it off the starting block. But this year, everyone is starting to get their act together and actually make TV and tech make sense, from games to interactive ads to social updates with and without using tablets and mobiles. With Apple hinting that they’re getting into the game as well, this is the time for the last screen in the house to

The Seven Wonders of Scotland brings together seven authors’ imagined Scotlands of the future – examining fantastical worlds where Rannoch Moor houses a Pleasure Palace and we’ve fathomed a solution to global warming. Treading the line between utopia and dystopia, the stories comment heavily on contemporary Scotland. Glasgow Flourishing portrays a self sufficient Glasgow: waste lands are converted into orchards, livestock graze in Queen’s Park and Byres Road is actually a byre. With free food growing everywhere Glasgow is closing the poverty gap that makes the UK the fourth most unequal country in the developed world. The Sectarium explores a Scotland where sectarian expression is illegal outwith the Sectarium. Here the churches sit abandoned while the Protestants and Catholics who refuse re-education compete in a bloody version of football, highlighting the lack of faith in a religious divide now entirely focused on hate. Amongst the provocative social commentary the collection offers some lightheartedness in The Burrows, which derides the predictability of the modern Scot. When abandoned subway tunnels are connected to create a subterranean country Scotland simply repeats itself below ground. High street chains line the streets, ramblers seek out unpopulated caves and rumours abide that Robert the Bruce once passed through. [Rowena McIntosh]

rrrrr

words: Alex Cole

4G: It’s been talked about enough, and EE has made its announcements to not-much fanfare, but if you buy a phone next year, chances are it’ll be all 4G-ified and be superfast at internetting.

Mostly, this will mean faster YouTube downloads and mapping, since those are the most intensive tasks we do with mobiles, but the sticking point is the cost and the data caps, both of which are so outlandish, 4G will probably feel more like a ‘this is how it should be’ upgrade, rather than a ‘why-ohwhy have I waited so long for this’ upgrade.

rrrrr

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

2013 in technology will be a strange, wonderful place, but pretty much like this past year

get sweet internet hookups.

By Edited by Gerry Hassan

Out now. Published by Birlinn. Cover price £9.99

Out now. Published by Local Legend. Cover price £8

It’s an old New Year’s tradition to gather round the fire with loved ones, grab a cup of hot cocoa, and whinge about this past year’s tech and gadgets, with a wistful, almost child-like hope for something better in the future, something that would be so awesome if only you had a say in it.

Well, it wouldn’t because your last encounter with technology consisted of violently shaking the toaster before realising that the switch on the outlet wasn’t on. But that won’t stop you from making a call on the things to look out for in the year to come, since that went so well for my predictions last year.

The Seven Wonders of Scotland

3d printed frog

Ambient Tech: Another one that keeps evolving in little ways, but the truth is, your mobile and tablet will become enablers to everything you do. With NFC starting to appear in phones, your mobile will be able to respond to location-specific events, you can pay for a flight, pay for the food, and board said flight all without ever carrying a wallet. You’ll get offers when you walk by shops, get directions to the party as your phone reads through your calendar, and never scrounge for a fiver just to get a coffee. It’s still not a paperless society, but when it’s no longer as cool to get someone’s number than it is to just type it into your mobile, you know which way the wind is blowing.

Games haven’t been around long enough for there to be a real gulf between old classics and new remakes so it often feels like no time at all has gone by between the two. In the case of X-COM, however, the original stretches back all the way to 1994, when some current gamers hadn’t even been born. And part of the charm of the original was the hallmark of games back then – being horrifically, brutally cruel. UFO: Enemy Unknown, AKA several different titles, was famous for killing off your best squad members and then continuing the game without them – making you pay for every lost soldier.

The remake, with a new studio, tries to recapture all the alien-killing tactics, and especially some of the things that made the original great. As the CO in charge of the secret unit X-COM, you have to fend off an alien invasion, keep the nations of the world happy, trade for resources to advance your squad’s technology, and in general, not just fight the battles, but manage the war like a football team owner.

The remake looks pretty solid, but there are still quite a few bugs left in the game, and play balance issues galore, especially in multiplayer. It’s a fun enough campaign for master tacticians, and it shows a huge amount of potential for the return of turn-based strategy, but ultimately, needs a lot of work to take it from ‘fun’ to ‘brilliant.’ [Alex Cole]

Apple Maps leads people into middle of Australian outback instead of civilisation • Valve announces plans to make own console for Steam, give Microsoft and Sony middle finger • Google Now coming to Chrome so that digital stalker can follow you to all your devices • The Hobbit shown at 48 fps, which is great for gamers and makes nostalgic moviegoers miss silent films • Apple wants to build Macs in America, unsure whether sweatshop model will still apply • Iran gets totally original YouTube clone, not at all based on popular video uploading site

56 THE SKINNY

January 2013

COMPETITIONS

nevada who will be peforming at gff in 2013

WIN TICKETS TO BALLETBOYZ Following triumphant UK and international appearances on stage and screen, this phenomenally popular company featuring 10 exceptional young dancers presents an exhilarating evening of exciting and explosive dance. The show premieres two stunning new dance pieces by internationally celebrated choreographers Russell Maliphant and Liam Scarlett.

BalletBoyz is one of the most cheekily original and innovative forces in modern dance. Led by former Royal Ballet lead dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, the company thrills audiences and critics the world over with its distinctive style, fusing spectacular dance both energetic and graceful, with stunning music and film.

To be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets to see Balletboyz at the Festival Theatre, simply head to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and answer this question:

Which company did Balletboyz founders Michael Nunn and William Trevitt used to dance with? a) Diversity b) The Rockettes c) The Royal Ballet Competition closes Tue 19 Jan. Winners will be notified on the day of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. For full terms and conditions, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/about/terms.

BalletBoyz, Mon 18 Feb, 7.30pm, Edinburgh Festival Theatre For more information on Balletboyz visit www. edtheatres.com/balletboyz.

With over 35,000 admissions to more than 350 events, Glasgow Film Festival 2012 was the fastestgrowing and third-biggest film festival in the country.

The 2013 Festival begins on Valentine's Day and runs until Academy Award night on 24 February. Glasgow Film Festival's growing popularity is anchored in the programme's wide range of individual strands that target specific areas of interest, bringing together themed screenings, special guests and an outstanding range of citywide tie-in events to reach a huge spectrum of audiences.

For 2013, the Festival offers three new strands: James Cagney: Top of the World, Ma! is a retrospective of one of Hollywood's original tough guys; Buena Onda: New Brazilian Cinema is a celebration of exciting new voices and award-winning achievements in Brazilian cinema; while Game Cats Go Miaow! is curated by Robert Florence and celebrates Scotland's passion for gaming. Annual favourites include Glasgow Youth Film Festival (3–13 February); Glasgow Short Film Festival (7–10 February); Great Scots; Crossing the Line, our experimental visual art strand; Fashion in Film; Glasgow Music & Film Festival, and FrightFest.

Win a ten film Early Bird ticket and choose from any standard price film in GFF from 14 - 24 February.

Ticket choices must be emailed by 16 January. This offer excludes the Opening Gala, Closing Gala and special priced events. Subject to availability. The

WIN A TEN FILM PASS FOR GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Early Bird Pass allows up to two tickets per screening. For more information, please see www.glasgowfilm.org/festival/earlybird For your chance to win head along to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and answer this question: James Cagney is known for which 1938 gangster flick? a) Gangsters with Dirty Faces b) Angels with Dirty Hands c) Angels with Dirty Faces d) Back to The Future Part II Competition closes Mon 14 Jan. Winners will be notified on the day of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. For full terms and conditions, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/about/terms.

Join us for a magical month of movies, guests and premieres!Tickets go on sale on 17 Jan. Glasgow Film Festival, 14-24 Feb.

January 2013

THE SKINNY 57

LISTINGS

E D I N B U R G H music Fri 04 Jan

Wed 09 Jan

Sun 13 Jan

Sly Swiggs and the Warcorps

Adam Holmes and The Embers

Cranachan

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, Free

Edinburgh-based quartet of the funky-psychedelic-rap variety.

Thirteen-Seven Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Edinburgh-based modern rock trio make their first outing of 2013, showcasing their current EP alongside some brand new material.

Brontide (Carnivores, Skippy Dyes) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £6

Brighton instrumental math-rock trio, flowing seamlessly between myriad atonal crescendos, delicate spidery arpeggios and chugging riffs.

Henry’s X-Mess Party (The Incendiary Bats, Mayonnaise, Pal) Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–03:00, £4

Henry’s host their annual January Christmas Party (we’re sure it makes sense to them), featuring bands that the staff at Henry’s play in, plus miniature party food and tinsel.

Obviously.

Intimate and electric blues from Potts and his merry band.

Trav Sessions (Michelle Hughes) Traverse Theatre, 20:00–22:00, Free

Regular sessions night where the Traverse bar is taken over by a selection of live Edinburgh acts.

Fri 11 Jan

Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £5

Sax Ecosse Usher Hall, 11:00–12:00, £3 (students free)

Vibrant sax quartet who passionately advocate original repertoire for saxophone.

The Edinburgh-based folk-meetsbluegrass seven-piece kick off their new album tour with a hometown set.

Jolly blend of swirling fairground melodies, orchestral genius and good ol’ fashioned rock.

Both Barrels (Eskimo Party)

Tue 08 Jan

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £4

Band of brothers playing an eclectic mix of indie and sax funk at their monthly curated night.

Bannermans, 21:00–23:00, Free

Southern Tenant Folk Union

Stanley

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Jed Potts and the Hillman Hunters

Ska for Sick Kids (Bombskare, This R 2 Tone, Big Fat Panda)

G&G Sindikatas

Mon 14 Jan

Celebration of all things ska, featuring Edinburgh’s original nine-piece ska juggernaut, Bombskare, known for reaching zero to 60 in the space of three chords. All profits go to The Sick Kids Friends Foundation.

The hard-working 70s rockers return, much to their devoted fans pleasure.

Ded Rabbit

Sun 06 Jan

The Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:00, £22.50

Bannermans, 21:00–23:00, Free

Thu 10 Jan

The favourited chamber orchestra take in Shubert’s Great C major, which for most of the 19th century was considered unperformable.

Dunfermline-based hard rock quartet adept at creating a stadiumfilling sound where e’er they go, as their name might suggest.

Sat 12 Jan Faster Pussycat (The Art, Psycho Sunday) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £13

The LA sleaze kings return to play a greatest hits set, including a batch of tunes not played since ‘91.

The 23’s Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Good ol’ indie rock’n’roll from the Musselburgh five-piece.

Caravan (Garron Frith)

Februs (The Scabby Queens) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £4

The Voodoo Rooms, 19:00–23:00, £7

Sauza Kings (Black Magic, Dark Fall)

Tue 15 Jan

Kilkcaldy heavy rockers Sauza Kings headline a rock-heavy night down’t Bannermans.

Jemma Brown Usher Hall, 11:00–12:00, £3 (students free)

The super young mezz-soprano plays accompanied by pianist Maryam Sherhan.

Wed 16 Jan Jammin’ at Voodoo The Voodoo Rooms, 21:00–23:00, Free

Monthly live jam session with a selection of Scottish musicians playing lounge grooves from myriad genres.

Trav Sessions (David Heavenor, Holm) Traverse Theatre, 20:00–22:00, Free

Regular sessions night where the Traverse bar is taken over by a selection of live Edinburgh acts.

Thu 17 Jan Kung Fu Academy (Keli Thompson) The Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–01:00, £5

Post-punk Edinburgh quartet combining infectious funk rhythms with lush harmonies and poptastic hooks, launching their new EP on the night. After-party until 1am with DJ Callum Russell (of Stacks).

Scottish Chamber Orchestra: The Little C Major The Queen’s Hall, 19:30–19:30, From £10

Superpusher Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £4

Italian stoner rock with added groove.

Trav Sessions (The OK Social Club)

Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Yawns (Plastic Animals, Garden Of Elks) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Local blogger Song, By Toad hosts a headline set from Glasgow’s The Yawns, who expertly blend lo-fi garage rock and indie pop in one sunny whole.

Sun 20 Jan Cranachan Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, Free

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

Passenger (Stu Larsen) The Caves, 19:00–23:00, £9

Mothertone (One Man Revival, Sixth Avenue Traffic) Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5

C-tuned heavy rock quartet from Edinburgh, taking pride in assaulting the ears of many.

Siphon (Donnie Willow, November Orchid, The Directors) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Modern rock trio taking their cue from Foo Fighters and the like.

Rally & Broad (JL Williams, Ryan Van Winkle, Alan Bissett, Seafieldroad, Kite and The Crane) Counting House, 20:00–23:00, £5

The celebration of spoken word, music, and other such lyrical loveliness returns for 2013, taking in readings from JL Williams, Ryan Van Winkle and Alan Bissett, plus live music from Andrew Eaton-Lewis (of Swimmer One)’s solo project, Seafieldroad.

Broken Boy (Moving Magnets) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £5

Fife and Dundee-hailing trio of the alternative indie-rock variety.

Ottermatic (The Omega Corridor, Nightmare Frequencies) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Brighton-based indie-popsters who obviously win extra points for the pun-tastic name... And the fact they have an otter as their profile picture on Facebook.

Sat 19 Jan Vukovi (The Mirror Trap, A Fight You Can’t Win) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6 adv.

Kilwinning experimental rockers headed by the rather magnificent (read: at screaming) Janine Shilstone.

Rescheduled date.

The 23’s (The Well Rested, Green Tambourine Band) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Good ol’ indie rock’n’roll from the Musselburgh five-piece.

Sat 26 Jan Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Romantic Century The Queen’s Hall, 19:30–19:30, From £10

Conductor Andrew Manze leads a romantic-themed piece, including a new take on Beethoven’s Symphony No 1.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Cherri Fosphate (Versus Versus, Queen Jane, The Barrels)

Have Mercy Las Vegas Broadcast, 20:00–23:00, £5

Energetic blues and folk hybrid, formed on the shores of Loch Lomond.

Eldritch Scanty (Grand Central, John McIain Band, Colin James Murphy) Stereo, 19:00–22:30, £6 adv. (£8 door)

Melodic Glasgow quartet playing a fine mix of in-yer-face mystic rock and blues.

Sun 06 Jan Latecomers Avant Garde, 20:15–20:30, Free

Acoustic pop loveliness from the Glasgow-based outfit.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Miaoux Miaoux (Roman Nose, Organs Of Love) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

Mon 07 Jan

The Voodoo Rooms, 19:00–23:00, £10

New York singer/songwriter whose Americana-inspired sound takes in elements of soul, blues and folk.

Tue 22 Jan Manran Usher Hall, 11:00–12:00, £3 (students free)

Traditional Scottish ensemble combining driving accordion, fiddle, Highland pipes, Uilleann pipes and wooden flute in one damned impressive whole.

Teviot Underground, 19:30–22:00, £5

Vintage-styled evening featuring live music from Homesick Aldo, Opium Kitchen and Pyrokatz CanCan, bolstered by a selection of vintage stalls and original photography prints for sale on the night. In aid of Maggie’s Centre Edinburgh and Marie Curie.

Sun 27 Jan Cranachan Bannermans, 21:00–23:00, Free

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £16

Cave Painting (Maginot Band, Chateaux)

Wed 23 Jan

Ambient Brighton band gently traversing the line between chilloot and tropical, last seen on tour with Alt-J.

The Blackout High energy rockers, known for their party-hard attitude.

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £17

Lost Angels (The Scams) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £10

Sunset Strip covers group featuring former Alice Cooper guitarist Eric Dover.

Trav Sessions (Combo Combo) Traverse Theatre, 20:00–22:00, Free

Regular sessions night where the Traverse bar is taken over by a selection of live Edinburgh acts.

Thu 24 Jan Rossi Noise (Universal Thee, This Way Up) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Newcastle quartet, heavy on the dub-referencing beats.

John Murry The Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–23:00, £8

The Bay Area (by way of Mississippi) songwriter and noisemaker plays a set of his sparse and emotive rock’n’roll.

Electric Circus, 20:00–22:30, £7 adv.

glasgow M U sic Thu 03 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Waiting For Go (Waiting On Jack, Classic Wheels, Seams) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) kicks off with a headline set from Clydebank’s Waiting On Jack, carving out their own amiable brand of swaggering indie noise.

Fri 04 Jan Brontide (Vasa, Bellow Bellow) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 20:00–22:00, £6

Brighton instrumental math-rock trio, flowing seamlessly between myriad atonal crescendos, delicate spidery arpeggios and chugging riffs.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Blindfolds (The Begbies, The Gazelles, Radio Arcade)

The Glasgow Slow Club Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Kitty The Lion (The Sunshine Social, Campfires In Winter) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from local folkpop darlings Kitty The Lion.

The Sword O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Austin-hailing heavy metalers touring on the back of their new album, Apocryphon.

Tue 08 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Exile The Traitor (15 Times Dead, Maelstrom, Blood Thread) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with melodic death metallers Exile The Traitor on headlining duties.

Ron Pope Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

American rock-meets-pop singer/ songwriter raised in Georgia, but currently residing in NYC.

Wed 09 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Fluorescent Hearts (One Good Reason, Skippy Dyes, Whispery Club) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from Glasgow pop-rock foursome Fluorescent Hearts, built of guitars, bass, drums and Chris Ashton’s vocal melodies.

Thu 10 Jan Cast The Net (Eilidh Hadden) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

Bi-monthly showcase taking in a handpicked selection of exciting new Scottish artists and bands.

Trav Sessions (The Litigators)

Apex Collective

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Honeyblood (Secret Motorbikes, The Reverse Cowgirls, Baby Strange)

Traverse Theatre, 20:00–22:00, Free

Glasgow melodic rock quatet, formerly known as Synesthesia.

Confessions of an Arsonist (Bound by the Sea) Bannermans, 20:00–23:00, £4

Melodic hardcore crew hailing from the fiery musical furnace that is Dumfries.

Regular sessions night where the Traverse bar is taken over by a selection of live Edinburgh acts.

Fri 25 Jan Peter And The Test Tube Babies Citrus Club, 19:00–22:00, £9 adv. (£13 door)

Street punk classics from the 70s formed rascals, who came to life in frontman Peter Bywaters’ dad’s garage.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from Glasgow blues-rockers Blindfolds.

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £8

Kid Robotik (Megamegaman, Sharmus, King Keytan) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Glasgwegian dubstep-meetship-hop experimentalist takes to the fore.

Sat 05 Jan Trongate Rum Riots Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:00, £5

Scottish ensemble comprising seven lads and one lass making their own brand of folk-punk songs, or ‘hypersea shanties’ as they call ‘em.

King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

The Little Illusions (Dolphin Vs Shark, Mistake Pageant)

My Music Crush

Nell Bryden

Tue 15 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Little Eye (Callum Frame, The Ashtones, Lori McTear)

King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from local indierock foursome Cherri Fosphate.

Mon 21 Jan

Manchester-based collective who specialise in r’n’b-infused guitar pop, currently touring their new EP.

Fri 11 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Chris Devotion and The Expectations (Poor Things, Black International, Fat Goth) King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with the no-nonsense new-wave of Chris Devotion and The Expectations, packed to the gills with big hooks, boundless charm and lean songwriting.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £7 adv.

Fri 18 Jan Edinburgh rock’n’rollers infusing their sound with a splash of country and blues, as per the law.

The Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £5 earlybird (£7 thereafter)

Beloved gig-in-a-club night, this time taking in a headline set from alternative country lads and lasses The Gillyflowers – who’ll be previewing tracks from their new album on the night.

The Flowers In The Dustbin lot present their regular showcase night, with acts still to be revealed.

The 1975

The NYC-formed 90s rockers hit the road once more, taking in Edinburgh as the very first date of their new tour.

The Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, Free

Limbo (The Gillyflowers, King Eider, Hailey Beavis)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Brighton born singer/songwriter Mike Rosenberg’s pared back new guise (i.e. five piece band becomes one).

Spin Doctors (Earl of Caithness)

The Holy Ghosts

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £14 adv.

Five-strong hip-hop crew consisting of three MCs, alongside Lithuanian DMC champion DJ Mamania and producer Donciavas.

Seditionaries

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with Miaoux Miaoux man Julian Corrie providing the subtly layered beats and rushes of distorted guitar

Traverse Theatre, 20:00–22:00, Free

Regular sessions night where the Traverse bar is taken over by a selection of live Edinburgh acts.

January 2013

The Livi quartet offer up another smack-to-the-face slice of alternative rock.

Februs headline a night of rock’n’punk-styled fun.

The favourited chamber orchestra take in Shubert’s Symphony no 6, aka Little C major, with a pre-concert talk with conductor Richard Egarr (6.30pm).

58 THE SKINNY

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £11.50

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra take in Dvorák’s Eighth Symphony. Pre-concert talk with RSNO cellist Peter Hunt (6.45pm).

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

The Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

Sat 05 Jan

RSNO: Dvorák Eight

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£4)

Rootsy-pop singer/songwriter Adam Holmes plays accompanied by his five-strong band of players, The Embers.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra: The Great C Major

Penfold (The Sunset Clause, Benny Monteux)

G lasgow music

King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with Glaswegian garage rock duo Honeyblood taking to the fore.

Gary Barlow SECC, 18:30–22:00, From £35

The Take That frontman takes to the grandiose surrounds of the SECC, for your general pleasure.

Broadcast, 20:00–23:00, £5

Glasgow-based rock’n’rollers built on a quiet/loud cacophony of catchy licks and sweet harmonies.

Storm of Embers (Norderobring, In Depth And Ocean, Man Made Origin) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Glaswegian trio on vocals, bass, guitar and drums, who claim to be ‘inspired by that which moves us’.

Sat 12 Jan Hector Bizerk Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:00, £5

Glasgow-based alternative hip-hop duo, made up of Louie and Audrey, MC and drummer respectively.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward and Fisher (Davey Horne, Sienna) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from Dundonian supergroup Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward and Fisher – pooled from various Dundee bands, including The Law and Luva Anna.

Handpicked Cassette Launch: Part I (Arm Wtchs Fngrs, Bessa, Chris Martin, Inkke, Jazz Spastiks, Jetsam, Mirrors, Mr Tuner, Scatabrainz, Yutani) The Art School Union, 16:00–00:00, Free (£2 after 8)

Compact Glasgow label Handpicked host the first part of their two-part party, featuring a showcase of live bands and DJ sets from the artists involved in their first release.

The Jackhammers (Halfrican) Broadcast, 20:00–23:00, £5

Glasgow-based punk racket-makers led by vocalist and bassist Jim Shit (FYI, their guitarist goes by the name Horace Cockpuppet – you hopefully get the general idea).

Adopted As Holograph Stereo, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

Sluts of Trust’s John McFarlane launches his new EP under his Adopted As Holograph guise.

Dave Arcari and Mick Hargan The Roxy 171, 20:00–22:00, £10 adv.

Talented blues rocker Dave Arcari plays a double-headliner set with Glasgow singer/songwriter Mick Hargan.

Handpicked Cassette Launch: Part II Saint Judes, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3 with pass)

Compact Glasgow label Handpicked host the second part of their 11-hour session, with a selection of the label’s contributors, as well as the heads over at I Hate Fun, taking to Saint Judes’ basement.

Sun 13 Jan King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Michael Edgar (Ryan Joseph Burns, Callum Baird, Stephanie Manns) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with Michael Edgar headlining a special singer/songwriters’ night.

Miguel O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

LA native equipped with a healthy set of vocal chords, adept at the ol’ honeyed falsettos on love’n’heartbreak.

Mon 14 Jan The Glasgow Slow Club Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Haight Ashbury (Red Sands, The Starlets) King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a headline set from Glaswegian trio Haight Ashbury, all heartflipping indie grrrl harmonies, grunged-up guitars and shimmering rock soundscapes.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with recently-formed Glaswegian power-pop quartet Little Eye playing a headline set.

Wed 16 Jan Latecomers Avant Garde, 20:15–20:30, Free

Acoustic pop loveliness from the Glasgow-based outfit.

Dropkick Murphys Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £18.50

Boston rockers who started playing in the basement of a friend’s barbershop back in the 90s, blending the musical influences they grew up with – punk-rock, Irish folk and hardcore – into one chaotic whole.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Fatherson (Michael Cassidy) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) continues with a special acoustic set from Kilmarnock pop-meets-rock trio Fatherson, joined by a selection of pals for the evening.

Kendrick Lamar O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

The Compton hip-hop emcee, formerly known as K. Dot, tours his debut album proper.

Thu 17 Jan Asking Alexandria Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £16

Hardcore-meets-screamo inspired rock’n’roll from the English fivepiece, led by Danny Worsnop.

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution: Younger (The Clock, Luca, Aames) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution schedule (3-17 January) draws to a close with a headline set from alternative quartet Younger.

Celtic Connections 20th Celebration Concert (Sheena Wellington, Eddi Reader, Julie Fowlis, Flook, Cara Dillon, Capercaillie, Chris Stout, Finlay MacDonald, Phil Cunningham) Royal Concert Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £20

Official opening concert for Celtic Connections 20th year, harking back to the more traditional Scottish sounds that were the festival primary inspiration from the off – with sets from Julie Fowlis, Cara Dillon and Phil Cunningham, amongst others.

Fri 18 Jan Somatic (Soldier On, Good Daze) Broadcast, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Clydebank-based indie-rockers play a headline set, anthemic choruses all well and in place.

Martin Stephenson and the Daintees Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £14

British rockers fusing elements of rockabilly, show tunes and rootsypop into their mix.

The New Piccadillys King Tut’s, 20:30–23:00, £8

Glasgow quartet taking their cue from the sounds of yesteryear, inspired by the 60s with a 70s punkrock sensibility.

The Sweet Melindas (Bronagh Monahan) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 20:00–22:00, £2

The Edinburgh sextet bring their foot-stomping brand of folk-rock Glasgow-way as part of their 2013 Scottish tour.

Sat 19 Jan Young Fathers Broadcast, 20:00–23:00, Free

The Scottish hip-hop trio return with their rather glorious line in DIY rap and synchronised dance moves – launching their new EP on the night, having finally graduated with a record deal from Anticon.

Fantastic Man Bloc+, 23:00–03:00, Free

Messy Saturday night uber-disco featuring a rotating schedule of live talent.

Passenger (Stu Larsen) The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £9 adv.

Brighton born singer/songwriter Mike Rosenberg’s pared back new guise (i.e. five piece band becomes one).

GLASGOW REBEKKA KARIJORD (PLUM, LOUDON)

WED 23 JAN

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7.50

BELL X1

KILA (MÀNRAN)

Damien Rice’s former group do their strings and melodies-laden indie troubadour thing, as part of their current acoustic tour.

Talented Stockholm-based musician and composer, who’s created music for over 30 films.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Innovative Irish roots ensemble who’ve earned their chops over the past 20-years on the live circuit.

Part of Celtic Connections.

THE HAZEY SHADES (RIPLEY, THE CAVALIERS, THE BLINDING, MICHAEL MCGRUN) MAGGIE MAY’S, 19:30–22:00, £6 (£4)

The Glasgow rock’n’rollers play a selection of new songs for your aural delectation.

SARAH SLEAN STEREO, 19:30–22:30, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

The multi-faceted Canadian singer, songwriter and pianist plays an acoustic set.

WASHINGTON IRVING AND OLYMPIC SWIMMERS ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £8

Special double-headliner set from local indie-folksters Washington Irving and melancholic Glasgow ensemble Olympic Swimmers. Part of Celtic Connections.

CARLOS NÚÑEZ ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £20

The celebrated Spanish musician plays a special set on the gaita; the traditional Galician bagpipe. Part of Celtic Connections.

NEW PROJECTS THE ART SCHOOL UNION, 15:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

One-off event between Sleazy’s and The Art School, spanning the audio and visual fields – promoting new and innovate work by established and emerging artists and musicians.

Line-up to be revealed nearer the time (after the open submission call to arms).

NEW PROJECTS (£5 (£4)) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 15:00–03:00, £TBC

One-off event between Sleazy’s and The Art School, spanning the audio and visual fields – promoting new and innovate work by established and emerging artists and musicians.

Line-up to be revealed nearer the time (after the open submission call to arms).

SUN 20 JAN HAZY RECOLLECTIONS (DAVE FRAZER, DONNA MACIOCIA, STATE BROADCASTERS, BEAR BONES, WILLIE CAMPBELL) O2 ABC, 14:00–16:00, £10

Afternoon sesh of handpicked acts from the flourishing Glasgow indie, folk and roots scene. Part of Celtic Connections.

THE BLACKOUT (SONIC BOOM SIX, PROXIES) KING TUT’S, 16:00–18:00, £13.50

Early doors matinee show from the high energy rockers, known for their party-hard attitude.

MON 21 JAN THE GLASGOW SLOW CLUB BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

PAUL BANKS KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £17.50

The lead singer, lyricist and guitarist of Interpol goes it alone, touring on the back of his new solo album.

DAUGHTER ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £10

Moody and electronic folk-esque melodies from the London-based trio, formerly just the solo work of Elena Tonra.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £12.50

HAMELL ON TRIAL ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £15

Punk rock-influenced acoustic tunes from the one-man-band that is New York’s Ed Hamell. Part of Celtic Connections.

STANLEY ODD AND ELECTRIC STRING ORCHESTRA (MYSTERY JUICE) OLD FRUITMARKET, 20:00–22:00, £12

Inventive hip-hop sextet Stanley Odd unveil a brand-new collaboration with renegade classical 12-piece the Electric String Orchestra. Part of Celtic Connections.

THU 24 JAN THE COMPUTERS BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Visceral and hardcore bluesy punk from the Exeter four-piece, playing a late show down’t Bloc’s lair.

KATE RUSBY ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £22

The Yorkshire singer/songwriter leads a merry singalong in celebration of her 20th year in the business, with a selection of the acts who featured on her 11th album, 20, in tow..

THIS IS THE KIT (MOULETTES) ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £13

Musical project of Kate Stables and pals, layering primal and hushed electric textures onto songs of unaffected beauty. Part of Celtic Connections.

CARNIVORES VS UNITED FRUIT (CLOCKWORK SOCIAL) KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £6

Math-rock trio Carnivores square-up to the post-hardcore abrasion of United Fruit, as part of their doubleheadliner racket of a show.

NATALIE PRYCE: UNPLUGGED (HOMESICK ALDO, LAURA ST JUDE) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–23:00, £3

The Mark Swan-led band of weirdos play a special stripped-down acoustic show, with Swan likely rambling away into a vintage mic, helped along by a cello and live choir.

CARAVAN PALACE (BATIDA) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Mighty fusion of gypsy-jazz, swing and high-octane electronica from the raggle-taggle French natives.

Part of Celtic Connections.

CEREBRAL BORE (WARPATH, CEMTEX, SCORDATURA, INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY) STEREO, 19:30–23:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Glasgow-based death metallers Cerebral Bore headline an evening of all-out noise down’t Stereo’s unsuspecting lair.

MIKE HERON AND TREMBLING BELLS (HAPTON CRAGS) THE MITCHELL LIBRARY, 19:30–22:00, £14

Original Incredible String Band member Mike Heron teams up with Glasgow’s own kings and queens of modern folk, Trembling Bells, to perform new arrangements of some ISB classics. Part of Celtic Connections

THE PICTISH TRAIL (ROZI PLAIN) THE GLASGOW ART CLUB, 19:30–22:00, £12

Fence Records’ label boss The Pictish Trail (aka Johnny Lynch) launches his long-awaited new album, Secret Soundz Vol. 2, with support from Fence signee Rozi Plain. Part of Celtic Connections.

FRI 25 JAN

TUE 22 JAN

LOGAN

CAST THE NET (PENFOLD, LAST SUMMER EFFECT)

The hard-giggin’ melodic rockers enjoy another outing under their new line-up.

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7.50

Bi-monthly showcase taking in a handpicked selection of exciting new Scottish artists and bands.

DÀIMH (SYLVAIN BAROU PROJECKT)

MARDI GRAS.BB (THE BEVVY SISTERS)

The West Highland-based folk combo play a special set bolstered by percussionist Donald Hay and double bassist Jenny Hill. Part of Celtic Connections.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14

German heroes who’ve basically styled themselves on a New Orleans marching band; cue an adventure of massed brass, electric guitars and percussion. Part of Celtic Connections.

LINDSEY STIRLING ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

Hip-hop violinist who came to the public’s attention via America’s Got Talent.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

BLACK LIGHT BURNS CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £10 ADV.

Los Angeles band of rockers fronted

by Wes Borland (of Limp Bizkit).

MADE AS MANNEQUINS (THE PASSENGERS, HOLLY DRUMMOND) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–22:00, £5

After six months in hibernation to write and record, the band formerly known as The Occupationists take to Sleazy’s stage to showcase all-new material.

JD MCPHERSON (THE SHIVERIN’ SHEIKS)

STEVE CROPPER AND THE ANIMALS (THE STUMBLE)

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £14.50

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

The Oklahoma-based songsmith brings his raw and visceral brand of rockabilly and r’n’b to Scottish shores. Part of Celtic Connections.

SAT 26 JAN CAVE PAINTING (QUEEN JANE, CHATEAUX) BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £5 ADV.

Ambient Brighton band gently traversing the line between chilloot and tropical, last seen on tour with Alt-J.

SHOWTEK (JORDY DAZZ, JUSTIN PRIME, MIKAEL WEERMATS) THE ARCHES, 22:00–03:00, £17.50 EARLYBIRD (£22.50 THEREAFTER)

Dutch hardstyle brother duo, playing an all-night session for your aural pleasure, joined live by a selection of pals.

STUBBORN HEART THE BERKELEY SUITE, 19:30–22:00, £5

Electronic-meets-soul duo Luca Santucci and Ben Fitzgerald hit Glasgow. Rescheduled date.

THE SOFT PACK (BLACK BALLOONS) KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8.50

The Los Angeles-based foursome do their fuzzy, pop-influenced rock’n’roll thing.

BALOJI (LËK SÈN) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Inventive young African rapper, splicing agile rhymes with soukous, rumba, ska, soul, funk and gospel.

That do ye? Part of Celtic Connections.

THE UNDERGROUND YOUTH (LOS TENTAKILLS, HIS NAME IS CODEINE, CURIOSITY SHOP) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

The Manc band of psychedelic rockers play their first ever Scottish date, all raw garage sounds served up with a hauntingly beautiful twist.

THOUSANDSOUNDS (SATELLITES, SPACEFACE) STEREO, 19:30–22:30, £5

Rhythm guitarist Steve Cropper joins forces with The Animals (well, founding member John Steel and veteran Mick Gallagher) for a collaborative special. Part of Celtic Connections.

DAVID BAZAN BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £7 ADV.

Enigmatic rock frontman David Bazan celebrates the ten year anniversary of Pedro The Lion’s classic album, Control.

WE THE KINGS THE GARAGE, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

Florida-based alternative poprockers named after the King Middle School where all four band members attended.

DUNDEE MUSIC THU 03 JAN BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:30–22:00, £5

Local bloggers Aye Tunes and Peenko return for their monthly music showcase night (this month moving home to the 13th Note), getting started with a headline set from lo-fi Glasgow pop-rockers The Yawns.

KAGE, 19:30–22:00, £5

Hardcore showcase night headlined

by Dundonian thrash-metal quartet 3rd Born Son – in their own words: ‘heavy as fuck’. Amen.

FRI 25 JAN ANIMUS (SECTIONED, LETTERS FROM ABOVE, OF EARTH, AUTHORS) BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–22:30, £4

PETER AND THE TEST TUBE BABIES BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:00, £10 ADV.

Street punk classics from the 70s formed rascals, who came to life in frontman Peter Bywaters’ dad’s garage.

GLASGOW CLUBS THU 03 JAN Monthly mish-mash of electro, dance and dirty pop with DJ Drucifer.

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £5 ADV.

Three otherworldly Liverpudlian lasses mixing organic and electronic sounds, all medieval synths, hypnotic beats, spiraling whammy guitars, mystical harmonies and apocalyptic thunder drones. That do ye?

DIEMENTIA 13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Glasgow quintet making merry with their own brand of blistering melodic death-cum-thrash metal.

MON 28 JAN THE GLASGOW SLOW CLUB BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

PALOMA FAITH O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The British singer/songwriter-cumactress does her glossy, retro-referencing soul-meets-pop thing.

MILO GREENE KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

LA indie-folk ensemble built on ethereal wisps of guitar, drums and vocals.

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

DAMNATION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

BADSEED SLOUCH, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro with DJ Heather McCartney.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms.

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Monthly residency with the full Rumours contingent spinning nonstop bass through the Bass Alliance soundsystem.

LIQUID SKY NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Formed from the ashes of Pandemic, Chad Palestine plays everything from vintage rock’n’roll to soul, leftfield pop to the best in alternative indie.

THE SHED FRIDAYS SHED, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Pop and chart hits with Andy Robertson in the main room, plus hippity-hop in the Red Room.

TOO DARN HOT! BLACKFRIARS BASEMENT, 23:00–03:00, £5

Lou Hickey and Tony Poprock play a speakeasy mix of rock’n’roll, r’n’b, big band and swing.

YES!: NEW YEAR RECOVERY SPECIAL THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The beloved Flying Duck provide recovery from the New Year mayhem with a chilled night of old and new favourites.

I AM: BIG FUN SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

Subculture’s Telford, Beta and Slow It Down team up for an all thrills night of house and disco classics.

BOBBY CHAMPS

HAZY RECOLLECTIONS (RANDOLPH’S LEAP, JO MANGO, QUICKBEAM, MICHAEL CASSIDY)

STEALING SHEEP (TEENCANTEEN)

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

CHAMBRE 69, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 AFTER 12)

Flash Mob host a night of disco, techno and house, with Turbo Recordings’ Duke Dumont their special guest for the evening, joined by Book Club resident Is Kill and Thrust Club.

STRANGE PARADISE NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Brand new night from Wild Combination man David Barbarossa, specializing in leftfield disco, post-punk and far-out pop.

DEATHKILL 4000 BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Industro-rock noise party with live players and bespoke visuals to boot.

THE SHED SATURDAYS SHED, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy weekend mix of commercial pop and cheese classics.

EMPTY (ANIMAL FARM) FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

More thunderous beats from the weekly clubber’s delight, this time with Animal Farm spinning a selection of house and techno.

RUMOURS

MISBEHAVIN’

O2 ABC, 14:00–16:00, £10

OLD SKOOL

Mod, soul, ska and groovy freakbeat 45s, with DJs Jamo, Paul Molloy and Gareth McCallum.

SAT 12 JAN

SUN 27 JAN

Afternoon sesh of handpicked acts from the flourishing Glasgow indie, folk and roots scene. Part of Celtic Connections.

FRI 04 JAN

Music from across the globe with the ever-capable residents Auntie Flo and Esa Williams, joined by high-intensity percussive maestro Romare.

SAT 26 JAN

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

FLASH MOB (DUKE DUMONT)

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in for good measure.

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

HIGHLIFE (ROMARE)

KATY CARR

AYE TUNES VS PEENKO (THE YAWNS, KING POST KITSCH, PLASTIC ANIMALS)

SUBVERSION

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE

The Dundee-based progressive death metallers launch their new EP, Fall of the Elite, with a free copy for all attendees.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

THU 10 JAN

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

THE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

JAMMING FRIDAYS

Sonic mash-up of widescreen guitars, dream-pop, 1960s psychedelia, shoegaze and good ol’ rock’n’roll from the Glasgow quartet.

The Nottingham-raised singer/ songwriter plays a special set of her edgy alternative folk allied with reworked period classics, backed by specially-created short films and visual projections. Part of Celtic Connections.

FREAKBEATS

THE ROXY 171, 20:00–23:45, FREE

A night of old school house, deep house and Ibiza classics.

Brighton instrumental math-rock trio, flowing seamlessly between myriad atonal crescendos, delicate spidery arpeggios and chugging riffs.

3RD BORN SUN, BLOODSHOT, INFERIOR PLAN, ISAK

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

DANSE MACABRE CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £4

The Danse Macabre regulars unite those two happiest of bedfellows, goth rock and, er, classic disco, in their new home of Classic Grand.

TAKING BACK THURSDAYS CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Weekend welcoming mix of rock and metal, with guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

CRYOTEC CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £3

Monthly dose of industrial, EBM and electronic. We hear it’s very danceable.

JELLYBABY

CHAMBRE 69, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Dancefloor DJ and producer Bobby Champs makes his Glasgow debut, joined by two Glasgow chaps currently impressing on the local scene: All Caps’ Bake and High Sheen’s Ben Martin.

SAT 05 JAN NU SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

ABSOLUTION

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Euan Neilson handpicks a selection of classic r’n’b and hip-hop.

SHORE NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£10 AFTER 12) OR FREE WITH NYE TICKET STUB

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks.

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 12)

Choice nu-disco and house picks from the Instruments Of Rapture label, hosted by Ali OOFT and The Revenge.

SUNDAY ROASTER THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

CAMDEN NIGHTS

I HEART GARAGE SATURDAYS

SLOUCH, 23:00–03:00, FREE

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart.

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Weekend welcoming mix of rock and metal, with guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

JELLYBABY O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 ADV. (£5 DOOR)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

BOOM THURSDAYS THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive).

THE AFTERPARTY BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Euan Neilson handpicks a selection of classic r’n’b and hip-hop.

SHORE NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

CAMDEN NIGHTS FLAT 0/1, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

New indie club playing the best in rock’n’roll, electro and, yes, indie.

FRI 11 JAN

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £3

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

BADSEED SLOUCH, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro with DJ Heather McCartney.

COMMON PEOPLE THE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Celebration of all things 90s, with hits a-plenty and a pre-club bingo session.

DIRTY BASEMENT FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Eclectic mix of electronic dance from the Dirty Basement duo.

BOOTY CALL THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms.

JAMMING FRIDAYS MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

THE SHED FRIDAYS SHED, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

OLD SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Pop and chart hits with Andy Robertson in the main room, plus hippity-hop in the Red Room.

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

OFFBEAT (MILO SMEE)

DAMNATION

The Offbeat crew welcome remixer, producer and co-founder of Chrome Hoof, Milo Smee (aka Bintus) to the wheels of steel, churning out the acid jams and raw electro as only he knows how.

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

KINO FIST NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Genre-spanning mix of 60s psych, leftfield pop and Krautrock with resident Charlotte (of Muscles of Joy).

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

RETURN TO MONO (GARY BECK, HANS BOUFFMYHRE) SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Monthly night from Soma Records taking in popular techno offerings of all hues, this time joined by hardworking techno chaps Gary Beck and Hans Bouffmyhre.

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

MON 07 JAN BURN BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

SPACE INVADER THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

TUE 08 JAN KILLER KITSCH BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

VOODOO VOODOO NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

I AM (STAY FRESH) SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, joined by local boys Stay Fresh in whole crew capacity.

WED 09 JAN

LOVE MUSIC

TAKING BACK THURSDAYS

WILD COMBINATION

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic.

OCTOPUSSY

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £3

RENEGADE

CATHOUSE, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 MEMBERS)

RIP THIS JOINT

New indie club playing the best in rock’n’roll, electro and, yes, indie.

INSTRUMENTS OF RAPTURE

VOODOO

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra. FLAT 0/1, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

THE AFTERPARTY

THE ROCK SHOP

SUBCULTURE

BOOM THURSDAYS THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

SUN 06 JAN

TV TUESDAY

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive).

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 ADV. (£5 DOOR)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

CLUBS

DEEP TROUBLE

BOOTY CALL BRONTIDE (CARNIVORES)

LISTINGS

THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

GARAGE WEDNESDAYS THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee’s staple eclectic mashup midweeker.

WEIRDO WEDNESDAY NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Rock’n’roll party with live bands playing on the floor.

TRAFFIC JAM FLAT 0/1, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Reggae, dub, dancehall and hip-hop midweeker from DJ Greenman and friends.

JANUARY 2013

THE SKINNY 59

LISTINGS

Sat 12 Jan Nu Skool

Space Invader

Cathouse Fridays

Rip This Joint

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Tue 15 Jan

Absolution Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

Killer Kitsch

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Cathouse Saturdays Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

I Am

Voodoo

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, manning the decks solo all night long.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Badseed

The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro with DJ Heather McCartney.

Andy Divine and Chris Geddes’ gem of a night dedicated to 7-inch singles from every genre imaginable.

Bottle Rocket

Fantastic Man

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Indie dancing club, playing anything and everything danceable.

Deadly Rhythm Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Ear-exercising house and techno from the Deadly Rhythm crew.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Code (Brian Sanhaji) La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, £6 adv. (£10 door)

Back Tae Mine The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

The CODE techno specialists welcome a live set from Frankfurt-based producer Brian Sanhaji, pumping out the deep and dark techno, as per.

House-party styled night with residents Gav Dunbar and Sci-Fi Steve. Plus free toast for all.

I Heart Garage Saturdays

I Heart Garage Saturdays: International Popcorn Party

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart.

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

The student superclub celebrate International Popcorn Day (yes, it’s a thing), with the added joys of an in-club popcorn stall and a popcorn cannon.

The Shed Saturdays Shed, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy weekend mix of commercial pop and cheese classics.

Empty (Matthew Craig)

Voodoo Voodoo

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

More thunderous beats from the weekly clubber’s delight, this time offering up an aclectic mix of electronic dance from Matthew Craig.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age

TYCI (Tuff Love, Glasgow PodCart DJs)

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

Bloc+, 23:00–03:00, Free

The all-female collective, blog and fanzine brings together a selection of live acts and DJs for their monthly party night.

Oddio (Alex Smoke)

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

Wed 16 Jan Octopussy

The Berkeley Suite, 23:45–03:00, £5 adv.

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

New monthly residency at which Alex Smoke will be dropping by, celebrating the release of his forthcoming album, Wraetlic, with a debut AV set.

Subculture (Jackmaster) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£10 after 12)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

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

Craig McGee’s staple eclectic mashup midweeker.

Traffic Jam Flat 0/1, 22:00–03:00, Free

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks, joined by Numbers’ chap Jackmaster.

Reggae, dub, dancehall and hip-hop midweeker from DJ Greenman and friends.

Wrong Island

Thu 17 Jan

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics for your aural pleasure.

Last Bus Home The Flying Duck, 20:00–23:00, Free

Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Weekend welcoming mix of rock and metal, with guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

Early evening club night playing dancing tunes without the worry of losing out on your beauty sleep. And, yes, you’ll make the last bus home.

Jellybaby

Missing Persons Club (MPIA3)

Boom Thursdays

Chambre 69, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive).

Monthly party night this time featuring rising techno star MPIA3, alongside with resident DJs Wax Works and Simon Bryan.

The Afterparty Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4

Sun 13 Jan

Euan Neilson handpicks a selection of classic r’n’b and hip-hop.

The Rock Shop

Shore

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Thunder Disco Club Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

The Thunder Disco Club residents churn out the 90s house, techno and disco hits.

Renegade Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

Camden Nights Flat 0/1, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

New indie club playing the best in rock’n’roll, electro and, yes, indie.

Voices of Reason The Roxy 171, 20:30–23:45, Free

Choice cuts of soul, funk and motown for your Sunday evening boogie.

Fri 18 Jan Old Skool

Jamming Fridays Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

The Shed Fridays Shed, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Pop and chart hits with Andy Robertson in the main room, plus hippity-hop in the Red Room.

Tremors Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Eclectic mix of underground house, techno, disco, garage and UK bass from Feedback Junkie and friends.

Dress To Impress: The January Sales The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Dress to impress host a budget night of good tunes and cheap drinks, as per the law for January. Amen.

La Cheetah Club: Free Party!

La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

La Cheetah Club invite a selection of local talents to rock the club, all for gratis – all night long.

Sensu Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Barry Price and Junior provide the cutting edge electonic from across the globe, with guests being kept tightly under wraps for now (all eyes on Facebook for the grand reveal).

Catch22 Chambre 69, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Underground house and techno offering with resident DJs Zachary and JT joined by guests Twonko and Correlate.

Sat 19 Jan Nu Skool Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Absolution Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Subculture Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£10 after 12)

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks.

Fresh Edinburgh party crew #notsosilent come to Glasgow for a special launch party night, with decks ably manned by guests Axel Boman and Cottam.

Boogaloo Crew Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Boogaloo boys spin their usual fine mix of techno beats.

Sun 20 Jan The Rock Shop Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

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

Propaganda O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

January 2013

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee’s staple eclectic mashup midweeker.

So Weit So Good Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

One-off free party featuring the party sounds of Ean, Smiddy and Kenny White on decks.

Traffic Jam Flat 0/1, 22:00–03:00, Free

Reggae, dub, dancehall and hip-hop midweeker from DJ Greenman and friends.

Thu 24 Jan Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Weekend welcoming mix of rock and metal, with guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

Jellybaby O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

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

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive).

The Afterparty Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

Members of Glasgow’s post-hardcore noise-masters, United Fruit, curate their lively monthly event of bigbeat alternative indie.

Crimes Of The Future

Pistols At Dawn (Balearic Mike)

The Berkeley Suite, 23:30–03:00, £5

Manchester-based selector Baleriac Mike brings his eclectic music choices to new alternative club night on the block, Pistols At Dawn.

Shake Appeal

The Berkeley Suite, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

Bloc+, 22:00–03:00, Free

Damn fine evening of hip shakers and neck breakers, combining everything from Buddy Holly to Motorhead.

The Shed Fridays

Mirrors

Self-proclaimed vinyl fanatic Floyd mans the Flat 0/1 decks for the evening.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Eclectic mix of electronic from the Mirrors crew and friends.

Super Inuit The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

60s mod happening with Jamo and pals playing a load of 45s for your dancing pleasure.

Submerge La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Brand new night specialising in all things house and techno.

Sat 26 Jan

Shore

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Camden Nights Flat 0/1, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

New indie club playing the best in rock’n’roll, electro and, yes, indie.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Absolution

Tearin’ it up with 60s psych-outs and modern sleaze, provided by Rafla and Andy (of The Phantom Band).

Damnation

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£10 after 12)

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

Love Music O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

I Am Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, manning the decks solo all night long.

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

Rip This Joint

Propaganda

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Cathouse Fridays Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Badseed Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Voodoo Voodoo Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Booty Call Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic.

Optimo Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

JD Twitch and JG Wilkes take to the decks for their monthly night of pure Optimo goodness.

Tropical South

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Beat Bothy (Halcyon, Tigerstyle, DJ Pedro Pedro Coquenão, Laki Mera) The Arches, 21:30–03:00, £10

Late night spread of cutting-edge beats, hosted by Glasgow-based trio Halcyon. Part of Celtic Connections.

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Showtek (Jordy Dazz, Justin Prime, Mikael Weermats) The Arches, 22:00–03:00, £17.50 earlybird (£22.50 thereafter)

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Resident DJs Jer Reid, Martin Law and guests play music from, and some music inspired by, 1970s and early 80s NYC.

The Shed Saturdays Shed, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy weekend mix of commercial pop and cheese classics.

Bad Robot The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes fae the DJ dream team of Mastercaird and Chow Main.

Sat 05 Jan Tease Age Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£7 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Playdate Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

House specialists Stewart and Steven play, er, some special house.

Propaganda HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Speaker Bite Me Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

The Evol DJs worship at the alter of all kinds of indie-pop, as long as it’s got bite.

Rewind The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Thunder Disco Club The Thunder Disco Club residents churn out the 90s house, techno and disco hits.

Bordello Studio 24, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11.30)

Sleazy-styled classic rock, all night long.

The Go-Go Vs Land of a Thousand Dances: New Year Party Studio 24, 22:30–05:00, £4 (£7 after 11.30)

Favourite Studio 24 nights The Go-Go and Land of a Thousand Dances join forces for a special 2013 welcoming party, with The New Piccadillys playing live, plus eclectic tunes from the resident DJs.

Sun 06 Jan

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Coalition

I AM Edinburgh

Dubstep, breaks and bassline house from AF Meldrum and a cast of Edinburgh’s best underground DJs.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3/free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass.

Juice Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fri 04 Jan

The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, Free

Stripped-down techno crew Unseen lock horns with fellow Edinburgh techno specialists, Edinburgh Tekno Cartel, for a free-entry January blow-out / fight to the bloody death.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Houndin’ The Streets

Unseen Vs ETC

Mon 28 Jan

All-new Thursday nighter for Sneaky’s, playing a mighty mix of everything from The Stooges to ODB.

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart.

Anthology of house, electro and D’n’B for your aural delectation.

Journey back through the ages, digging out anthemic gems from the last 40 years.

Dutch hardstyle brother duo, playing an all-night session for your aural pleasure, joined live by a selection of pals.

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

A suitably winter-warming selection of tropical Latino, Brazilian, African, reggaeton and dancehall beats served up by DJ Don Salazar.

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long.

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro with DJ Heather McCartney.

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Thu 03 Jan

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

XY

Sunday Roaster

Frisky

Space Invader

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Friday night student party with the emphasis on Skittlebombs...

Don’t ask.

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard.

edinburgh C lubs

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/Free with wage slip)

Oh No!

Bubblegum

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £4

Monthly glam trash and sleaze tease party, with guest burlesque performers, magicians and a bit o’ belly dancing.

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

Burn

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Trash and Burn

Space Invader

Mon 21 Jan

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic.

Killer Kitsch

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/Free with wage slip)

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Tue 22 Jan

The Rock Shop

Burn

Renegade

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Nicola Walker plays cult rock hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Renegade

Voodoo

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Slide It In

Subculture

Fri 25 Jan

The Hot Club

Sun 27 Jan

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

Old Skool Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks.

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

Vito De Luca, the Italian-Belgian producer behind Aeroplane, brings the party-starting cosmic-disco remakes, as per.

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Pop and chart hits with Andy Robertson in the main room, plus hippity-hop in the Red Room.

Nu Skool

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

Aeroplane

Floyd

Euan Neilson handpicks a selection of classic r’n’b and hip-hop.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, £8

Scott Fraser and Timothy J. Fairplay host their favourited music club playing a decidedly left-field selection of Krautrock, electronic, dub and everything inbetween.

Music from across the globe with the ever-capable residents Auntie Flo and Esa Williams.

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Garage Wednesdays

Cream Soda

Bloc+, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

Love Music

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Teenage Riot

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Highlife

Damnation

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Jamming Fridays

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

TV Tuesday

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

60 THE SKINNY

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms.

Chambre 69, 23:00–03:00, £7 adv.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Mon 14 Jan Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/Free with wage slip)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse Saturdays

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Booty Call

#notsosilent (Axel Boman, Cottam)

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic.

Burn

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy weekend mix of commercial pop and cheese classics.

The Berkeley Suite, 23:00–03:00, £5

Rip This Joint

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

The Shed Saturdays

Al Kent launches his third selection of off-the-beaten track disco, Disco Love Volume 3, playing a special four-hour set down’t Berkeley Suite.

Free CD and goody bag for the first 50 folk.

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Bloc+, 23:00–03:00, Free

Messy Saturday night uber-disco featuring a rotating schedule of live talent.

Disco Love: Album Launch (Part 1)

Love Music

Sunday Roaster

Singles Night

Wed 23 Jan Octopussy

Misfits The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms.

Planet Earth Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£6 after 11)

Distinctly retro selection from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

This Is Music Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Mon 07 Jan Mixed Up The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics.

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Tue 08 Jan Antics The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

LISTINGS

edinb u rgh C L U B S Hector’s House The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Wed 09 Jan

Shake Yer Shoulders: Invasion of the Jungle Soldiers Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

The favourited celebration of all things techno goes decidedly jungle for the evening.

Bangers & Mash

Bad Robot

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

Intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes fae the DJ dream team of Mastercaird and Chow Main.

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Tue 15 Jan Antics The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Axis (Duke Dumont)

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

Hector’s House Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Wed 16 Jan Bangers & Mash The Hive, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics.

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

DJs Swank’n’Jams seamlessly mix tropical beats and swing rhythms, mashed up with some well-kent classics.

Witness Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

East Beat Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

The folk behind Balkanarama present a brand new Balkan, klezmer, gypsy and all things eastern club night.

Thu 10 Jan Frisky

Thu 17 Jan Frisky The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms.

Dr No’s

Planet Earth

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Studio 24 Rawks

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass.

Rock, metal and alternative playlists.

Juice

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and reggae.

Fri 11 Jan The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms.

Planet Earth Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£6 after 11)

Distinctly retro selection from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

This Is Music Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Betamax Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5/£4 student after 11.30)

Monthly offering of new wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your hosts Chris and Big Gus.

Cosmic Studio 24, 21:00–03:00, £3 (£6 after 11)

Monthly club bringing the spirit of the psychedelic trance dance ritual to the floor, with live acts, VJs and colourful fluoro décor.

Oh No! HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Friday night student party with the emphasis on Skittlebombs...

Don’t ask.

XY The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Anthology of house, electro and D’n’B for your aural delectation.

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard.

The Green Door Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11)

Surf, blues and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake!

Nuff said.

Bubblegum

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £tbc

Misfits

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3/free via iamclub.co.uk)

I AM Edinburgh

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Bubblegum

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3/free via iamclub.co.uk)

All-new Thursday nighter for Sneaky’s, playing a mighty mix of everything from The Stooges to ODB.

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 before 12)

Beep Beep, Yeah!

Misfits The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Animal Hospital

Musika: Residents Party The Liquid Room, 21:00–03:00, Free (£8/£6 student after 11.30)

Fresh from their mighty NYE blow-out, Musika start the year off with a relaxed free party manned by residents Laurie Neil, Kirk Douglas, Jamie McKenzie and Derek Martin.

Sun 13 Jan Coalition Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and bassline house from AF Meldrum and a cast of Edinburgh’s best underground DJs.

The Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Fresh playlists spanning pop-punk, emo and hardcore soundscapes.

Wasabi Disco Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Heady bout of cosmic house, punk and upside-down disco with yer man Kris ‘Wasabi’ Walker.

The all-techno Sunday session returns for a January outing, joined by two very special guests from inimitable techno label Sleaze Records – welcome yer men Hans Bouffmyhre and Lex Gorrie.

Mon 21 Jan Mixed Up

Tue 22 Jan Antics The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

Hector’s House The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3/free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass.

Juice Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

All-new Thursday nighter for Sneaky’s, playing a mighty mix of everything from The Stooges to ODB.

Fri 25 Jan Misfits The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms.

Planet Earth Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£6 after 11)

Distinctly retro selection from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

This Is Music Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Cream Soda Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Friday night student party with the emphasis on Skittlebombs...

Don’t ask.

Sesame Street Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5.00

Alphabetical playlists of the mostly funk, hip-hop and disco variety, with DJs Cookie Monsta, Super Grover and Steve Austin.

XY

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5.00

Jungle, jungle and, er, more jungle with residents Switch, Jamin and Tekkerz.

Dub, reggae and dancehall clubbing spectacular, with guest DJ Cadenza up from London for the occasion.

Bad Robot The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes fae the DJ dream team of Mastercaird and Chow Main.

Indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

Sat 12 Jan

Dr No’s

Fat Sam’s Saturday Nights

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 before 12)

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

VEGAS! (The Correspondents)

Asylum

The Voodoo Rooms, 20:30–01:00, £8

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Pocket Aces

Friendzy

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Dance-inducing party with an anything goes attitude and rotating rota of guest DJs.

Studio 24 Rawks Goes Metal

Wed 23 Jan

Bubblegum

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Fri 18 Jan

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11.30)

Mungo’s Hi-Fi

Big Cheese

Fat Sam’s Fridays

The regular alternative rock night takes a foray into all things heavy and metal for their usual last Saturday of the month blow-out.

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Term-time student party night playing a selection of cheesy dancing tunes.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

More heavyweight selections from Mungo’s Soundsystem, playing a full soundsystem set joined by Chungo Bungo and Miss DLove.

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £3.50

Party-styled Friday nighter. Beware the six quid fishbowls.

Sat 19 Jan

Sun 27 Jan

Fat Sam’s Saturday Nights

Coalition

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £8

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and bassline house from AF Meldrum and a cast of Edinburgh’s best underground DJs.

The Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Asylum Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Mon 21 Jan

Mon 28 Jan

Gorilla In Your Car

Mixed Up

Hardcore, emo, punk and scenester selections. Also perhaps the best-named club night in Dundee’s existence.

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

d u ndee C l u bs Fri 04 Jan Fat Sam’s Fridays Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £3.50

Party-styled Friday nighter. Beware the six quid fishbowls.

Warped Kage, 23:00–02:30, £tbc

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings, featuring additional live performances from a selection of choice noisemakers.

ETC13: The First Birthday

Witness

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Electro-funk, house and disco, with regular hosts Dave Autodisco and Dicky Trisco kicking off 2013 with a residents bar jam. joined live by a selection of pals.

Fat Sam’s Saturday Nights Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £8

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Wed 23 Jan Friendzy Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Fri 25 Jan Bleep: 4th Birthday (Riton) Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £8 (£10 after 11.30)

More ear-bleeding electronic beats ‘n’ bleeps as Bleep celebrate their 4th birthday, joined live by electronic specialist Riton (aka Henry Smithson).

Fat Sam’s Fridays Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £3.50

Party-styled Friday nighter. Beware the six quid fishbowls.

Zazou Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Forgotten classics from the seediest and most decadent dancefloors of the 70s, 80s and beyond.

Asylum Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Magic Nostalgic

Wed 09 Jan

East Beat

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£7 after 12)

Friendzy

A hodgepodge of quality tracks chosen by JP’s spinning wheel. Expect anything from 90s rave to power ballads, and a lot of one-hit wonders.

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £8

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Asylum

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard.

The folk behind Balkanarama present a brand new Balkan, klezmer, gypsy and all things eastern club night.

Wed 16 Jan

Sat 26 Jan

Bangers & Mash

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

50s-themed fun night, with Frankie Sumatra, Bugsy Seagull, Dino Martini, Sam Jose and Nikki Nevada. Plus Vegas showgirls a-go-go, natch.

Fat Sam’s Saturday Nights

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £8

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and reggae.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5

Pop and rock gems, taking in motown, 80s classics and plenty danceable fare (well, the Beep Beep, Yeah! crew are on decks after all).

Edinburgh Tekno Cartel bring the sleazy bass and techno beats, with this edition finding ‘em celebrating their first birthday in the usual crazy dress-up style – for which public votes resulted in the mash-up theme of: Away With The Space Trash Fairies.

Kage, 23:00–02:30, Free

Brand new night exploring new music and the bands that inspired them, and the bands that in turn inspired them... And so on for eternity.

Sat 05 Jan

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Teviot Underground, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5 in fancy dress/members free)

Kaos Dundee

Autodisco: Bar Jam

The Egg

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

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £6

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £3.50

Party-styled Friday nighter. Beware the six quid fishbowls.

Sat 26 Jan Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics.

Madchester

Fri 11 Jan Fat Sam’s Fridays

Tease Age Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£7 after 11)

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4 adv. (£5 door)

Pop Rocks!

Propaganda

Defcon

Anthology of house, electro and D’n’B for your aural delectation.

Robigan’s Reggae (Cadenza)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Ride girls Checkie and Lauren play hip-hop and dance, all night long – now in their new party-ready Saturday night slot.

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics.

Occasional night playing the finest in Swedish indie pop, plus 60s, 70s and independent tunes from near and far.

Oh No!

Ride

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 11.30)

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

I AM Edinburgh

Mjölk

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Old school hip-hop, r’n’b, reggae, dancehall, afro beats and plenty more eclecticness besides.

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long.

Oh No!

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Cream Soda

Mambo

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Nu Fire

Blues and soul from the 50s and 60s, handpicked by Tony ‘Two-Eyes’ and The Go-Go DJs.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Thu 24 Jan Frisky

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11.30)

Friday night student party with the emphasis on Skittlebombs...

Don’t ask.

New night traversing the gamut from classic hip-hop through to dirty south beats.

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Land of a Thousand Dances

Mon 14 Jan

Nu Fire

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11)

Citrus Club, 22:00–03:00, £7

The Animal Hospital troops continue to medicate Edinburgh with their unique blend of techno, house and minimal.

Anthology of house, electro and D’n’B for your aural delectation.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Decade

Trash! (Hans Bouffmyhre, Lex Gorrie)

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

XY

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics.

Classic Italo and straight-up boogie allied with contemporary house and disco.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Mixed Up

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Sunday Club

This Is Music

Think Twice (Craig Smith) Resident Craig Smith brings a rotation of stand out guests from around the world to the dancefloor.

Gasoline Dance Machine

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Distinctly retro selection from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top. Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£6 after 11)

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s.

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

The Egg

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fri 18 Jan

Big Cheese

Dubstep, breaks and bassline house from AF Meldrum and a cast of Edinburgh’s best underground DJs.

All-new Thursday nighter for Sneaky’s, playing a mighty mix of everything from The Stooges to ODB.

Propaganda

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £15 earlybird (£20 thereafter)

The Sound of C crew welcome Radio 1’s own Annie Mac to the decks, returning to the capital after a couple of hot dates in 2012.

Coalition

Bass Syndicate

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard.

Sound of C (Annie Mac)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£7 after 11)

Propaganda

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, joined for a special guest slot by French DJ Plezier.

The Edinburgh-based dixieland band launch their debut album with a themed 1920’s night, bolstered by swing dancing, 78rpm DJs and special ‘Prohibition Cocktails’.

Sun 20 Jan

Juice

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Tease Age

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

i AM Edinburgh (Plezier)

Gin ‘N’ Juice

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Term-time student party night playing a selection of cheesy dancing tunes.

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long.

The regular Edinburgh breaks and bassline Manga crew takeover.

TJ Muller and The Dixie Six

Sat 19 Jan

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£7 after 11)

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes fae the DJ dream team of Mastercaird and Chow Main.

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £1.99 (£2.99 after 12)

Tease Age

Bad Robot

Witness

Zoot

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Axis take over The Caves with their usual stellar electro, techno and dubstep offerings, with Turbo Recordings’ Duke Dumont their special guest for the evening.

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

Sat 12 Jan

The Caves, 23:00–03:00, £10

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£4 door)

New night of the finest underground house and techno your ears could possibly hope to hear.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Indigo

Architecture Is (Dan Brennion, Tiggie Tavistock, Palladian)

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

January 2013

THE SKINNY 61

LISTINGS

COMEDY New Material Night

glasgow

Vespbar, 20:00–22:00, £3

Sat 19 Jan

Sat 05 Jan

Mon 14 Jan

Tue 22 Jan

The Saturday Show (Ron Vaudry, Dave Ward, Danny Angelo, Chris Conway)

The Saturday Show: World Aids Day (Neil Dougan, Steven Dick, Adam Vincent, Susie McCabe)

Red Raw

The Speakeasy (Alan Bissett, Kevin McMahon, Colin McEwan, Fiona Herbert, Elspeth Murray, Lach, Gareth Waugh)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Thu 03 Jan

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

The Thursday Show (Phil Nichol, Marcel Lucont)

Fri 11 Jan

Dram, 20:30–22:30, £6 adv. (£7 door)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour

The Thursday Show (Ian Coppinger, Lloyd Landford, Roisin Conaty, Jim Park)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Laughing Horse New Act of the Year 2013: Quarter Finals A selection of 12+ comedians compete in the 2013 quarter final heat for the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition. Compered by Alan Anderson.

Sun 20 Jan Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

Expect the

unexpected.

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Tue 22 Jan Red Raw

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

The Friday Show (Phil Nichol, Marcel Lucont) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 05 Jan The Saturday Show: World Aids Day (Phil Nichol, Marcel Lucont)

The Friday Show (Ian Coppinger, Lloyd Landford, Roisin Conaty, Jim Park) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 12 Jan

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes, with this edition in support of World Aids Day.

Sun 06 Jan

The Saturday Show (Ian Coppinger, Lloyd Landford, Roisin Conaty, Jim Park) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Laughing Horse New Act of the Year 2013: Quarter Finals

Glasgow Kid’s Comedy Club

Dram, 20:30–22:30, £6 adv. (£7 door)

The Stand, 15:00–16:00, £4

A selection of 12+ comedians compete in the 2013 quarter final heat for the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition. Compered by Alan Anderson.

Jokes suitable for little ears (i.e. no sweary words), for children aged 8-12 years-old.

Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Wed 23 Jan Andrew Lawrence is Coming to Get You

Greater Shawlands Republic: Half Price January Madness!

(Bruce Morton, Andrew Learmonth, Mikey Adams, Sarah Cassidy, Rosie Kane, Stuart Thomson) Bruce Morton and Andrew Learmonth introduce some of their favourite acts from the Scottish comedy circuit in a special half price gala night.

Mon 07 Jan

Thu 24 Jan The Thursday Show (Vladimir McTavish, Chris Forbes, Susie McCabe, Dan Petherbridge) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 25 Jan The Friday Show (Vladimir McTavish, Chris Forbes, Susie McCabe, Dan Petherbridge) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Red Raw The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Grassroots Comedy The Pleasance, 19:30–23:00, £1

Showcase night featuring the best in fresh, local talent – bringing together first-time and up-andcoming comics in a series of quickfire 10-minute slots.

The Good, The Bad and The Unexpected The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5

A bright collective of comedians experiment with the medium of stand-up, under the watchful eye of Jo Caulfield.

Thu 17 Jan The Thursday Show (Ian Coppinger, Chris Martin, Stuart Mitchell, Eleanor Morton) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Tue 08 Jan Electric Tales

Fri 18 Jan

Stand-up comedy meets live storytelling, with the tease of a promise of robot badges for all.

Wed 09 Jan The Melting Pot The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4/£2.50 members)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 26 Jan

Sat 12 Jan The Saturday Show (Ben

Vespbar, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

Tue 08 Jan

Thu 17 Jan

Red Raw The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Diverse offerings from the comedy spectrum, featuring stand-up, variety acts, sketches, musical comedy and, yes, magicians!

Craig Hill: Jock’s Trap!

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The kilted cheeky chappie does his camp, no-holds-barred thing.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 19 Jan The Saturday Show (Ian Coppinger, Chris Martin, Stuart Mitchell, Eleanor Morton) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Sun 20 Jan Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Improvised lunchtime comedy favourite with resident cheeky chappies Stu & Garry.

Sun 27 Jan Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

Improverts Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe fae Edinburgh, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

The Friday Show (Bruce Morton, Graeme Thomas) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 26 Jan The Saturday Show (Bruce Morton, Graeme Thomas) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Sun 27 Jan

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Mon 28 Jan Red Raw The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

edinburgh

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Bright Club The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5

Thu 03 Jan

A selection of comedic academics do a stint of stand-up for your entertainment and enlightenment. Laughs and learning in one neat package: tick.

The Thursday Show (Neil Dougan, Steven Dick, Adam Vincent, Susie McCabe) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

The Friday Show (Neil Dougan, Steven Dick, Adam Vincent, Susie McCabe) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

werther January 2013

Fri 25 Jan

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

glasgow Citizens Theatre Sleeping Beauty 18 Dec – 6 Jan, not 25 Dec, 31 Dec, 1 Jan, 2 Jan, times vary, From £13

Festive pantomime reworking of the classic fairytale, in which Sleeping Beauty falls into a deep sleep under the watchful eye of the flatulent Fairy Good. Matinee performances also available.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Sun 13 Jan

The Sunday Night Laugh-In The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

Mon 21 Jan

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Red Raw

Improvised lunchtime comedy favourite with resident cheeky chappies Stu & Garry.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

dundee Sat 19 Jan Craig Hill: Jock’s Trap!

Dundee Rep, 20:00–22:00, £16.50

The kilted cheeky chappie does his camp, no-holds-barred thing.

Tron Theatre Aganeza Scrooge 18 Dec – 5 Jan, not 25 Dec, 1 Jan, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £7

An all-female spin on Charles Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol, as the Tron present their annual betterthan-most panto offering.

edinburgh

The Maid 17 Jan – 2 Feb, not 20 Jan, 21 Jan, 27 Jan, 28 Jan, times vary, From £12

Award-winning director and designer Stewart Laing brings his aesthetic eye to a new interpretation of Jean Genet’s notorious play, about three women (two maids and their mistress) locked in an abusive cycle of domination and submission.

Cottiers Theatre Toulouse-Lautrec: The Musical 4–6 Jan, times vary, From £10

Reimagined production of the musical that aired back at Edinburgh Fringe 2011, painting a portrait of the brief but remarkable life of the iconic Frenchman.

A Right Guid Gab various dates between 23 Jan and 8 Feb, times vary, From £10

Village gossip Babs White stirs things up in what is basically Fife’s version of The Steamie.

Eastwood Park Theatre Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Edinburgh Playhouse Dirty Dancing various dates between 17 Dec and 12 Jan, times vary, From £17.50

The cult 80s film revamped for the stage and on the road for its first national tour; cue Baby and Johnny, sexy dancing and hungry eyes.

New Jersey Nights 22–26 Jan, times vary, From £10

Singalong musical journey celebrating the greatest hits of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

Festival Theatre Edinburgh The Nutcracker various dates between 20 Dec and 12 Jan, times vary, prices vary

Scottish Ballet’s retelling of Tchaikovsky’s dance classic, ripe for the festive season with its dreamlike narrative and magical journey of discovery.

King’s Theatre

23–26 Jan, times vary, From £8

Mother Goose

SECC

Seasonal panto fare at the King’s, offering the annual opportunity to boo the hell outta Grant Stott. Matinee performances also available.

The Giffnock Theatre Players breathe new life into Tennessee Williams’ classic American play, with life and death crashing in all around it.

Strictly Come Dancing Tour 25–27 Jan, times vary, From £45

The celebs (we use that term lightly) and dancers from television phenomenon Strictly Come Dancing take to the stage for the annual live tour. We trust you’re suitably excited?

The King’s Theatre Cinderella 17 Dec – 6 Jan, not 18 Dec, 25 Dec, 1 Jan, times vary, From £9

The King’s annual panto fun, with Karen Dunbar returning for her fifth run as Fairy Godmother. Matinee performances also available.

9 to 5: The Musical 8–12 Jan, times vary, From £15

Musical tale of the buxom blonde queen of country-tinged pop, based on the film of the same name.

Soul Sister 14–19 Jan, times vary, From £10

Touring West End musical inspired by the life and times of Ike and Tina Turner, following the highs and lows of their careers and personal lives.

The Circus of Horrors 28 Jan, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £13

Whirlwind of contortionists, flying aerialists, demon dwarfs, sword swallowers, and any other weird thing you can think of. Yep, it’s The Circus of Horrors.

Theatre Royal A Midsummer Night’s Dream 25–26 Jan, 7:15pm – 10:00pm, From £6

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s winter collaboration with Scottish Opera, this time taking on Shakespeare’s classic comedy tale of unrequited and unwanted love.

Tramway A String Section

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

The Sunday Night Laugh-In

Fri 04 Jan

The Friday Show (Ron Vaudry, Dave Ward, Danny Angelo, Chris Conway)

Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Fri 18 Jan

Improverts

Improvised lunchtime comedy favourite with resident cheeky chappies Stu & Garry.

Norris, Nathan Caton, Bruce Fummey, Jamie Dalgleish)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4/£2.50 members)

Wed 23 Jan

The Thursday Show (Bruce Morton, Graeme Thomas)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Fun Junkies

Wed 09 Jan

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £13 (£11)

The star of BBC1’s Live at the Apollo – and a regular on Channel 4’s Stand Up for the Week – brings his darkly funny comic spewings to The Stand.

Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

The Thursday Show (Ron Vaudry, Dave Ward, Danny Angelo, Chris Conway) Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Andrew Lawrence is Coming to Get You

Long-standing improv comedy troupe fae Edinburgh, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

The Friday Show (Ian Coppinger, Chris Martin, Stuart Mitchell, Eleanor Morton)

The Friday Show (Ben Norris, Nathan Caton, Bruce Fummey, Jamie Dalgleish)

The Pleasance, 19:30–23:00, £1

Showcase night featuring the best in fresh, local talent – bringing together first-time and up-andcoming comics in a series of quickfire 10-minute slots.

Thu 24 Jan

Thu 10 Jan

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Grassroots Comedy

Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Brunton Theatre, 19:30–22:00, £14.50 (£12.50)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Brand new monthly spoken-word show of the rather ace variety, featuring a feastful of writers, comedians and musicians telling (mostly) true stories, under the watchful eye of host Jo Caulfield.

Improverts

Comedy sketches picked by the audience and performed by a troupe of actors and musicians.

The Thursday Show (Ben Norris, Nathan Caton, Bruce Fummey, Jamie Dalgleish)

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 20:00–22:00, £5

Long-standing improv comedy troupe fae Edinburgh, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

New Material Night

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – just how we like it.

62 THE SKINNY

Tue 15 Jan

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 11 Jan

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Wed 16 Jan

Improv Wars

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

Tue 15 Jan

The Bungo, 20:00–22:00, £3

Vespbar, 20:00–22:00, £3

Sun 13 Jan

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

The Saturday Show (Vladimir McTavish, Chris Forbes, Susie McCabe, Dan Petherbridge)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Mon 07 Jan The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

New Material Night Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

Red Raw

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £13 (£11)

Fri 04 Jan

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Improvised lunchtime comedy favourite with resident cheeky chappies Stu & Garry.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

The star of BBC1’s Live at the Apollo – and a regular on Channel 4’s Stand Up for the Week – brings his darkly funny comic spewings to The Stand. showcase.

Sun 06 Jan Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

The Sunday Night Laugh-In

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Opera.

Packed Saturday bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes, with this edition in support of World Aids Day.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

theatre

18–19 Jan, 7:30pm – 8:30pm, £5

Conceptual piece capturing the fragile beauty of the day-to-day choices we make – and the inevitability of where every action leads – which opens with five woven sawing at chair legs with crosscut handsaws.

Audience members can come-and-go throughout.

The Good, the God, and the Guillotine 26 Jan, 7:30pm – 10:30pm, £5

Unique theatrical concert about belief, mortality and morality, with three performers, three laptop musicians and a reactive scenography of lights, objects and animations responding to Albert Camus’ 1942 powerful novel L’Étranger.

19 Dec – 20 Jan, not 25 Dec, 1 Jan, 8 Jan, 14 Jan, times vary, From £10

Royal Lyceum Theatre A Taste of Honey various dates between 18 Jan and 9 Feb, times vary, From £14.50

Written when she was just 18, Shelagh Delaney’s bittersweet tale of love and betrayal – set amidst tenements, housing estates and bingo halls – gets a welcome revisit for 2013.

Traverse Theatre Fifty Plays for Edinburgh 26 Jan, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, £6 (£4)

The Traverse kick off their 50th birthday celebrations by bringing together the 50 writers who have been chosen from all over the world to come up with plays about Edinburgh: this is an early chance to see the fruits first-hand.

Usher Hall One Night in Vienna 10 Jan, 13 Jan, times vary, prices vary

New show taking in the best of the Viennese tradition, with the Johann Strauus Orchestra and dancers doing their thing.

dundee Caird Hall One Night in Vienna 10 Jan, 13 Jan, times vary, prices vary

New show taking in the best of the Viennese tradition, with the Johann Strauus Orchestra and dancers doing their thing.

Dundee Rep Breakin’ Rules 13 26 Jan, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £8

Head-spinning airborne action from some of Scotland’s best hip-hop dance crews on the scene. Wickidywack, etc.

The Snow Queen 19 Dec – 5 Jan, not 25 Dec, 30 Dec, 31 Dec, 1 Jan, times vary, From £13 (£7)

Festive adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytale – December wouldn’t be the same without one, after all.

A Design For Deceit 18 Jan, times vary, £5

Dundee Rep’s Illuminate Ensemble (a group of actors with learning disabilities) tell a mysterious tale set around a spooky country mansion in 1935.

Get £10 tix if you’re under 26. Any seat. Any performance.

LISTINGS

A rt glasgow

SWG3 Last Chance various dates Until 19 Jan, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

Bar Gandolfi Single Bullets Until 31 Jan, times vary, Free

Manda Rin (from pop group Bis) exhibits a selection of new work alongside pieces from artists David Murphy and Craig McKintosh.

CCA Economy @ CCA various dates between 26 Jan and 23 Mar, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Stills’ Social Documents programme concludes with a two-venue group exhibition examining the impact of the economy upon life, extending its wares across Glasgow’s CCA – who host work by Tanja Ostojić, Hito Steyerl and WochenKlausur, amongst others.

Cafe Cossachok Winter Kaleidoscope Until 19 Jan, not 24 Dec, 31 Dec, 7 Jan, 14 Jan, times vary, Free

A selection of artists show a single piece of work for the first time – either something that has been sitting in the studio, or in their artist’s mind for sometime – amongst ‘em Rachel Adams, Tom Godfrey, James Hutchinson and Sue Tompkins.

Street Level Photoworks OPEN various dates between Until 3 Feb, times vary, Free

Showcase of existing work by both new and established artists embracing the range of formats and methods of photographic imagemaking.

Studio 41 Endeavour no.6: the Green; the Bows; and the Binding 16–26 Jan, not 20, 21, 22, times vary, Free

The Modern Institute Monika Sosnowska Until12 Jan, not 23 Dec, 30 Dec, 6 Jan, times vary, Free

The Polish painter – who studied at the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan – presents a showcase of allencompassing work, known as she is for designing projects to fit in to a specific space.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane Jim Lambie: Shaved Ice various dates between 20 Dec and 19 Jan, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

The Modern Institute’s new Aird’s Lane gallery space is taken over by new work from Glasgow artist Jim Lambie, who’ll be installing sixteen ladders with mirrored inserts and luminous-coloured coatings – accentuating the height and symmetry of the space.

New solo exhibition from Glasgow-

Festive exhibition of oils, watercolours, ceramics, traditional crafts, photographs and jewellery made in Glasgow and Eastern Europe, on sale for festive shoppers art lovers alike.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Pharaoh – King of Egypt Until 24 Feb, times vary, £5 (£3)

Showcase exhibition taking in 130 objects from the British Museum’s collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, including sculpture, bronze figures, written works on papyrus, jewellery and weaponry.

Mary Mary Mathew Cerletty, Sean Kennedy and Mateo Tannatt various dates between 18 Dec and 19 Jan, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

Triple-hander exhibition featuring the work of Mathew Cerletty, Sean Kennedy and Mateo Tannatt.

People’s Palace Scotland Can Make It! Until 13 Jan, not 24 Dec, 31 Dec, 7 Jan, times vary, Free

Unique collaboration between Creative Scotland and Panel, presenting a series of souvenirs – designed and manufactured entirely in Scotland – to be ready for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the prototypes of which will make up the body of the exhibition.

Slovakian Master Printers various dates between 12 Jan and 2 Mar, 10:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Four Slovakian printmakers take over the Prinmaker gallery space, with Karol Felix, Igor Benca, Marián Komáček and Robert Jančovič displaying a selection of printmaking.

Mezzotint, etching, monotypes and digital prints.

various dates between Until 26 Jan, 10:00am – 6:00pm, Free

First exhibition in Scotland for artist and novelist Harland Miller, presenting a group of new paintings alongside a selected survey of work from across several years.

Until 20 Jan, times vary, Free

Until 16 Nov, times vary, Free

Edinburgh Printmakers

Harland Miller: On Overcoming Optimism

Tales of the City (Gallery 3)

Exhibition of 13 sculptures, one lithograph and other related ephemera by French sculptor, painter, and film maker Niki de Saint Phalle, gifted to Glasgow Museums through the Contemporary Art Society.

The first comprehensive exhibition of Michael Brennand-Wood’s four decades of practice, drawing from 35 years of work, including many rare and previously unseen pieces.

Ingleby Gallery

Gallery of Modern Art

Niki de Saint Phalle: The Eric and Jean Cass Gift​

Until12 Jan, not 23 Dec, 30 Dec, 6 Jan, 10:30am – 5:30pm, Free

Unique exhibition bringing together work by twelve artists who traveled to and spent time in the Galápagos archipelago through a residency programme initiated in 2007, taking in a vast variety of approaches and disciplines.

Winter exhibition of speciallyselected works of 19th-21st century modern British paintings, drawings and sculpture work.

Until 23 Jun, times vary, Free

Michael Brennand-Wood: Forever Changes

Until 3 Jan, times vary, Free

Until 31 Jan, times vary, Free

As part of the gallery-spanning Tales of the City exhibition, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art display a selection of mixed media objects in Gallery 2, encompassing work from Alex Frost, David Hockney, Scott Myles, David Sherry and Simon Starling.

Showroom of six hand-tufted rugs, produced by Panel as part of a unique collaboration between seven artists exploring connections between the spheres of art and craft and the mass-produced culture of industrial design.

Fruitmarket Gallery

The Winter Collection 2012

Tales of the City (Gallery 2)

Until 12 Jan, excluding 6 Jan, 10:30am – 5:30pm, Free

Galápagos

Cyril Gerber Fine Art

As part of the gallery-spanning Tales of the City exhibition, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art display a selection of broad range of portraiture in Gallery 3, taking in work by Eve Arnold, Frank Auerbach and Beagles & Ramsay.

Dovecot Carpets of Distinction

based artist Sogol Mabadi, for which she’ll inhabit the gallery space inviting other to participate in a series of one-to-one performances. Quite probably also the longest exhibition title of our month, FYI.

The Lighthouse Above Scotland Until 23 Jan, times vary, Free

New exhibition allowing visitors a unique birds eye view of Scotland and to explore stunning aerial photography from the National Collection of Aerial Photography.

The Cockeyed Turkey and a Paper Pudding Until 5 Jan, times vary, Free

Special festive exhibition featuring work from a range of artists and designers, also doubling as a design shop with a Saturday ‘Secret Santa’ shop selling budget £5 gifts by local designers, as part of the themed pop-up markets (1, 8, 15, 22 Dec).

Modern Languages 5 Jan – 31 Mar, times vary, Free

Group exhibition offering contemporary perspectives of five international artists and designers on the familiar traditions of Irish craft: Nao Matsunaga, Laura Mays, Deirdre Nelson, Ciara Phillipsn and Barbara Ridland.

James Rigler: Room Service 10 Jan – 17 Mar, times vary, Free

Ceramicist James Rigler showcases a selection of site-specific objects that he created in response to the grandeur and formality of the Maxwell’s Georgian House in Pollok Country Park, commissioned by The Lighthouse.

George Square: Redesigned 14 Jan – 5 Feb, times vary, Free

International competition for the redesign of George Square, with the six shortlisted design teams who are in the second stage of the competition showcasing their designs at The Lighthouse. Winner announced on 18 January.

edinburgh

Institut Francais d’Ecosse Changement De Decor

City Art Centre John Clerk of Eldin: 1728-1812 Until 3 Feb, times vary, Free

Special exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of one of Scotland’s finest amateur artists, John Clerk of Eldin, giving his geological drawings and etching their first major overview.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Until 17 Feb, times vary, Free

Major exhibition exploring the work of the late Wilhelmina BarnsGraham (1912 -2004), who settled in St Ives and became an integral part of a group of artists working there, including Ben Nicolson and Barbara Hepworth.

The Derek Williams Collection Until 24 Feb, times vary, Free

Touring exhibition from the late Cardiff-based collector, bringing together pieces from his personal collection for their first touring outing – including work by Lucien Freud, L.S. Lowry and David Jones.

Until 19 Jan, not 23 Dec, 30 Dec, 6 Jan, 13 Jan, times vary, Free

Exhibition of images by Scottish photographer Albie Clark, who, working on and off the stage, captured a series of images of the Institut Francais in action during a busy summer 2012.

Inverleith House Andy Hope 1930 various dates Until 27 Jan, 10:00am – 5:30pm, Free

German artist Andy Hope 1930 interprets a lifelong fascination and engagement with popular culture, fantasy and science fiction, often using paintings found in charity shops as the basis for his own surreal and mysterious paintings.

Open Eye Gallery John Bellany: Works On Paper 7–30 Jan, not 13, 20, 27, times vary, Free

Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) RSA Open 2012 Until 31 Jan, times vary, Free

Exhibition of small works sourced by open submission from artists across Scotland, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photographs – all available to buy – with this year seeing the addition of a room dedicated solely to architecture.

Derek Clarke 1–31 Jan, times vary, Free

The RSA showcase a selection of works from the long career of prominent and longstanding RSA member Derek Clarke, in celebration of his 100th birthday.

Scottish National Gallery John Bellany: A Passion For Life Until 27 Jan, times vary, £7 (£5)

The Scottish National Gallery mark John Bellany’s 70th year with an exhibition of paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints from all the key periods of his career.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish Colourist Series: SJ Peploe Until 23 Jun, 10:00am – 5:00pm, £7 (£5)

The second in the Scottish Colourist Series of exhibitions takes in a retrospective of Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), the eldest of the four artists popularly known as The Scottish Colourists.

From Death to Death and Other Small Tales Until 8 Sep, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Lucknow to Lahore Until 7 Apr, times vary, Free

Series of photos by Scottish commercial photographer Fred Bremner spanning his travels in the Indian subcontinent from 1882 to 1922, exquisitely detailing the people and places of Imperial India.

Until 26 Jan, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Thought-provoking exhibition where images from Nazi Germany in the 1930s are printed over bright, colourful backgrounds.

Ingrid Christie: 12 Factorial Until 26 Jan, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

The Fine Art graduate displays a selection of unique work exploring the limitless possibilities of art – using a computer program to rearrange divisional elements of her paneled paintings, for which over 245 billion combinations can be arranged.

Talbot Rice Gallery Zoe Beloff

18 Jan – 16 Feb, not 20 Jan, 27 Jan, 3 Feb, 10 Feb, times vary, Free

Large cinematic installation showcasing exciting new works from four up-and-coming international artists: Fatma Bucak, Larisa Daiga, Evariste Maiga and Samuel Williams.

DCA Holiday various dates Until 27 Jan, times vary, Free

First solo UK exhibition by emerging international artist Trisha Baga, centred around her Plymouth Rock installation, which considers the famous pilgrim landing site via Chinese takeaway menus – culminating in a recital of a Justin Bieber Christmas song.

The McManus Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography Until 6 Jan, times vary, Free

Fashion photography showcase celebrating the lead up to the opening of the V&A in Dundee, exploring the work of international fashion photographers from the early twentieth century to the present day – from Helmut Newton to Rankin.

Reflections from the Tay Until 13 Aug, times vary, Free

New exhibition focusing on artists with links to Dundee – artists who were born there, worked locally or were associated with the Dundee College of Art.

Until 16 Feb, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Urban Outfitters Until 14 Jan, times vary, Free

The ECA graduate presents a solo show of screenprints based on the forgotten glory of the classic car, taking over the basement space of Urban Outfitters.

Until 3 Feb, times vary, Free

Leading Lights: Portraits by KK Dundas Until 3 Mar, times vary, Free

werther

BP Portrait Award 2012

Glasgow-Edinburgh

In 2011, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland commissioned portraits of its students past and present, with this selection featuring some of their most illustrious alumni.

Until 27 Jan, times vary, Free

Annual showcase of the very best in contemporary portrait painting from around the world, this year featuring 55 works selected from over 2,000 international entries.

Stills

First solo exhibition in Scotland by Andy Holden, incorporating a diverse array of outputs – from painting to performance. As part of the New Work Scotland Programme, giving Scottish-based graduates their first significant project or commission.

Antonio Claudio Carvalho: Let The Sun Hear You Crying

Cooper Gallery Estrangement

Since defecting from the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and settling in West Germany, Jitka Hanzlová has explored her condition of exile through photography. In the only UK showing of her work, this showcase displays the profound fruits of her labour.

Economy @ Stills

Patriothall Gallery

Until 26 Jan, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

The recent winner of Saatchi Online’s Showdown competition exhibits new work that tempts the viewer to journey into the artist’s imagination, hinting at the creative process behind each artwork.

dundee

Jitka Hanzlová

7–30 Jan, not 13, 20, 27, times vary, Free

11 Jan – 10 Feb, not 14 Jan, 21 Jan, 28 Jan, 4 Feb, times vary, Free

Stephen Thorpe: Once It’s In You, It Never Goes Away

Sander Schoonbeek

John Clerk of Eldin: Early Scottish Printmaking

New Work Scotland Programme: Andy Holden

Until 26 Jan, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

A selection of 29 colour photographs never before exhibited, including evidence of a raucous party held by Andy Warhol in honour of his friend Joseph Beuys in Napoli in 1980.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Christmas Window Exhibition: Tessa Lynch

To coincide with John Clerk of Eldin’s current retrospective at the City Art Centre, the Open Eye gallery showcase a selection of prints by the artist and a collection of other early Scottish printmakers.

The ‘Lost’ Photographs: Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys

Solo exhibition bringing together the final installation and film part of Zoe Beloff’s The Days of the Commune project, for which she assembled in various public spaces in New York City to work on scenes from Bertol Brecht’s The Days of the Commune.

Collective Gallery Until 6 Jan, 11:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Until 22 Feb, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Showcase of 33 specially-designed vitrines, featuring the work of various British stage and theatre designers, including Anthony Gormley’s design for a Sadler’s Wells opera and stage designs for Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball World Tour.

Selected masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, taking in some 130 works that each highlight the significance of the body as a theme in 20th and 21st century art practice.

A selection of works on paper by the acclaimed Scottish artist, coinciding with the major retrospective of his work currently running at the Scottish National Gallery.

While most galleries shut up shop for Christmas, Collective always leave a little surprise behind with their annual Christmas window display, for which Tessa Lynch will be creating a work themed around their forthcoming auction in March.

Summerhall From Gormley to Gaga: Transformation & Revelations

15 Feb-2 Mar

19 Jan – 21 Apr, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Stills’ Social Documents programme concludes with a two-venue group exhibition examining the impact of the economy upon life, with Stills’ playing host to works by Tracy Emin, Andreas Gursky, Mitra Tabrizian and Paolo Woods, amongst others.

Patriothall Gallery Life Drawing Group: Showcase 19–27 Jan, not 21, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

Showcase of work from Patriothall’s regular life drawing group.

Listen to music from the show online or try Werther Unwrapped – a FREE hour-long taster.

scottishopera.org.uk January 2013

THE SKINNY 63

LISTINGS

TUESDAY 18 JUNE

GLASGOW HAMPDEN PARK BUY ONLINE AT TICKETMASTER.CO.UK LIVENATION.CO.UK BRUCESPRINGSTEEN.NET NEW ALBUM ‘WRECKING BALL’ OUT NOW 64 THE SKINNY

January 2013

A LIVE NATION PRESENTATION