The Skinny March 2012

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.CO.UK

INDEP ENDEN T

JOURNAL ISM

FREE Issue 78 March 2012

Grimes "There's no time to be repetitive" Art – SuperClub vs Edinburgh Printmakers Glasgow Comedy Festival – Doug Stanhope, Bratchy, Michael Winslow and more London Fashion Week – A/W 2012 Film – Christopher Doyle Dexter Fletcher Clubs – Save the Bongo Pan Pot Theatre – Behaviour & Buzzcut Music – Meshuggah The Magnetic Fields Speech Debelle vs Talib Kweli School Of Seven Bells Lambchop Die Hard

MUSIC | FILM | CLUBS | THEATRE | TECH| ART | BOOKS | COMEDY | FASHION | TRAVEL | FOOD | DEVIANCE | LISTINGS

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PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

THE DT6 TUES 6TH MARCH O2 ABC GLASGOW

Nanci Griffith

Saint JUST ANNOUNCED Etienne Wed 23rd May

GLASGOW CONCERT HALL Tues 3rd April 0141 353 8000 GLASGOW CONCERT HALL Wed 4th April 01738 621 031 PERTH CONCERT HALL Thurs 5th April 01224 641 122 ABERDEEN MUSIC HALL Lin

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JUST ANNOUNCED A REGULAR MUSIC/TRIPLE G PRESENTATION IN ASSOCIATION WITH WME

HEY ROSETTA! Special FRENCH Guests

H E R E ’ S W H AT Y O U C O U L D H AV E W O N . . .

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P.23 THE BONGO CLUB

P.20 STEPHIN MERRITT

EDINBURGH

Sun 8th April 0131 529 6000 EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE

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KEVIN McDERMOTT ORCHESTRA

FRI 6TH APRIL

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SAT 10TH MARCH 0141 353 8000

PHOTO: NURIA RIUS

THE KENNEDYS

ILLUSTRATION: NICK COCOZZA

Glasgow Oran Mor

plus special guests

P.38 LONDON FASHION WEEK

MARCH 2012

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Monday 2nd April

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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 Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Competitions Editor Deviance Editor DVD Editor Fashion Editor Film Editor Food Editor Heads Up Editor Listings/Cyberzap Editor Performance Editor Tech Editor Travel Editor

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.

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Rosamund West Dave Kerr Andrew Cattanach Keir Hind Neil Murchison Bernard O’Leary David McGinty Ana Hine Keir Roper-Caldbeck Alexandra Fiddes Jamie Dunn Peter Simpson Anna Docherty Anna Docherty Gareth K. Vile Alex Cole Paul Mitchell

Production

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DF CONCERTS PRESENTS…DF CONCERTS PRESENTS…DF CONCERTS PRESENTS… 6:

8:

The Boss finally takes a bow in Hero Worship; Fred Fletch continues his investigations into The Apocalypse; Deviance Editor Ana jumps back into the debate on one night stands; Skinny on Tour heads east with an unborn child named Awesome; plus our Shot of the Month.

Possibly the largest calendar in Heads Up history, with 35 days of tip top events to blow your brain.

Features 10: 23-year-old Canadian prodigy Grimes AKA Claire Boucher explains her Visions.

12: Oh yes, Meshuggah will bring the thunder with new LP Koloss, once they've shoveled the snow off their driveway.

14: Lambchop's Kurt Wagner flat refuses to live life in a hurry.

15: A look forward to Edinburgh studio-gallery-collective Superclub's first birthday shin-dig.

17: Legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle gives us an insight into his career, Hong Kong and working with Wong Kar-Wai. 18: Pan Pot bang on about Berlin's creative maelstrom.

19: Glasgow has an all new, all singing all dancing grassroots performance festival, and its name is Buzzcut, part of Behaviour.

20: The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt squeezed out some words, we were there to catch them.

23: We take a look at what the Edinburgh music scene has lost in the last decade, and what the threat over The Bongo Club could mean for the capital.

24: The minds behind The Billy Kelly Songwriting Award explain why it's no ordinary battle of the bands.

26: We press ganged (aha. Ha. Ha) Dexter Fletcher into giving us some chat on his new film, Wild Bill.

27: Speech Debelle quizzes Talib Kweli on Hollywood, the Zodiac and his favourite MJ number.

28: In celebration of StAnza Poetry Festival, Books Ed Keir composes some doggerel for your dismay.

30: To celebrate Glasgow Comedy Festival, we came up with an array of dreadful headlines featuring the word (?) LOL. 33: Arika12's triptych of mini festivals draws to a conclusion with a weekend of free events focusing on performance.

LIFESTYLE 34: fashion: Glasgow fashion designer Jennie Lööf on princess dresses and wanting to be a professional footballer.

36: Showcase: Skinny fave illustrator Jack Hudson shows us what he's working on right now.

38: fashion: London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2012: Our Fashion team fought through the crowds of celebrities to bring you this beautifully illustrated, up to the minute report on what you'll be wearing come autumn. Clothes, apparently.

40: Food & DrinK: Food on the box: Food Ed Peter endured hour upon hour of TV cookery shows to provide you with this insightful guide to what exactly is wrong with Heston Blumenthal.

42: Deviance: In part one of an investigation into escorting in Scotland, Deviance talks to a happy hooker from Glasgow.

43: Travel: A traveller explores the dichotomies of travel vs tourism, including why getting a lizard tattoo is a very bad idea.

44: Travel: DocPoint festival in Finland – documentary film from around the globe.

REVIEW 45: Music: New releases in review from Dirty Three to Mouse on Mars, plus the forthcoming month's gig highlights and words with Glasgow trio Die Hard.

54: ClubS: The usual melting-pot of disco, dubstep, other dance music, and an actual night called Melting Pot. 56: Film: A preview of Werner Herzog's latest meditation on the human condition, Into The Abyss.

57: DVD: Read about some DVDs you might want to watch.

58: ART: Looking forward to RSA New Contemporaries and Anna Barriball at the Fruitmarket.

59: Books reviews your top four reads of the next month; Tech peeks into the world of Muvizu and tests out a new app.

60: Theatre: Venue of the month looks at Òran Mór, and we look forward to productions of Beauty and the Beast and a David Essex musical.

61: Comedy: Keara Murphy gives us a rough guide to the shower of bastards she's dated.

62: COMPETITIONS: Win stuff! Including tickets to The Doors Alive ('Great' according to Ray Philp).

63: LIstings: How do you squeeze 35 days of listings into a mere eight pages? You've got to be very very selective... The best things to do each and every day of March.

And a bit of April. And like two days of February.

71: School of Seven Bells' Ben Curtis lays out his all-time top 10;Crystal Baws predicts doom, as per.

GLASGOW ARCHES

EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE

thursday 8th march

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PLEASE NOTE: CHANGE OF VENUE – ORIGINAL TICKETS STILL VALID

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Lambchop plus guest

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Glasgow Oran Mor Monday 5th March lambchop.net

GLASGOW CAPTAINS REST

MONDAY 26TH MARCH WWW.LIZGREENMUSIC.CO.UK

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GLASGOW ORAN MOR SATURDAY 10TH MARCH

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GLASGOW THE COTTIER THEATRE FRIDAY 6TH APRIL EDINBURGH THE PLEASANCE THEATRE SATURDAY 14TH APRIL

FATHERSON DUNFERMLINE THE JAM JAR WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH

EDINBURGH PLEASANCE THEATRE

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WEDNESDAY 11TH APRIL

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THURSDAY 15TH MARCH FRIDAY 16TH MARCH

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THURSDAY 12TH APRIL

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SATURDAY 17TH MARCH SUNDAY 18TH MARCH

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FRIDAY 13TH APRIL

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Call: 08444 999 990 Online: www.gigsinscotland.com

www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Follow gigsinscotland on twitter @gigscot March 2012 THE SKINNY

5

HERO WORSHIP

Editorial You can tell it's spring when there's a picture of someone spitting out a flower on the cover. This month we've got a very exciting UK exclusive interview with rising star Grimes, aka Claire Boucher.

She tells us all about her monastic approach to the creative process, which includes blacking out her windows, fasting and avoiding human contact.

Turn to p10 for a word with the goth-pop prodigy.

Elsewhere in Music, we've got interviews with tech-metal Swedes Meshuggah, Lambchop's Kurt Wagner, The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt and Glasgow new blood Die Hard. School of Seven Bells' Ben Curtis was kind enough to spill his alltime top ten favourite records ever ever ever. Our Music Ed also set up an interview between Speech Debelle and Talib Kweli – she quizzes him on everything from star signs to conspiracy theories.

And a bit about music, obvs.

Art looks forward to both the first birthday of Edinburgh studio/gallery Superclub in March, and the impending biennial artstravaganza that is Glasgow International, returning in April. Film had some chats with legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and Dexter Fletcher, now famous for other things beside Press Gang. Like directing a film called Wild Bill, out this month.

Glasgow Comedy Festival is in March, and we spoke to some funny folk to give you a taste of what's in store. Turn to p30 for some words from Michael Winslow (him out of Police Academy), the Bratchpiece family and Doug Stanhope. In Books, shit gets weird as we preview the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews with an article written entirely in verse.

On a more sombre note, there was no way we could ignore the current threats to Edinburgh's clubbing landscape. In the face of the proposed eviction of the The Bongo Club, Bram Gieben takes a look back at some of the club, live music

and arts spaces that have vanished in the last decade without being replaced. It makes for troubling reading, and paints a bleak portrait of the future of alternative culture in the capital. Pay attention to p23 if you want to stop the rot.

In other grim news, as we go to print meetings are being organised to discuss and protest the proposed changes to public licensing legislation which could see arts organisations being forced to pay crippling fees to legally stage cultural events, including exhibitions and gigs. Clearly this would have a significant impact on the fertile creative scenes across the county. Head to the Drill Hall in Edinburgh on 1 Mar to hear more. You'll find info and a petition at chn.ge/ScrapArtsTax.[Rosamund West]

Grimes

THIS MONTH’S COVER: Nuria Rius

This month's cover image was provided by Londonbased photographer Nuria Rius. Having grown up working in her mum’s butcher’s shop, Nuria Rius studied photography and the arts in Barcelona.

After eight years working as Editor in Chief & Photo Editor for a Spanish magazine covering art, design, fashion and music, she moved to London where she currently works as a freelance photographer. www.nuriarius.com www.nuriarius.blogspot.com

Bruce Springsteen York troubadour Benjamin Francis Leftwich bows down at The Boss’s altar I first heard Bruce Springsteen after an impulse buy in HMV in my hometown of York. I got Nebraska and put it straight on my iPod. At the time I was spending a lot of time travelling between York and London for recordings and little gigs. I had also just broken up with a girl and was smoking too much, generally in a bit of a weird headspace and getting sick of trying to have my music heard.

I started listening to Nebraska one December night on the train to London and instantly fell in love. I had been a big fan of more modern records that were considered 'acoustic' like o by Damien Rice or The End of History by Fionn Regan. But this album was really acoustic. Just one acoustic guitar and vocals with the occasional harmonica; it had this real honesty and compassion to it and made me fall back in love with music in a big way.

My favourite Springsteen song is Atlantic City – track two on Nebraska. It’s a song in which Springsteen sings about a romantic escape of a young couple to New Jersey. He comments on the organised crime in the area at the time: 'Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night,' a reference to the death of an infamous Mafia boss.

The chorus then explodes into one of the best lines I’ve ever heard. The way Springsteen sings it is so genuine, and for me, makes the song: 'Everything dies baby that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies some day comes back. Put your make up on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City.' Amazing song.

Even though I love the rawness of that track, I also love all the diversity of Springsteen’s albums.

Another favourite of mine is The Rising – a much fuller sounding and more produced album and still very powerful. There seems to be a lot of post 9/11 sentiments on this album especially in songs like My City of Ruins and Into The Fire, but Springsteen manages to encapsulate a real sense of hopefulness and redemption on this album which is one of the many reasons I love it – 'May your strength give us strength, may your faith give us faith, may your hope give us hope, may your love give us love.'

I could talk about The Boss all day but I’ll spare you. I love Springsteen because he writes amazing songs that evoke lots of different emotions. For me he is the perfect song-writer and seems to always find what is right for 'the song'. He writes and performs music with a level of honesty and integrity that seems to be something of the past now, unfortunately. I was lucky enough to see Springsteen play live in Hyde Park three years ago and I can safely say that he has helped me and encouraged me with my outlook to recording, writing and releasing music.

Bruce Springsteen releases new album Wrecking Ball via Columbia Records on 5 Mar www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com

Shot of SKINNY the month ON TOUR Charlotte took some time out from doing the usual pregnancy things – crying, buying tiny socks, etc. – to send us this pic from her hometown. But where is she?

Frightened Rabbit HMV Picture house, 10 feb

by Emily Wylde

See more great photography at www.theskinny.co.uk And a gallery of the night at www.theskinny.co.uk/ music/gig_galleries

6

THE SKINNY March 2012

Enter your guess at www. theskinny.co.uk/competitions and you might win a bottle of wine courtesy of our expert friends at VINO WINES. Closing date: Tue 29 Feb 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 andwww. drinkaware.co.uk for the facts.

Over 18s only. This prize is not redeemable for cash and must be collected from one of the Vino Wines Edinburgh stores.

///STOP THE ///PRESSES!!!

OPINION

Important stuff we don’t have space for anywhere else

Image: x-ray delta one

ational The world-renowned Edinburgh Intern , An Appointment with the Wic Science Festival starts at the end of the month ker Man literally are There April. reaches the central belt this week 15 until March 30 running from : starring Greg s venue in g runnin Hem ages all phill off Chewin’ the Fat, it might still hundreds of events for end up in e and someone getting burnt, but at least across the city, with themes including scienc there are a few . dance laughs along the way... the arts, science and food, and science and partnering There’s even a comedy strand, which we’re issue. and will be going into in more detail in the next International Women's Day mme and Celebrating In the meantime you can see the full progra own way, Garterstitch 100 take over the their in er book tickets at www.sciencefestival.co.uk Old Hairdressers with a hotch-potch all-day including an on-site book shop from Glasgow Women's Library, alternative crafting with GarÒran MÓr launch their Billy Kelly Songwriting rks nethill Women's Institute, and a sale of artwo Award this month, offering a year’s worth of support illustrator Jenny Soep. Plus sed ow-ba Glasg by for new bands and solo artists. Head along to their Mar, tea and cake, naturally. Old Hairdressers, 8th open mic night on 20 March to find out more. tion) (dona £4 ht, midnig noonGlasgow,

Fred Fletch

Preparing for the Apocalypse With less than 10 months left until the Apocalypse, I decided to get all my survival research done as early as possible. Obviously, when the world ends, things might get a little distracting. Although the ancient Mayans were able to predict precisely the 21st of December 2012 End of Times, they neglected to describe exactly how it would happen. Unsurprisingly, preparing to not be killed by something is made infinitely more challenging by not knowing what that something is in the first place.

Thankfully a quick google search revealed 176,349,215 crazy individuals with fingers and an internet who all seemed to have confident insider knowledge to Armageddon and a CAPS LOCK THAT DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK! Typing ‘Survive 21/12/12’ into a search engine will find you literally millions of websites and forums dedicated to step-by-step guides to making ourselves as Doomsday-proof as possible – but unfortunately they can’t agree on what the flavour of Doomsday is actually going to be.

Even the ‘official 2012 Survival Page’ offers around a hundred Apocalypses to choose from, leaving me unsure as to whether I should be stocking my battle-ready monster truck with dehydrated astronaut food or just filling my asshole with double rations of Dracula-repellant. Even something straightforwardly insane like building an underground bomb shelter seems a lot less like common sense when ‘Possible Apocalypse 49’ turns out to be UNKILLABLE MOLE PEOPLE. With the clock ticking towards planetary extinction it seemed safest just to read every survival guide I could find and utilise the most commonly suggested survival tips.

If you filter out most of the ‘sun explodes’ or ‘Earth gets hit by Mysterious Planet Nibiru’ bullshit, you’ll find that a majority of survival guides refer to basic human needs. The most consistently offered advice seemed to revolve around hoarding high levels of non-perishable food and drink.

“You’ll need lots of long-life, easy to store food to stay alive,” is pretty smart advice, as without sustenance humans die, regardless of how many nuclear, predatory arthropods may or may not be chasing them. You and your kids might be out there in the wasteland, lording it over me in your state of the art fallout suits and all terrain dune

buggies, but 3 days down the foodless apocalyptic line I’m going to be the one eating freeze-dried peach halves while you’re trying to teach little Billy how to milk a giant scorpion.

Judgement Day resistant accommodation was the next, obvious suggestion. If the internet can show me on a blueprint exactly where in the Millennium Falcon Han Solo takes a shit, it sure as hell could tell me how to convert my flat into a middle finger to the mushroom cloud. It turns out that ‘totally below ground’ seemed to be the generally most accepted safe-zone, meaning that when the dust settles and survivors emerge, the task of repopulating the planet is going to be resting on the shoulders of janitors, Wombles and Josef Fritzl’s family.

Because I live in Dumbiedykes I realised I’d have to concentrate on making the not-underground part I live in so secure that the only way the four horsemen would get to me was if they cunningly disguised themselves as a travelling band of oilwrestling Lynda Carters. Returning to the forums I read the testimony of self-confessed ‘DoomsdayPrepper’ Paul from Arizona, who has spent the last five years transforming his broom closet into a survival cave. ‘Paul’ describes himself as ‘single’, ‘well-armed’ and ‘a plumber’ and is prepared to ‘survive and restart the human race.’ The plumber part of his description is actually pretty reassuring since, if I ended up pressed nipple to nipple with a gun-wielding, sexually active stranger in a soundproof cupboard while civilization falls, I’d want that stranger to be completely comfortable working in a 4 inch puddle of my faeces.

So after spending the better part of a week cataloguing the ravings of survivalists whose keyboards seemed to facilitate flippers, I ultimately ended up only sort of knowing three things I need to do to survive... and they’re absolutely what I should have been doing anyway. Eating well.

Building a home. Respecting my community. If I took the whole ‘end of the world’ part out of it and made some changes, I just prepared myself to live comfortably with or without an apocalypse.

And, if you still suspect that an Armageddon might be due, whether it be a Coronal Mass Ejection or something that doesn’t sound like what my dong might do during Last Starfighter, I leave you with this advice: do some research on how to keep living and be very careful imagesearching ‘Monster Black Holes’ without a safety filter and a laptop that closes in response to your own screams.

brightest and Edinburgh on The annual showcase of the Head along to the Drill Hall in ol graduates, at 7pm for a public meeting on the Mar best of last year’s Scottish art scho 1 Thu to the Mound which could RSA New Contemporaries returns proposed changes to licensing laws s and artist t ated. rgen decim eme 50 cape than lands ral More h. cultu on 17 Marc see the Scottish ges will a mixture of nisers say "These proposed chan architects will be exhibiting with orga The le adminyear’s degree new fees and place an unworkab specially selected works from last se impo You’ll be able to n arts centres and shows and newly created work. istrative burden on free admissio kinny.co.uk/ .thes www ss the country. at e acro onlin tives it t initia abou ral read more grassroots cultu rmance, art after it opens.

This will affect visual art, music, perfo and many other community and charity-led events a public meeting Edinburgh music/science/a forms of public event. Join us for rt magil discussion cians FOUND launched their new pane a ring featu , issue to discuss this project representatives Unravel last month ahead of its show comprising councillors, MSPs and ing at Glasgow International Festival of from the local arts community."

Visual Art in April. Lovers of the Cybraphon (thei rapArtsTax Sign the petition here: chn.ge/Sc r emotional robot band in a cupboard that lives in InSpace) will be pleased to learn that they’ Moonwalk Edinburgh: The ve developed site is now acon the interactive musical electronic cepting sign ups for the annual walk experience, ing marathon collaborating with Aidan Moffat in a bra for breast cancer extravaga to create a nza. Choose responsive robot band that reac between power walking a full moo ts to variables n (26.2 miles) including the weather and the size or a half moon (13.1 miles). It’s on of the 9 June, the audience to tell stories of memories theme is Midnight at the Oasis (dec that change orate bras according to its mood. You can make accordingly) and you can learn all it really about it depressed by swearing at it on Twitt at www.walkthewalk.org or by callin er apparg 01483 ently. It’ll be in Glasgow SWG3 from 741430.

20 Apr – 7 May.

Deviance

One Night Stands A couple months ago I wrote about this issue, sent off the piece, and then started to worry. I’d just HAD a one-night-stand that didn’t exactly fill me with the free and easy happiness I argued that such encounters would inevitably bring. Yes, okay it was sandwiched between other completely satisfactory pieces of casual sex. So why did that night in particular rattle me so much?

It was something he said as he left the next morning, or possibly right after we had sex, or maybe just before (it was a while ago after all). He said, “See, having a boyfriend isn’t that bad.”

This was strange for a number of reasons. The main reason being he… wasn’t my boyfriend. Actually, he was someone else’s boyfriend. So I was a bit unsure what he was trying to imply. That it’s nice to have someone around the flat? Yes, true.

Just not all the time. There’s a reason I choose to live on my own, and that’s because I like having my own space. Inviting someone in for the night, for a pleasant shag and a bit of good banter is not the same as inviting someone into your life. Some people enjoy being able to go home and sleep alone in their own bed. Relationships, surprisingly, require a little more commitment than that.

In a way it seemed like he was trying to tell me that I was missing out. Which is a little odd. Was he trying to say that no-strings-attached casual sex wasn’t doing me any favours? It didn’t bother me much at the time, but over the next couple of days it started to gnaw at me. Was he right?

Am I purposely avoiding long term commitment and trying to blur out the meaninglessness of my single existence with consequence-free sex with strangers and acquaintances? Did I really just need to ‘settle down’?

I would like to argue that the answer to that question is no, that we can be single and still be content. Yet it illustrates a good point. Why did he bother saying something like that at all?

There’s still this attitude that to be in a relationship is to be in the ultimate human state, especially for women. Got a book deal? Graduating with a 1st? Finally passed your driving test? New job?

Opened a successful club night? Oh, but you’re single... well you can’t have everything, dear. Especially when you consider how much money we now spend on our educations – it seems almost hurtful to imply that a single woman has somehow failed in a critical, yet unspecified, sort of way.

I don’t think that’s true. Being single isn’t a failure, just as being in a relationship isn’t a success. One night stands aren’t a replacement for sexual intimacy. If anything they’re a replacement to masturbation – a way to connect with another person’s gentials and hit some of those, er, harder to reach places. There’s nothing wrong with just wanting a little bit of casual sex. Can’t we have a little bachelorette pride?

So, is casual sex wrong? No. Is making the other person you’re casually having sex with feel guilty about said sex, wrong? Yes. I know monogamy can sometimes be constraining, just… be cooler about it all, okay? There are alternative models.

There’s nothing wrong with a one night stand.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

7

WED 29 FEB

THU 1 MAR

An obscure but brilliant hit at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, Simon Munnery returns to Edinburgh with his ambitious one-man punk musical about the R101 airship of the 1930s, amongst other unlikely comic oddities. Hats off to the man for foraging the uncharted comic territory of British airships. And making it funny. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £10 (£8)

Celebrating the extra day that a leap year brings, Washington Irving (whose story began in a basement flat back on the leap year date of 29 February 2008) take to Flat 0/1 for what will effectively be their first birthday (argh, the mind fuckery), before they head off to the studio to record their debut album. Flat 0/1, Glasgow, 8pm, £6

Twisted folk fairytales are the order of the day as Withered Hand welcomes his new EP into the world with his first full band show of 2012, playing a doubleheadliner set with fellow Fencer The Pictish Trail.

Support comes from the alternative folk ruckus that is The Second Hand Marching Band, plus Fence DJs playing into the wee hours. The Caves, Edinburgh, 8pm, £10

HEADS UP This may well be the longest 'month' in Heads Up history, taking y'all from 28 February to 2 April, with 35 tick'em-off-as-you-go events. Go forth and share in the joy we had compiling this monster...

Withered Hand

WED 7 MAR

THU 8 MAR

Nottingham-based quintet Dog Is Dead do their rather fine line in big, uplifting pop harmonies – tightknit, chirpy and ever so loveable, they're also currently to be found giving out random prizes to fans who 'share' their videos online. What nice chaps. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8pm, £6.50. Also playing Edinburgh's Electric Circus the following evening

The reliably good Alison Peebles directs Gary Robson's The Man Who Lived Twice, a dramatised account based around what took place between actor John Gielgud and playwright Edward Sheran when they met in a penthouse suite in New York back in 1936, days before Gielgud went on to give what's regarded as the performance of his life. The Arches, Glasgow, 7-10 Mar, 7.30pm, £9 (£6)

Dylan Carlson makes his first visit to the capital something special, bringing us back down to Earth with a show at The Caves from Seattle's drone godfathers.

Modern folk specialists Mount Eerie and Ô Paon support. The Caves, Edinburgh, 8pm, £14

TUE 13 MAR

WED 14 MAR

THU 15 MAR

FRI 16 MAR

Oakland hip-hop legends Souls of Mischief make their live return, taking us on a veritable trip down an old-school memory lane with their chilled West Coast sound, characterised as ever by lyrical depth and dexterity combined with consistently solid production and turntable skills. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 7pm, £10. Also playing Glasgow's Classic Grand the following evening

Utterly clear on their levels of over-the-top-ness, NYC experimental art-rockers Xiu Xiu ride defiantly along on ringmaster Jamie Stewart's self-indulgent delivery, resplendent with obscure dollops of 80s new romanticism and lyrics about sex, love and politics.

We wouldn't have 'em any other way. Captain's Rest, Glasgow, 8pm, £8.50

Brand new comedy night on the block, Punchline, takes to Edinburgh's Usher Hall for what promises to be comedy done with a dose of class. Londoner Andrew Lawrence will be a hellrasier of a headliner – likely delivering streams of hyperactive abuse in all directions, as is his merry way – alongside support from Seann Walsh, and rather ace sketch ensemble Idiots of Ants.

Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 8pm, £20 (£18)

Bearded Scottish wildman Phil Kay takes to King Tut's as part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival Fringe, where he'll be letting his mind wander freely around any-and-every topic he fancies, from whimsical takes on topical political notions to, erm, buying machetes in Venezuela. He may also be get a bit naked, as per. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8pm, £14

Photo: Alex Woodward

TUE 6 MAR

COMPILED BY: ANNA DOCHERTY

Andrew Lawrence

WED 21 MAR

THU 22 MAR

Longtime Buzzcocks funnyman Phill Jupitus returns to the stand-up stage, playing a two-night stint across the Central Belt, taking in both Edinburgh and Glasgow's The Stand. The last time he toured up this way he apparently learnt the word 'bawbag'. You're welcome, Phill. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £15. Also playing Glasgow's The Stand the following night

Producer, MC, and all-round grime master Wiley (aka Richard Cowie) plays his rescheduled Glasgow date, his electronic meets hip-hop fusion thing all well and in place, topped off with his inimitable snappy lyrical flow.

Our favourite pen-to-paper from the latest album?

Probably Information Age's gem of a line: "Sometimes I’m askin’ God, but the internet’s quicker...". Ne'er a truer word. O2 ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £12

An important date on our monthly calendar, as Òran Mór host the joint launch of the 2012 Billy Kelly award – giving songwriters of all ages and styles the chance to perform in front of a panel of judges, and win a cool £5000 – whilst also welcoming 2010 award winners Sunshine Social back to the venue for the launch of their first EP, recorded under the watchful gaze of Glasgow musician Roddy Hart. Òran Mór, Glasgow, 7pm, £4

MON 26 MAR

TUE 27 MAR

WED 28 MAR

THU 29 MAR

Ayrshire funnyman Billy Kirkwood takes a wander into the world of body art, with an improv-styled show discussing the ideas behind people's tattoos, where an audience member will win the chance to design a new tattoo for Kirkwood. When he did the show in Edinburgh he ended up with a tattoo of a lion on a skateboard running away from a packet of Fruittella...

The Stand, Glasgow, 9.45pm, £8 (£7). Part of GICF

The literary world are out en force for Literary Death Match, as a host of talent (including poet Michael Pederson, author Sara Sheridan, and writer-cum-MC Gavin Inglis) go in front of an all-star cast of judges – who be Christopher Brookmyre, Hannah McGill, and Alan Bissett – in a fight to the bloody death (erm, maybe).

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 7pm, £5 advance (£8 door)

If you haven't already discovered The Flying Duck's Oranjeboom Wednesdays then might we suggest you do so pronto. This chilled midweek film night serves up a variety of recent classics, usually of a themed variety (like the recent Coen Brothers special), all for gratis (with £2 cans of beer to boot). It's a case of rockin' up and seeing what's screening that night, more's the suprise joy of it. Flying Duck, Glasgow, 7pm, Free

This month Edinburgh Printmakers resurrect their night of random film oddities, Negativnights, with a mix of unseen mini films and documentaries championing experimental filmmakers of all genres. You can learn the full line-up on p15 of this very magazine. Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, (also 8 Mar), 6.30pm, £5 (£4)

Photo:Richard Freeman

Image: Loz Pycock

TUE 20 MAR

8

THE SKINNY March 2012

Photo: Alex Woodward

TUE 28 Feb

Sara Sheridan

Erica Eyres, Still from Destiny Green

SUN 4 MAR

MON 5 MAR

LA-based, French singer-cum-actress SoKo (aka Stephanie Sokolinski) takes to Nice 'n' Sleazy's basement armed with her new LP, I Thought I Was An Alien (she apparently did actually spend time wondering if she was an alien). We'll be hanging on ever one of her oft-loopy and whimsical lyrics. Nice 'n' Sleazy, Glasgow, 8pm, £18

For this month's Geek Film Night – where well-kent faces screen their favourite geeky film pleasure – Scottish comic Frankie Boyle chooses satirical sci-fi delight Starship Troopers, where a plucky young fascist military operation do battle with giant alien bugs. It'll be preceded by Boyle chatting with host Mark Miller about just why he thinks it's a winner (answer?, giant alien bugs). GFT, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £7 (£5.50)

Alternative country types par excellence, Nashville's Lambchop take to the road armed with their new album, Mr. M, another collection of pleasingly peculiar and melancholy songwriting, which also features liner notes illustrated with head honcho Kurt Wagner's original paintings. This is us officially telling you to seek it out. And then enjoy it in a live setting. Òran Mór, Glasgow, 7pm, £20

Wounded Knee

Kurt Wagner

SAT 10 MAR

SUN 11 MAR

MON 12 MAR

Beta (as in, one half of I Am's Beta & Kappa duo) joins forces with DJ Noface for the second installment of Bad News, upping the soundsystem culture in Glasgow by getting their mitts on the Electrikal Sound System's 26KW wall of sound and inviting guests Benji B, Coki, Pangaea, and Phaeleh to hammer some tunes through it. Amen. The Arches, Glasgow, 11pm, £10

Horror film all-nighter, All Night Horror Madness, returns with a quintet of grisly offerings, kicking off a little differently than usual with a surprise movie, before Brain Damage, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Nights of Terror, and Return of The Living Dead play right through the night, scaring us silly as they go. Cameo, Edinburgh, 11pm, £17.50 (£15.50)

Talbot Rice play host to a collection of Alison Turnbull's intricate paintings and drawings; meticulous, mapped works that oft take their inspiration from charts and architectural plans. For it, she'll also be showcasing an interactive installation for which she's been exploring the mineral collection at the National Museums of Scotland and Werner's Nomenclature of Colours. Talbot Rice, Edinburgh, until 5 May, Free

Black eyeliner at the ready, as Jaz Coleman and his uncompromising post-punk unit, Killing Joke, get back on the road in their original incarnation, at the same time getting us even more hyped for the new album that's scheduled for arrival next month – a dark, end-of-the-world themed beast of a thing ominously titled 2012. O2 ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £19.50

Return of the Living Dead

Sea the Stars, 2009

Photo: Markus Thorsen

FRI 9 MAR

SAT 17 MAR

SUN 18 MAR

MON 19 MAR

RSA New Contemporaries returns for its fourth year, offering a showcase platform for the best of Scotland's young emerging art talent. The exhibition of handpicked delights will feature work from some 57 graduates over all 12 galleries of the RSA, including ECA graduate Rachel Barron – whose diagrammatical print work has already caught our eye. RSA, Edinburgh, until 11 Apr, £4 (£2)

King Tut's is taken over for the night by the alternative pop offerings of Diagrams, which is former Tunng co-frontman Sam Genders' folk-tinged take on the pop genre, where acoustic instruments collide with laptop tinkering, and we go all woozy around the edges.

Support comes from similarly lavish multi-instrumental French trio, Yeto Lane. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8pm, £7

Housewife funnywoman Mrs Barbara Nice (aka the comedy creation of Janice Connolly) offers up her unique comic insights into the human condition, all motherly and inappropriate-like. This will likely involve discussions on Take A Break magazine, and possibly even a bit of live stage diving. Take cover. The Stand, Glasgow, 9.30pm, £10. Part of GICF

Rachel Barron, A Notional Response

FRI 23 MAR

SAT 24 MAR

SUN 25 MAR

Arika12 returns for the third installment of their delightfully experimental mini festival, this time laying focus on shared moments of hearing and understanding, with works including Ashley Hunt's dismantled, performed film, which pieces together images and storytelling of a documentary about Hurricane Katrina before a live audience. Tramway, Glasgow, until 25 Mar, Free

Taking in a showcase of talent for their spring exhibition, Edinburgh Printmakers host New Print Generation, a handpicked selection of graduate work chosen from across the four Scottish Art College Degree Shows, spanning a variety of printmaking techniques and including work from Rachel MacLean – who designed the cover of our February issue, no less.

Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, until 19 May, Free

4th year Glasgow School of Art students Jeanie AllportBryson and Amalie Silvani-Jones team up for an artful mini exhibition/party, where they'll showcase a selection of paintings and mixed media pieces looking at where modern society is heading, accompanied by a short play from fellow GSAer Andrew Black, plus live music and free drinks. The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, 6pm, Free

Rachel McLean, The innocents

Jeanie Allport-Bryson

SAT 31 MAR

SUN 1 APR

MON 2 APR

The Pin Up crew bring the fun with their final show, like, ever, with guests including new Chemikal Underground signings Miaoux Miaoux, and Sonny Marvello. Y'all can also get behind their campaign to finally get Jarvis Cocker on the decks (via their 'Get Cocker' Facebook page), after six whole years of harassing his agent.

Flying Duck, Glasgow, 9pm, £tbc

Edinburgh's long-running retro clubber's delight, The Go-Go, celebrates its 12th year of being, with veteran DJs Tall Paul and Big Gus spinning their usual mix of 60s, beat, soul, mod, garage and pop, joined on the night for a two-set show from The Beatles tribute act, Them Beatles. Studio 24, Edinburgh, 11pm, £8 (£7)

Well, duck a fuck – Mike Patton's seminal avant-rock combo, Mr. Bungle, follow in the footsteps of Gene Simmons and Terrence Trent D'Arby with a low-key comeback at the Drop. Get along early to avoid disappointment. The Last Drop, Edinburgh, 12pm, Free

Indulging our fantastical side we take our HG Wellsindulged selves to Edinburgh International Science Festival's live lecture on, YES!, how to build your own time machine. Science writer Brian Clegg will be there to tell us how it really is possible, and what materials we might need to make one. Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 5.30pm, £8 (£6)

Photo: Chris butler

FRI 30 MAR

Get Cocker

Photo: Michael Schmelling

SAT 3 MAR

The Arches comes to colourful life for Sound Thought 2012, their annual festival of mould-breaking music, sound and performance, this year focusing on the idea of music as a gift, and featuring Julien Lonchamp, Wounded Knee, and collaborative duo Jer Reid and Jenny Soep, amongst others, doing their decidedly experimental thing. The Arches, Glasgow, until 3 Mar, noon-8pm, £15 (£10) festival pass

Photo: Alex Woodward

FRI 2 MAR

March 2012 THE SKINNY

9

MUSIC

Black Celebration Canadian bedroom-pop prodigy Grimes reveals the lengths she’s willing to go to realise her vision Interview: Mark Shukla Photos: Nuria Rius

Pop music is a powerful and dangerous commodity. Like the prima materia of the alchemists, it has been rectified, calcinated and commixed with countless other genres through the ages in an attempt to distil new and vibrant forms. Of all possible combinations, the marriage between pop and that which is known as ‘goth’ is one of the most potentially volatile. If the Gods are smiling you might happen upon something akin to Disintegration-era Cure; but get your proportions wrong and you could end up with a pool of Rasmus all over the studio floor.

It was, perhaps, with the historical difficulty of such a marriage in mind that certain listeners came to regard Grimes’ 2010 sophomore album, Halfaxa, as something of a thaumaturgic sensation.

Produced by Montreal-based Claire Boucher, here was an album that not only managed to reconcile pop and goth, but also synthesised classical chant with modern R&B and electronic influences.

For her forthcoming album, Visions (aptly named in reference to medieval Christian mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen), the 23-year-old has delivered a record which foregrounds her pop tendencies even further, without compromising its predecessor’s alien beauty. It’s a captivating record; one that has already garnered significant hype from both the critics and the blogosphere at large – not that Boucher is letting it get to her head.

“I’ve stopped reading my press because I think it’s bad for your psyche. I used to, but it definitely changes the way that you make music. It got to the point where I was doing all these weird things; I was making these fake bands so I wouldn’t have to worry about Grimes – so I could psychologically stop worrying about what other people were thinking.”

Boucher’s splendid isolation extended to the recording sessions for the album itself; a three week period of “self-imposed cloistering” and “psychic purging” during which she blacked-out her windows, avoided human contact and ate almost nothing.

“Fasting is actually an incredible thing to do for your brain,” she enthuses, “it just creates incredible lucidity. It was like I knew what I had to do and I just felt like I could work for hours and hours.

There were definitely periods when I think I worked for 24 hours or more without stopping – just in the same spot, totally focusing so hard on one thing...

At a certain point (the music) kind of develops its own sort of mantra-esque life.”

Whilst this may sound like an abnormally grueling process for a producer who rates Mariah Carey, Aqua and TLC among her favourite artists, Boucher’s brutal work ethic paid off when 4AD offered to release the record outside of Canada. “[Signing with 4AD] is probably one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life,” she says. “It’s like the weirdest, most unrealistic situation I can imagine.”

And while working with such a prestigious label will undoubtedly bring Grimes a great deal more exposure, Boucher recognises a need to be mindful when playing the media game: “I’ve definitely been thinking about that a lot. I’m definitely concerned about it being, like... I don’t want it to get too sexy. I want it to be tasteful but I still want it to be cool and I want to try to do things that are really different. There’s a lot of fine lines to be walking and I’m just sort of trying to structure that as carefully as possible. I would like the work to be critically acclaimed, but at the same time if it wasn’t it wouldn’t change anything about how much music I make or the kind of music I make...

It’s improved my mental health significantly since I started doing this – especially since I’ve been able to stop working any other jobs. Now I don’t have to do anything else I pretty much spend 100% of my time working on Grimes in one capacity or

10 THE SKINNY March 2012

There’s just so many options... so many things that I still have to do Claire Boucher

another, unless I’m socialising. It’s stressful but I think it’s super important to pursue something you feel passionate about.”

Not only does Boucher cherish her opportunity to take her music to an international audience (“It’s like this high school dream,” she coos. “All these places I would never go...”), she’s determined that her enjoyment is reflected in the work she creates: “For me the number one thing about music is that it should feel really good to make and it should feel really good to listen to, and so that’s what I pursue. Everything on this album for me has a lot of heart. My older albums were really just fun-time experimental stuff. But I want to make music that means something, at least to me.”

The music of Grimes may vibrate with a kind of transcendent ecstasy, but Boucher admits that much of her inspiration is drawn from her experience of its polarity. When pressed to identify the album’s primary emotional catalyst, she replies: “Just loss in general, I think. A lot of the best music that I write, I write when I’m really upset and that’s definitely pretty intentional. That’s definitely a thing. Visions was a really intense record to write because of the process of getting there. There was always this feeling that I needed to get away from Montreal, and then I went on tour for like the whole year, and I became incredibly homesick. I broke up with my boyfriend because I was never around. When I came home I didn’t know anybody anymore and I was just like, ‘fuck, I wanna leave again.’ Definitely one weird thing about music is that it led to this kind of homelessness that’s a little strange.”

This sense of never quite feeling grounded is something that seems to bleed into the critical evaluation of her music, with ‘alien’, ‘celestial’ and ‘otherworldly’ being adjectives commonly used to describe her work. While this may be attributable partly to her penchant for icy electronic synthesis, it’s undoubtedly Boucher’s sinuous four octave range which is the primary cause; her vocals bearing comparison variously to the sublime melisma of

Lisa Gerrard, the excrutiating dreaminess of Julee Cruise and even the seductive giddiness of K-pop artists like Girls’ Generation and T-ara: “When I first heard K-pop I was like, whoa, this sounds like Grimes more than a lot of stuff I’d heard before. I just love dance music. I love high pitched girl vocals with tons of overdubs. I love the way Korean sounds – it’s a really cool language.

There’ll be a bunch of random stuff I don’t understand then they’ll just say one word that I recognise, like heart or love or something [laughs].

Plus the visuals are so great, they make videos for every song. I mean Girls’ Generation have, like, 37 videos. That’s crazy.”

Crazy or not, it’s a standard of industry that Boucher believes she can match, having committed herself to delivering a video for every song on Visions: “There’ll be a pretty intense quality difference between some of them,” she says, wryly. “The ones I do myself – especially the ones where I use my mom’s point and shoot camera, which was sometimes my only video option – will be really ghetto. I think it’s really important to work with other people on videos; just developing something with another person, ‘cause I never get to do that in music. The thing about working with people in film is that they definitely are more qualified than I am. So it’s interesting to have a team where everyone’s doing the thing that they’re best at. It makes a really good product in the end.”

As Boucher grows steadily more animated in her responses, it becomes obvious that for her, Grimes is a project without limits: “Everything I do, all the visuals and everything I do, it’s working with the music. I care about music, but the thing I care most about is crafting a complete work, and the visual part is a huge part of that for me. I mean I love making music videos, I love it almost more than making music. It’s one of the most fulfilling things ever. It’s so fun. I want to work in video art and, you know, be recognised for that too.

There’s just so many options... so many things that I still have to do. There’s no time to be repetitive.”

As talk turns to live performance, Boucher reveals that her own appearance is the one element of the Grimes aesthetic that she has mixed feelings about: “I like the idea of actually manufacturing a pop star becuse I’m lazy and I’d prefer not to have to get dressed up and go do stuff,” she jokes.

“I’d rather make someone else do that. A lot of the things about me that seem really fashionable are really just the result of tons of favours from my friends, just lending me clothes. It’s funny that some people think I have this high fashion image or whatever [laughing] – not that I do. Anything like that has been cultivated by other people.”

With the interview winding down, we inquire about a recently uploaded video of a spotlit Grimes performing a mesmerising acoustic paean inside some kind of cavernous, pitch-black edifice. The ukelele with which she accompanied herself “was a one-time deal,” she stresses, but Boucher recalls the circumstances of her performance with glee: “We went down into the basement of this crazy abandoned building – this is Montreal in the dead of winter, like negative 40. It was great but my fingers froze so it was really hard to play. People kept having to blow on my fingers, it was so painful. If you watch closely you can see a piece of the roof fall and hit me in the head as I’m playing [laughs].

That was really fun!”

As a barometer of grace under pressure, you’d have to say that the ability to withstand sudden head trauma without breaking flow is a pretty robust indicator. It’s certainly a fine illustration of Boucher’s focus and good humour, but it also serves as a broader metaphor; a reminder to us all of the importance of retaining our own poise and integrity as the old structures – be they political, economic or intellectual – crumble around us.

We’ll drink to that.

Visions is released 12 Mar on 4AD. Grimes plays Glasgow’s Berkeley Suite on 7 May www.4ad.com/artists/grimes

March 2012 THE SKINNY

11

MUSIC

Under A Groove

Sweden’s premier tech-metal titans resurface with Koloss this month, guitarist Mårten Hagström explains why Meshuggah’s uncompromising attitude has been vital to their success Interview: Dave Kerr

With their wall of custom eight-stringed guitars, hypnotic polyrhythmic tempo-shifts and an everexpanding legion of fans that reaches beyond the perceived limitations of heavy metal, Meshuggah are an unstoppable phenomenon at this point, or so you might think. “I’m snowed in!” starts guitarist Mårten Hagström when our call connects to Umeå in the remote northern reaches of Sweden.

“I’m used to it, but the prospect of two hours of shovelling doesn’t exactly appeal.”

We’re interrupting a rare week of what the average man would consider domestic normality, but as a member of one of the hardest working bands in the business, Hagström’s shovel sits in the shed while he eagerly talks about Meshuggah’s impending return this March with Koloss – a concise and earthy sequel to counterbalance 2008’s expansive and clinical ObZen. “We haven’t really had much of a break at all,” he realises. “We finished off the mastering process for Koloss around Christmas, and then some of the guys went over to the States to have a listening party. We’ve been doing interviews, recording a video and right now we’re preparing to go to Australia. For us, this is normal stuff.”

Congratulations on the new album, it’s punchier than anything you’ve done in a long time – was ‘less is more’ the general idea?

“Normally we ask the question: with this thing we’ve been doing, this sound that we‘ve had up until now – how can we put it into a new light? Where can we go? We could pick up acoustic instruments but that wouldn’t really be honest. How can we keep the tone and the approach but present something that’s a little, y’know, out there on its own?”

“Once we’d written a couple of tracks we realised that something we’d been missing ourselves in Meshuggah records is what we really feel is important in every aspect of music – and that’s the groove. We’ve always been trying to groove, but the emphasis has been so that people can pick up on the technical parts of it. We really wanted to make sure that the arrangements and structures of the songs were, more so than ever before – groovier, slower and more sinister, but still with our touch to it.

That, I think, made a more concise album.

“Secondly, and this is maybe of more importance to us, is that this is the most illusory album we’ve put out. With this album the intricacies of our music are a little more hidden; each song sounds slightly different every time, it’s quite reminiscent to Catch Thirtythree that way.”

12 THE SKINNY March 2012

Your last album, ObZen took the lengthiest period you’ve ever spent on any one album, and that certainly seemed to pay off. Was Koloss any quicker?

“No, it took longer! [Laughs] We started writing it, I wrote a song and a half, plus a couple of riffs here and there; Fredrik [Thordendal, fellow axeman] had some ideas and Tomas [Haake, drummer] had some stuff going on that was early stages. Then we got an offer to go out on the road for a beautiful warm festival summer and we thought ‘Well, ObZen probably has some good touring time left on it, so we might as well halt the writing process and go on the road for a little bit more. ’That was a good thing; it made the album take longer but it gave us some perspective on what we’d already started and where to take it from there. We did the writing and recording process a bit differently this time.

With ObZen, we’d write and arrange everything and know that this is the album, these are the songs, and they’re pretty much 100% ready for recording. On this album we recorded a couple of tracks and still had 50% of the album left to write. That also gave us more perspective and meant that more of us were involved in everything – this was more of a collaborative process than we’re used to. From where we’re sitting right now, that helped this album a lot.”

From your point of view, how does Koloss stylistically differ from ObZen? “ObZen was us using our new sound to return to our roots – finding the metal and the thrash era and bringing it into what we’ve become today. This album is more organic – it’s a groovier album focused on the subtleties of the band, but still quirky enough to be a Meshuggah album [laughs].”

Can you pick any personal highlights from the tracklist?

“We were talking about this in rehearsal last week when we were trying to put together a live set for this UK tour, since that’s the first time we’ll be playing anything from Koloss. The thing that struck us was there’s no song that doesn’t really fit with the live set, which made us realise that this is probably, song for song, the strongest album we’ve put out.

“I really like the track we put out as a teaser on the internet, Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion, purely because it’s got all the makings of a Meshuggah song but a much more concise and groovy aspect of it. It’s almost a fuck you to that whole ‘hot mustard in your ass, playing

every note as fast as you can’ type of approach [laughs]. We always like having a bit of that. But probably the most intense song on the album is The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance, which is Fredrik’s track all the way through and also one of my favourite songs. If I had to pick one I’d say Do Not Look Down, because it’s a fucked up, fun, eerie, retarded kind of song.”

We started out as stubborn Nordic motherfuckers – not caring about anything Mårten Hagström

Does it become difficult to follow up what you’ve done before without repeating yourself?

“Probably, but not because of any external expectations. It always feels weird to say we don’t care what people think [laughs], because we do.

Obviously when you put out music you want your fans to like what you’re doing, otherwise we’d just keep it to ourselves. Probably the earliest we discussed this was on Chaosphere, back in ’98: we were like ‘How do we approach this?’ We were following up Destroy, Erase, Improve, which was the first album that anybody noticed of ours. We figured that the band we’re in sounds this way because we started out as stubborn Nordic motherfuckers – not caring about anything, just being in our bubble and blasting away at stuff that we feel is interesting right now, today. The only way through is to keep doing that, but it doesn’t get any easier.”

The majority of your lyrics are in English but I know it’s not Jens [Kidman, vocalist]’s preferred tongue. Who handles the words?

“Tomas writes about 80% of the lyrics and I

write the rest. Tomas and I have been writing with the intent of coming up with cool lyrics since we were kids. Jens and Fredrik started out with the approach of ‘we want to write cool music but fuck the lyrics’. They just wanted something to put on there. Jens and Fredrik don’t read books, for instance, whereas Tomas and I devour them.”

What are these particular songs about?

“We never really want to tell people what our songs are about – make up your own mind! [laughs]. There is a very loose theme in that on some level every one of them deals with dogma and conviction – the way you lose the greyscale in your mind to decide that ‘this is right, this is wrong, and that’s the end of the story.’ In a sense that becomes a tool of power and corrupts your mind in many ways – these songs are about the dangers of that, basically.”

I understand You and Tomas grew up together, are you very much on the same page in the band purely because of that?

“We’ve known each other since we were six; we’re kinda like brothers that way. I guess that helps a lot. There are a lot of things that are just understood between us. Fredrik and Jens have known each other since they were 12. We’re often asked why we’ve kept the same line-up apart from the bass player for so long, I would say it comes down to the fact we’ve known each other since childhood.”

A few of your albums – particularly Nothing and Catch Thirtythree – have been divisive. Do you consider that a benefit? ”I do, what’s really nice to see is we always piss a lot of people off when we release an album, and at the same time we seem to attract a lot of people who are almost surprised that they’re into us. Every album seems to be a divider, when Break The Bones was released to the internet that’s exactly what happened – you had fans who said [does best Bill S Preston, Esquire impression] ‘This is substandard Meshuggah, it’s slow and monotonous,’ then somebody else saying ‘This is the best work they’ve put out – it’s so organic and groovy.’ Koloss will cater to some, but not all.”

What’s often compelling about Meshuggah as a listener is that you’ve managed to avoid a lot of the clichés that come with performing as a metal band. What’s the most rewarding aspect to you about playing in Meshuggah?

“We get to do what we always wanted to – when Tomas and I started playing we were really influenced by bands like Rush. People would say [Bill’s back] ‘You listen to bands like Metallica and Anthrax, that’s not so experimental.’ Well it was to us, at the time it was really something new, and that’s what triggered us into at least trying to think outside the box. Having the opportunity to still be doing that when you’re 40 – going out and doing that for a living without having to compromise.

We’re on a label that says ‘Hey guys, deliver an album to us – we don’t care what you do because we don’t understand it anyway, but we think it’s really good.’ That’s exactly where you want to be.

What I’m most proud of and happy with is that we haven’t lost our integrity.”

It must be a genuine thrill to hear bands like Metallica and Tool referencing the good work you’ve done over the years, bringing you out on tour to new places, and – more so in Tool’s case – openly bringing a little bit of Meshuggah’s flair to their own music…

“You know, it’s always nice to get respect from peers – not that it should carry any more weight, but when it’s from people whose music you’ve listened to yourself, closing the circle like that is really, really cool.”

Koloss is released via Nuclear Blast on 26 Mar. Meshuggah play Glasgow Garage on 15 Apr. www.meshuggah.net

FROM SOME BAR STOOLS, YOU CAN SEE ALL THE WAY TO TENNESSEE. J A C K D A N I E L’ S

TENNESSEE WHISKEY

Enjoy the view. Drink responsibly. ©2012 Jack Daniel’s. All rights reserved. JACK DANIEL’S and OLD NO. 7 are registered trademarks.

MUSIC

What’s Your Hurry?

As the world around him rushes from pillar to post, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner has always been happy to keep his own pace Interview: Finbarr Bermingham

The promotional trailer for Lambchop’s forthcoming tour is brilliant. Black and white, with a building guitar riff, Kurt Wagner walks onto the stage of an empty hall, sits on a stool in the spotlight and lights a cigarette. He strums his guitar as the shot pans out, then tips some ash in his hand, before blowing it into the air. It’s simple, clean and lovely. For 25 years Lambchop have been making music that celebrates the beauty and complexity that lies between the grey textures of everyday life.

Never forced or overegged. The video is (no doubt purposely) analogous, and it works. “Love the ambience,” posts one commenter. “Even if this is all he did on stage, I’d get a ticket for it.”

And yet, even after all this time, people keep asking Wagner the same old questions. “Sometimes I talk to journalists I’ve been talking to for ten years and they’ll ask me: ‘What’s new with Lambchop?

What’s new on this record?’” Wagner laughs, as he does at every juncture, emphatic and wheezy.

“But I guess every release is a current event. That’s what’s new. For me, that’s significant and we do try to move forward in little ways, which are hopefully exciting enough for people.”

Wagner views Mr M. as the most progressive album the band’s recorded for years. It comes on the coattails of Invariable Heartache, an album of country covers he recorded with Cortney Tidwell under the imaginative moniker KORT, which made him readdress his work with Lambchop. “KORT had a pretty significant affect on how I approach things,” he says. “It started out as a concept, and then all of a sudden I was having to sing these songs, which were pretty straightforward and corny. I learnt that I can become almost clichéd; that’s pretty out there for me. You can almost transcend how you go about it. It’s not necessarily what you say, but how you say it. On the record, I’m trying to sing a bit better and some of the songs are the most direct I’ve ever done. There’s a song on [Mr M] called The Good Life that’s pretty straight ahead country in progression and theme.”

For the casual listener though, the glacial change from one record to the next is best noticed through a time-lapse len­s. It’s the thoughtfulness and attention to detail that keeps them coming back for more, and the story behind the opening track to 2006’s stellar Damaged is part of Lambchop folklore. Wagner was commissioned to write Paperback Bible for a radio documentary about life in Middle America. The producers sent him some excerpts from a Tennessee radio show called Swap Shop – essentially a live, audio classifieds section – to turn into a song. “And I’ve got some things/That I’d like to put on out there/Like a pony cart and/an old bird bath/A kitchen sink and a rocking chair,” Wagner croons, impossibly emotively, on what equates to a startling piece of music. “Yeah, that was something I thought I’d try,” he laughs modestly.

But what of the new album? What, today, inspires a man who has previously found his muse within the sheets of the Oxford English Dictionary?

“I guess that song’s about people watching,” he says when asked about Gone Tomorrow, one of the standout tracks from the new record, which sees Wagner at his lyrical best. “The studio where I wrote that particular song, they’re doing some improvements around the corner from it. There were some homeless dudes hanging around and they have those little camps. It’s on this road that’s used by people who don’t have vehicles, like these guys, to get from one part of town to the other.

There’s a railroad crossing and all the time I was there, there was just an influx of people. I pretty much wrote it from that position, looking at this place from different perspectives.”

Mr M. is Mr Met, named for the past tense of ‘meet’ rather than the New York baseball team’s

14 THE SKINNY March 2012

mascot, who must’ve been feeling particularly litigious the day he heard the album’s original title.

“It’s a reference to a friend of mine,” Wagner says, his voice slowing, “who, ah. Who died recently.” He’s referring to Vic Chesnutt, the iconic modern folk singer who died from an overdose in late 2009. The pair shared a musical philosophy best summed up by an oft-quoted line Chesnutt once gave the New York News: “Other people write about the bling and the booty. I write about the pus and the gnats. To me, that’s beautiful.”

Lambchop acted as his backing band for the 1998 album The Salesman and Bernadette; Wagner says it would be hard to overstate the impact Chesnutt had on his life. “Vic was part of my musical life since I started out. I wanted to make sure we remembered him.”

Collaborations like these permeate Wagner’s body of work. Lambchop can be anything from one to 12 strong, depending on where they’re playing, and this synergistic spirit, he says, has kept things fresh. “One of the things I’ve tried to do with Lambchop is to have this general kind of collective of ideas. It’s not just me, it’s everyone I work with and it’s fun to include them. It feels more like a family operation, or at least we’re connected by friendship. I love the fact that it allows me to connect with these people and luckily it still continues.”

Away from music, Wagner has built up a network of associates that he works with from time to time, too. An art graduate, he’s picked up his brushes again in recent years after almost a decade long hiatus. He created the cover for Mr M., part of a series of character-based portraits. It sits well among the band’s backlog of cover art which includes the typographically wonderful Nixon by his childhood friend Wayne Wright and (OH) Ohio’s infamous nude sleeve, New Orleans Public Beating, painted by an old art professor Michael Peed, with whom he reconnected in Barcelona in the 2000s after losing touch years before.

“In general, the songs and the paintings were created at the same time,” he says, before

exploding into laughter. “I wrote the songs when I should’ve been painting. I was playing hooky!

Interesting, it always seems to be the least opportune moment for me when I start to think about something else.” But Wagner is non-committal when pushed for a connection between his art and his music. “I find it difficult to connect them.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to try. I’ve thought about it for years, but never saw a way I thought the two could get along. Have you ever been to an art opening that had a musical performance? It’s like the worst kind of thing you could ever go to.

Aw, it’s horrible man. The business side of both of those things are completely ignorant of each other.

They don’t even understand what the other’s trying to do.”

How about writing a book? “I’ve thought about that, too. But I don’t know. I’ve worked on a book with a visual artist, which hasn’t been published yet. I provide the text to go with his photographs.

But as far as a novel or something like that… that’s a lot of commitment. I can’t get my head round how anyone can accomplish it at all. You read a book, and maybe it takes you somewhere. But if you ever think about what went into it… it’s scary.”

All the way through the conversation, Kurt Wager is in great spirits. His laugh acts as both a prefix and suffix to most things he says, and it’s extremely contagious. The last time The Skinny spoke with him, four years ago, he was more reflective – relieved even – having then recently recovered from cancer. “It’s alright, I’m happy to report,” he says, of his health. Has it changed his lifestyle? “You would think it would. I probably could tidy up my smoking and my consumption of food and alcohol. I’m sure my doctors would prefer me to become a little more prudent. But there’s still time for that.” When it comes to Lambchop, the acquisition of moderation requires just as much patience as everything else.

Playing Òran Mór, Glasgow on 5 Mar. Mr M is out now on City Slang www.lambchop.net

I’m sure my doctors would prefer me to become a little more prudent.

But there’s still time for that Kurt Wagner

ART

Super is as super does As Superclub turns one we hear about their busy month ahead: a series of one-off collaborative events with Edinburgh Printmakers Interview: Andrew Cattanach

Bon papillon gallery – café - framing MONTHLY GALLERY SHOWS

-from March 10th LYNNE HARKES SOLO ** CAFÉ OPEN SIX DAYS 9-5.30 (closed Tuesday) Serving Home-made Food Fairtrade Coffee, Free wifi ** BESPOKE FRAMING SERVICE 15 Howe St, Edinburgh EH3 6TE blogging at www.bonpapillon.com

CatMullet, Lachlann Rattray

The gallery and artists’ studios known as Superclub celebrates its first birthday this month. It’s thus only fitting that festivities will take place while the gallery is involved in what is perhaps its biggest project yet: a collaboration with Edinburgh Printmakers called Negativnights. From March to June Superclub will curate a programme of performances and events hosted by Edinburgh Printmakers that will include works by Momus, David Sherry, Beagles and Ramsay, Erica Eyres and Lachlann Rattray; a lineup that other galleries – ones considerably more established than Superclub – could only dream of.

“It was quite fortunate,” explains Superclub founder Ross Christie, “I managed to get everyone that I asked and had to actually turn some people down in the end. It’s a nice format for everyone because it’s really different but still comfortable.”

Each of the artists has been asked to explore how they use, and simultaneously subvert, degrees of truthfulness in their work to create alternative and often fabricated realities. Chosen because of their tendency to stretch the truth, the artists are all likely to produce a magnitude of myth, deceit, subterfuge and just plain lies.

Momus is a Japan-based musician and performance artist originally from Paisley. Born Nick Currie, he calls himself Momus after the Greek god of satire and has worn an eye patch over his right eye ever since it stopped working in 1997. He’s also said to be the cousin of Del Amitri singer Justin Currie, but like everything else about Momus, this could be untrue. On 8 March he will present his ongoing work Unreliable Tour Guide, which has in the past seen him give idiosyncratic tours of museums and galleries around the world that are more likely to baffle than clarify.

David Sherry first came to prominence with his

video Stitching in which he sews balsa wood to the soles of his feet while delivering straight to camera deadpan instruction on how he’s going about it.

He’s since auctioned a forged pound coin and casts of his own fingers, carried a bucket of water around for a week and not made eye contact with anyone for seven days. On 29 March he’ll be delivering a new work that will undoubtedly be of dubious certitude, grounded entirely on lies and deceit.

To celebrate their first birthday, the folks at Superclub invite all and sundry to a pure mad mental rave up at the legendary Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh on 22 March where a plethora of ridiculous names will play some sequencers and a few of their finest records. Choice aliases include Ben Butler and Mousepad, Lazlo Power and the Groove, Fox Gut Daata and The Artist Formerly Known as Mince. Regarded as one of last year’s highlights, Ben Butler and Mousepad will join the Superclub team for a second time, bringing with them their unique, genre-spanning vibes.

On 24 March, Superclub, likely still suffering from an excess of birthday shenanigans, will travel up to Dundee where they will take part in the Dundee Zine Fair. Organised by the long-running Yuck N Yum, the fair will take place at Dundee’s City Chambers from 11am to 4pm and will offer an array of crazy zinester stuff, including pictures of faces and tea and biscuits.

Make sure you keep an eye on Superclub as they embark on a busy second year, and try not to miss Erica Eyres, Lachlann Rattray, Cru Servers and Beagles and Ramsey in the next couple of months, all of whom come highly recommended, especially when associated with such a fine and promising little institution.

INVISIBLE HAND

Performance by Sink Live music · Movement · Kinetic sculpture 30 March & 12 April, 7pm Exhibition by Tim Vincent-Smith Harmonographic machines · Art by proxy 2nd–15th April, 10am–5pm Gallery 1 · arts complex · Edinburgh www.theplughole.org Photo by Alice Myers

www.superclubstudios.com

March 2012 THE SKINNY

15

Rendez-vous with

French cinema

2012

The crème de la crème of cinema

16 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

FILM

Reflections in a Golden Eye

Legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle tells us about his creative partnership with Wong Kar Wai, being inspired by the spaces in Hong Kong and the beauty of Maggie Cheung, and how he now longer sees the world through human eyes

Photo: Jan Van Der Crabben

Interview: Alan Bett

Through the lens of Christopher Doyle we view an imagined reality, a world containing some of cinema's most beautiful images. He seduces us with cheongsam-clad Maggie Cheung’s sashay down a snug Hong Kong street; bathes Brigitte Lin’s iconic profile with myriad fractured light and breaks our hearts with Leslie Cheung’s solitary tango around his dilapidated flat, his dilapidated spirit its unwilling twin. Sitting opposite me now in a Hong Kong Soho bar, he sips red wine. Doyle is not a man of pregnant pause, more one of prolapsed streams of observation and opinion all interlaced with mischievous laughter. What I’m interested in is his role as cinematographer. Did he capture or create these images, how did he sculpt his art into celluloid?

When asked ‘why Hong Kong?’ he sweeps his hand at the steep, cramped lanes way down below our eagles’ nest patio. “I think the early films I made with Wong Kar Wai were pretty much informed by Hong Kong... the energy of the place, the frenetic collage of the light and space, the way in which people are continuously interacting.

I think all those things are very basic to why the films are the way they are.” We need only look towards Chunking Express, an energy-exuding accidental masterpiece made in just four months

while the epic Ashes of Time was in a protracted post production. Doyle tells me that it was filmed in his own flat just down from where we sit. The famous mid-town escalator that attracted Tony Leung’s forlorn gaze sits within view. It’s about having nothing but ‘space and intent’ I’m told, location is key. “It’s like feng shui, it’s like why are we sitting at this table, we’d rather sit over there.” In Happy Together, for example, proximity defines the relationship; characters are pushed together in restrictive space, their flared emotions like opposing magnets. “If you look at most of my films they’re actually about people in space, I guess that’s what I respond to and it can be a very small space like In The Mood For Love... I think that definitely comes from my having made films in Hong Kong. The only thing that’s basic to what you do is where does it take place and what does this place inspire or announce or demand or suggest of who the people are?”

Leslie Cheung’s solitary tango in Days of Being Wild The connection was not only with the space but also the individual. Doyle’s relationship with Wong Kar Wai ranks amongst cinemas greatest collaborations. He views their journey as a process towards simplification, a distillation of thought.

“It’s like a sculptor taking a block of stone and ending with Giacometti, a piece this small. I think that all the films that we made up until In the Mood for Love were basically refining an idea, and then somehow it all came into place. That was the sculpture hidden in the stone.” And what a sculpture they uncovered. This heartbreaking love story told through gilded imagery provokes nothing less than emotional overload.

Their nine works were all made without scripts, finding a film rather than constructing one. I doubt this would sit easily with Hollywood producers, a cultural disparity Doyle affirms. “The didactic nature of western good and evil, which is a JudeoChristian concept, is heaven and hell. There’s a conflict then there’s a resolution which is the classic way that people are taught to make scripts in the west. We’re a lot like a mandala, we’re looking for the essence of the thing, it’s like Tai chi, it’s like tantric sex. You’re looking to complete the cycle.” Whether this is an east/west debate or one relating to independent filmmaking versus establishment is unclear. What’s true, however, is that his theme, rather than story-based method, has allowed true art to breathe. When he flippantly dismisses the concept of narrative it’s hardly surprising; in his own directorial works Away with Words and Warsaw Dark the two ends of the cycle never quite meet. Is anoesis his ultimate onscreen goal – pure sensation devoid of cognitive content?

“It has to be about the engagement, about the integrity of your intent. You may have a blueprint which you sometimes call a script, you may have a blueprint which is perhaps just an idea, let’s make a film which celebrates Glasgow for example, or Hong Kong or Berlin. Or you may just think, let’s make a really good fucking film. So that’s enough sometimes, if there’s complicity, if there’s engagement, if there’s a give and take.”

A kinetic ode to Hong Kong – Faye Wong in Chungking Express So, the relationship with director and location is key, but what about the most unstable of elements, the stars? How does he define the dynamic here? “I say there’s only three people in cinema, which means the actor, the audience and me inbetween...the energy has to be transferred directly to the audience between what is presented on the screen and what the audience is engaging in. So our job as cinematographers is to be that bridge, that conduit. ”He explains the importance of trust, allowing the actors to perform, whether that requires encouragement or a non-existent presence.

Permitting them to strip down to uncomfortable base emotion. “Dance is the most important thing.

The dance between the camera and the actors.”

A waitress comes over and Doyle asks for five tequilas. A pint of beer? “No, a gallon!”

He chats, she laughs: thus Doyle’s method of working with his actors reveals itself. There are no pre-defined roles here, only trust and equality, all simply from ordering drinks. I suggest that his job was made somewhat easier by the fact that he photographed such beautiful people; Carina Lau, Zhang Ziyi, Brigitte Lin and of course Leslie and Maggie Cheung. He agrees “Because when you have beautiful skin light reflects off it. You don’t have to light people like Leslie or Maggie.” These are not only beauties but true artists. “If you try to make art it’ll seem forced and artificial. But if you’re an artist every gesture has an elegance. If you’re Maggie the way you walk tells us where you came from.”

What happens in the process of becoming a cinematographer, your eye actually becomes like a camera, it learns to see" Christopher Doyle

Maggie Cheung’s famous walk – In the Mood for Love And his own skill, where did it come from?

"Learned" he tells me, dismissing any thought of natural talent. He ponders then nods to the street below “I’m sitting here and I’m looking down at that flag and that guy standing there and I know exactly what lens to use, and it’s kind of scary sometimes. What a beautiful shot that is.” The unassuming man vanishes into the crowds, unaware that he was just framed in the cinematographer’s eye. Doyle’s first job in Southern Taiwan ran into problems when he didn’t realise the film stock being used was too slow to record and produced only a black screen, but he evolved. “What happens in the process of becoming a cinematographer, your eye actually becomes like a camera, it learns to see.” Years later he played squash with his father and he couldn’t see the black ball against white background, an indicator to him that he was on the right path. His art had now expanded into the everyday. “Probably Picasso thought women were cut up in different shapes...probably Bukowski thought everyone was as drunk as he was...the way in which you live and the way in which you see and the way in which you express it becomes one, and that’s an astonishing gift.”

It all becomes one in Doyle’s filming of Zhang Yimou’s Hero Here is a true artistic maverick. Untrained academically and individual in thought, living outside the principles of mainstream moviemaking. “I don’t understand your conventions; I’m not going to replicate them because I don’t care about them.”

He refuses to share the cannibalistic influences of modern filmmakers, preferring to work from music, literature, life. “The light bouncing off that guy’s head is much more interesting than a reference to a film noir from the forties... People keep on referring to other films through films, what’s the point? We should refer to flowers through films... we should refer to the pleasures of touch through film. Otherwise it’s not going to engage, it’s not going to be transcendent.” This organic approach has treated us viewers to aureate beauty on the silver screen, a mirror to human emotion. As the interview finishes he asks with a childish twinkle in his eye, “Have I been a good boy?” As far as cinematic convention is concerned, thankfully not.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

17

CLUBS

BANG THE PAN POTS One of Germany’s finest techno duos PAN-POT discuss networking at bad parties, the creative power of Berlin and their respect for Slam INTERVIEW: CALUM SUTHERLAND

THE UNPARALLELED and always invigorating Berlin-based DJ/production duo of Tassilo Ippenberger and Thomas Benedix, aka Pan-Pot, will take to the most infamous basement booth in the country as the pair smash the Sub Club sideways alongside Scotland’s own techno pioneers Slam. Pan-Pot’s meteoric rise to the top of the techno scene is mirrored by their equally impressive ascent of Mobilee Records, the imprint that acted as a platform for the pair to bring their haunting, melodic stomp to dancefloors worldwide. With a second long player in the works and a three-disc compendium of all things both Pan-Pot and Mobilee due for imminent release, a Skype was long overdue…

What are the beginnings of Pan-Pot and how did your relationship with Anja Schneider and her label Mobilee come about?

We met at the SAE (an audio engineering institute) in Berlin in 2003 where we were studying and realised that we shared a similar taste in music so we started making music together and putting on parties. We put on a party at this park in Berlin and invited Anja to play but unfortunately it was pretty quiet so we had a lot of time to talk!

Everyone loves Anja as she has this radio show we had been listening to for five or six years which is great for electronic music. She told us about a new label she was starting which was Mobilee.

Two months before the label launch we sent her our first promo which turned out to be the second Mobilee release, so even though the party was

pretty empty it was really good for us.

Is it a good thing to be identified with a trademark sound then? I mean it in a totally complimentary sense…

Sometimes. You get that with other artists too and with us people do say “oh fuck it’s a new Pan-Pot tune, it’s exactly what I want from these guys” but it’s important to have your own ‘signature’ in your sound and I hope that’s positive. Our sound has definitely changed since we began. We started making music in a very experimental way which was more striped down with a lot of sampling and effects. Now we have definitely developed to more melodic, powerful stuff. We always use some darker sounds and try to create some atmosphere in our tracks.

The music’s character happens out of the process of hearing the loop that we’ve been working on for days and just adding little things so the basic sound has to be something that’s enjoyable for both of us. People say we have this trademark sound but I don’t know. It’s hard for us to explain because in one way it sucks as you’re another guy who's said that to us but it’s just a natural result of the creative process, it just happens.”

Does Berlin, in a city with a scene that has so much going, ever feel saturated? Do you find it difficult at all to differentiate your sound?

No, not at all. You have to see it from another aspect. Berlin is the capital of electronic music and that’s good because you have so many people here to exchange ideas and it really supports your

creative process. We do what we do and other people do what they do so there’s no problem to define ourselves. Berlin has all the possibilities for an artist’s life. It’s not too expensive and it’s got so much creative potential; the club scene and the music scene in general is like one big creative melting pot.

You’ve played Scotland a good number of times, what are your impressions of the scene here?

I would say the best parties we played in the UK were in Glasgow, at the Sub Club or The Arches or RockNess. It’s great, absolutely. We’ve had so many great experiences and every person we’ve met at parties is so fucking friendly, we’re big fans. I mean, I’m pretty sure they’re being friendly because sometimes we can barely understand them!

As the night goes on it must get harder to understand?

Actually it’s easier when everyone’s a bit more fucked up! Like when we’re meeting Stuart and Orde (Slam), they have such a hardcore accent

and they’re already making fun of us ‘cause we can’t understand them, you have to really concentrate on the 'awkcent' (awful but endearing attempt at a Glasgow accent).

You seem to have a really strong connection with Soma and Slam?

Yeah, we played in Ireland with Slam years ago and we had to travel to the party in this tiny car and it was just us and the driver for a few hours so we definitely got to know each other pretty well!

We started working together, remixing and playing each other’s parties and it all came together. We’ve always wanted to remix Lifetimes (a Slam track from 2001) and the 20 Years of Soma compilation was the perfect moment to do it and it ended up as one of our personal highlights of last year.

PAN-POT PLAY THE SUBCLUB ON FRI 9 MAR MOBILEE BACK TO BACK VOL. 6 PRESENTED BY PAN-POT IS RELEASED ON MON 26 MAR PAN-POT.NET

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18 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

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BAR

421 SAUCHIEHALL ST

GLASGOW

THEATRE

Buzzing for Behaviour

Three artists at Buzzcut Stephanie Black: RSAMD graduate

Self-sustaining artistic communities in Glasgow continue to defy traditional economic restrictions with extaordinary work

Following her Athena Award project in 2011, Stephanie Black returns to performance inspired by her enquiries into “what makes me keep making art, and what makes me an artist.”

Crux emerged from Black’s meditations on the gap between daily life and artistic endeavour. “I find myself doing normal tasks as a means to get by – washing, ironing, doing the dishes – like a cog in a machine, and I question how much my creativity gets stimulated,” she says. “And then there are times when something excites me – it could be the simplest thing – I lose the thought of everyday life and go into something more abstract. I take those moments and make them into a performance. That is the way I can express myself and put something back into the world.”

Like her earlier works, Crux is very much about the body: yet the addition of tai chi gives it a new emphasis. “It’s not about the nude body but the power of the body,” she notes. “Although often we want the abstract in contemporary art, I always make sure it has a human quality.”

Words: Gareth K Vile When The National Review of Live Art was retired gracefully after thirty years of service to the awkward performance squad, few people imagined that its parent festival, New Territories, would disappear only two years later. For the past two decades, Glasgow in March has seen a carnival of experimental theatre, dance and art that refuses to respect boundaries: it seemed that the spring of 2012 would no longer be heralded by international rabble-rousers.

Fortunately, the legacy of Nikki Millican, artistic director of New Territories, lives on: Cryptic Nights lets Rory Middleton take a part out to Cove Park for The View, a site-specific installation that features film and live music, and The Arches’ Behaviour returns after a brief sabbatical, now sprawling over two months and including Liv Ann Young, possibly the most outrageous star of Live Art. Behaviour makes a gentle start with Fish and Game calling for female emancipation in a Victorian cycling style before bringing The Oh Fuck Moment from the Fringe to bring out those memories of things that really should not have happened.

Included within Behaviour’s programme, but a major event in its own right is Glasgow Buzzcut. Curated by two graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (née the RSAMD), Nick and Roseanna Cade, Buzzcut invades the Old Hairdressers and The Glue Factory for the last weekend in March, bringing back familiar faces from The National Review like Richard DeDomenici and a smattering of new artists, including Edinburgh Fringe provocateur The Ultimate Dancer.

While Glasgow’s reputation as a centre for wild, eclectic performance was bolstered by the presence of New Territories, its indigenous artists have always been ready for left-field action. In a city that is home to the Cotemporary Performance Practice degree – alma mater of Nic Green and Glas(s), who have gained a reputation for intelligent theatre that combines a social conscience and radical processes. Buzzcut – a festival that Nick Anderson hopes “will prove what it is possible to do with no money” – is a natural expression of the city’s spirit.

“Roseanna Cade and I decided, one morning after watching The Apprentice, to have our own festival. There was a huge gap where important work would have been shown,” explains Anderson. “What started as a whim now has forty-eight artists over five days!” While emerging artists are vital to the atmosphere and ethos, Anderson is delighted that some major names of Live Art have responded to the call.

“Richard Layzell is a nice pull: it is good to have someone so established and hardworking and other artists look at the line-up and think – I am on a bill with Richard Layzell,” Anderson continues.

“We have work from all over Britain, people coming from Europe.”

Buzzcut is not only about attracting artists from outside. “A big reason for doing Buzzcut was to inspire the fantastic artists that we have in Glasgow,” Anderson adds. Recognising that Glasgow University, Glasgow School of Art and the Conservatoire are all producing artists who could fit into the festival’s remit, he is clear that “Buzzcut is offering a platform for the slightly different communities to come together, to share work and experiences. And the last night at The Glue Factory will end in a massive party.”

Ultimate Dancer

stephanie black

“Ahhhrrrrrgggggghhh, gllhllhhhrrrrr, gggrrrrrraaaaaaaahhwww…You have travelled through the universe to come to this performance.

A dance performance.You have come to see me dance. And you will. What will happen tonight was already written a long time ago. Written by our ancestors that danced before you and me; Isadora Duncan, Patrick Swayze, Jerome Bel. What we must do, and what we will do is beyond us. We will make a show in which our sweat, and our blood, will feed you, so that you will never have to go hungry again. But when I look into your eyes I see fear. Fear that you will never again see so well-articulated dancers moving beautifully across the space. Fear, because you think this is real, but it’s not, or is it? You tell me!

And if you look closer you’ll notice the colours of orange and pink. The colours of Dance Maximus, and they’re questioning: Do you have what it takes to be the audience for this show? Do you have what it takes to be the audience for Dance Maximus? Aaaaaarrrrrggggggwwwhhh rrrrrgggghghhhgaaaaaaaa… I am The Ultimate Dancer! I am The Ultimate Dancer!”

Third Angel

Since 1995, Third Angel have been banging on the boundaries of theatre and live art. Not easy to pin down – they perform, film, install, photograph and design and turn up in theatres, galleries, car parks, offices and online. Driven by founders and artistic directors Rachael Walton and Alexander Kelly, they are veterans of a scene that refuses definition, and have inspired many Glasgow based performers into more challenging territory. If they approach their form from an angle, their content is familiar – they emphasise the everyday, finding the beauty in the mundane or ignored. And while they have staged major shows at Tramway and The Arches, they are never afraid to get intimate in scale, and are dedicated to being aware of the audience, respecting and involving them in their process of questioning and creation.

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Ultimate dancer

March 2012 THE SKINNY

19

MUSIC

STRANGE POWERS

Reluctant in interview but with a work ethic to make James Brown proud, The Magnetic Fields’ STEPHIN MERRITT explains why he enjoys a good deadline INTERVIEW: CHRIS BUCKLE PHOTO: NURIA RIUS

STEPHIN MERRITT’S irascibility is the stuff of lore – spare a thought, dear reader, for the Chicago Time Out editor reportedly reduced to tears during a particularly sour encounter – but like most anecdote-based reputations, his prickliness is prey to exaggeration. Admittedly, our brief chat contains its share of confidence-shrivelling dead ends (Q: You don’t record many covers, so what attracted you to Franz Ferdinand’s Dream Again (for last year’s Covers EP)? “I liked the song”).

But ask him about recent record purchases (Doris Day, The Louvin Brothers and a compilation of Indian horror themes entitled Bollywood Bloodbath), or the state of his myriad other projects (more on which shortly), and he belies his Eeyore persona by being as forthcoming and drolly amusing as any fan, or indeed, nervous interviewer, could hope.

Our call interrupts New York-based rehearsals for a forthcoming tour to promote latest album Love at the Bottom of the Sea – a frothy collection of short, sharp synth-pop compositions cut through with characteristically quotable lyrics (‘I don’t know why I love you/ you’re not really a

person/ more a gadget with meat stuck to it’ is an immediate favourite). It follows a run of releases in which synths – the bedrock instrument of early Magnetic Fields records – were shelved, as Merritt carried over opus 69 Love Songs’ multi-genre smorgasbord into a series of albums with more narrowly focused (and modest) musical concepts: the cabaret-flecked chamber-pop of i; the Jesus and Mary Chain-style fuzz of Distortion; and the largely unplugged ‘folk album’ Realism. “I was bored with the synthesiser being this old familiar sound, a sort of nostalgic sound, and I didn’t necessarily share that nostalgia,” says Merritt, only choosing to reintroduce the synth when a “new breed” emerged to refresh the palette. “I’m committed to being diverse with instrumentation.

Playing and having fun and experimenting in the studio is an important part of recording.”

Ten albums as the Magnetic Fields is an impressive milestone by any standard, yet the stat barely scrapes the surface of Merritt’s prolific work-rate. His extended corpus spans Chinese operas, audiobook scores and much more besides, under guises ranging from self-styled

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‘goth-bubblegum’ act The Gothic Archies, to occasional side-project The 6ths, which counts Lou Barlow, Amelia Fletcher and Bob Mould amongst its guest vocalist roll-call. Last year, a Merritt-curated Obscurities collection featured previously-unreleased material from a plethora of sources, including unfinished musical The Song from Venus, and Buffalo Rome, Merritt’s first band with long-term collaborators Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms.

The vault-raiding also yielded alternative versions of pre-existing tracks, including an up-tempo digital overhaul of i’s I Don’t Believe You; I ask whether this is typical of his working methods.

“When I write songs, I’m generally not thinking of the arrangements, unless it’s for a show,” he replies. “When I’m writing for a play, I know what the instrumentation is going to be ahead of time [and] I generally know who is going to be singing the song I write, but for the band, I don’t know any of that.” Does this mean there’s a certain amount of fluidity to Merritt’s writing process? Do ideas sparked during preparation for one project ever eventually work their way into others, for instance? “I’m never working on both at the same time, so they’re pretty independent,” he responds unequivocally. “I strongly dislike working on more than one thing at the same time.”

It’s difficult to take such a claim at face value when you consider the number of irons Merritt has in the fire at any one time. Some of these unfinished works he’s tight lipped about: “we’ll see” is all we get regarding a status update for the aforementioned The Song from Venus, recently likened to Chinese Democracy by Lemony Snicket author and 69 Love Songs accordionist Daniel Handler. But about other projects, he shares tidbits: when pushed for information on a recent Royal Shakespeare Company commission, Merritt names Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 play La Ronde – about sexual and moral relations in turn-of-thecentury Vienna – as the primary inspiration, though “it’s not at all recognisable now, so I’d say it’s an original work rather than an adaptation.”

I was bored with the synthesiser being this old familiar sound STEPHIN MERRITT

In addition, a new Future Bible Heroes record is on the horizon (“right now I have 22 backing tracks to work with”), while a third 6ths album was only recently abandoned (regrettably, he’s “back to square one with that” for the time being).

Amidst it all, less time-consuming labour is slotted in wherever it can be accommodated. Earlier in the year, Merritt made an unexpected foray into computer games, providing narration for ‘Space Cruiser’ – a one-night only ‘cooperative missionbased game’ that took place at New York’s Natural History Museum. In a decked-out planetarium, 200 participants jointly navigated a spacecraft through an asteroid field, aided by a Merritt-voiced on-board guidance system. “I said I’d do it if it took less than an hour,” Merritt laughs, “and it did – it took 45 minutes. It was fun, I’d never done voice over before. I got to be all computery…”

Unprompted, we’re treated to a sample of his robot impression. “There is. A fire. On. Flight. Deck.

One,” he mechanically intones, more staccato and bassy than ever. “That sort of stuff.”

To squeeze in so much, yet (apparently) avoid overlap not only requires considerable forward planning, but a dogged work ethic to boot. I ask if he finds deadlines productive in themselves. “Oh, I love deadlines, yes, deadlines are very productive.

When recording 69 Love Songs I had a one year deadline, self-imposed. I decided that I was going to do the entire recording in one year, and at this point I hadn’t written all the songs yet either, I had maybe half of them, and decided to write the other half and record the whole thing in a year.” A triple album in 365 days is no mean feat, to say the least.

“I was two weeks late – but only two weeks,” he states with a hint of pride. “Coincidentally, I took

a two week vacation during the recording, so, it pretty much was the year.”

2010 saw the release of documentary Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, which offered insight into its subject’s writing habits over a ten year period. During filming, Merritt decided to relocate from New York to Los Angeles, citing a long-held desire to ‘break into’ the closed-shop world of Hollywood scores. Has he made any progress in that regard? “Um, it doesn’t seem to matter where I live,” he laughs, before offering a more pragmatic reason for the relocation. “Really, the point of moving was to have my studio be in a larger space. I now have a three bedroom house in LA that I couldn’t even imagine being able to afford in New York.” He continues to split his time between the two cities, but despite regular coast-to-coast travel, he still finds the prospect of heading out on tour a miserable one. Will Irving (Merritt’s Chihuahua, named after late composer and lyricist Irving Berlin) accompany him on the road this time? “No, he’ll stay home,” Merritt sighs. “We did tour with him briefly when he was a puppy, but it did not work out very well.”

Sensing impatience with the topic, and with only minutes left of our interview slot, The Skinny considers it prudent to change subject; foolishly defaulting on politics, we attempt to canvass Merritt’s opinions on the ongoing Republican primaries. In the lengthy pause that follows, there’s ample time to regret the non-sequitur introduction of one of polite conversation’s no-go topics, but, eventually, he formulates an answer he’s comfortable with: no comment. “I’d like to keep my passport,” Merritt states for the record, “so let’s not discuss that.” With UK shows scheduled for later in the month, his caution is generous; after all, there are few more sure-fire ways of dodging undesirable tour commitments than a withdrawn travel permit.

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21

BUSINESS ADVICE A Centre for the Arts and Creativity

Cultural Enterprise Office offers a range of specialist business support and development services for creative businesses Hello Enquiries, I play the drums in a band in Dundee. We’re just getting started I’ve taken on some of the management responsibilities as I seem to be the most organised out of the guys. We’re looking for funding to help us create an EP and we don’t really know where to start – can you help?

Jack, Dundee Hi Jack, I’m glad you contacted us, there are several ways we can help you. The first place to look is the Cultural Enterprise Office website – it has some good tools and guides to offer support in developing your plans for the band. I can talk you through where to look online and what you might find useful.

First you could have a look in our Funding & Financing section which will introduce you to the different types of funds available. There are many routes to funding for your business or project, but whatever stage you’re at you need to consider how to achieve financial sustainability. This section of the site will introduce you to sources of funding, alternative ways to raise money and new finance options. The funding guides are a collection of national and local initiatives, as well as grants, trusts and loans – specifically, there is a Music Funding Guide which I think you will find helpful.

As you prepare to put together a funding application, you should find our Making Applications & Proposals Guide useful. This will give you practical

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22 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

advice and assistance in making effective applications and proposals for funds. We also deliver a workshop called Making Applications & Proposals – you will find the next dates in our events section. Our Budgets Guide will help you work out a realistic outline of what you need the money for and our Defining Your Work worksheet will help to clarifying your ideas.

I think you might also find it helpful at this stage (and as things develop) to speak with our Dundee & Tayside Adviser. Our free advice service offers both individuals and businesses the opportunity to sound out their business with an experienced Adviser in a one-to-one focused session.

As things progress you may also benefit from an advice session with our Music Industry Adviser Ronnie Gurr. The hour long one-to-one advice sessions are free and offer a great way to access the experience of an industry expert.

More generally I would also suggest looking at some of the industry networking / support events such as Go North and Born to be Wide events.

As well as helping you to reach wider industry professionals and practitioners and new networks, it may introduce you to sponsorship or funding opportunities. For further listings of music industry events keep checking our External Events where we upload creative industry events for clients.

Good luck and best wishes, Janine Matheson Enquiries Officer FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE SERVICES AVAILABLE TO YOU VISIT WWW.CULTURALENTERPRISEOFFICE.CO.UK OR CALL THE ENQUIRY LINE ON 0844 544 9990 (MON-FRI 9AM-5PM AND WED 5-8PM)

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CLUBS

Capital Crisis

The proposed closure of The Bongo Club could be the nail in the coffin for Edinburgh’s club culture Words: Bram E. Gieben Illustration: Nick Cocozza

Storm clouds are gathering over the Edinburgh club scene. The threatened closure of the Bongo Club, hot on the heels of the loss of Cabaret Voltaire (at least in its beloved, current form) presents a direct challenge to an already marginalised scene. Unlike Glasgow, which has a wealth of venues for clubs and gigs, varying in capacity from the smaller, one-hundred-plus capacity venues, right up to gigantic, well-equipped spaces such as the Arches, Edinburgh’s mid-sized venues have been slowly disappearing over the last ten to fifteen years. The result is a diminished cultural landscape in the nation’s capital, with the scales tipping in favour of mainstream drinking venues, rather than the greater wealth of curated, multi-purpose art spaces it previously enjoyed.

More and more, the city is in danger of becoming a cultural wasteland for the eleven months of the year when it is not infested with touring comedians and theatre companies. So what went wrong?

The systematic closing down of Edinburgh’s nightclubs began in 2001 with the denial of a license renewal application from Wilkie House. Following a high-profile police raid, where arrests were made for drug offences, the council turned down the venue’s application to renew their license. The club, now known as Sin, has since been licensed to more than one major chain of breweries, operating as a mainstream club venue.

Tall Paul Robinson, an acclaimed local DJ, makes the following distinction between mainstream and non-mainstream venues: “There are the flashy looking chain-owned ones that play the most obvious lowest-common-denominator music as a safe bet in order to get as many people in as possible.

These places are mainly frequented by people who just want to go out and get drunk with their mates, and don’t really care what they dance to as long as they’ve heard it plenty of times before. And then, there are the independently-run venues that recognise the need to put music first – and these places are the lifeblood of the city’s club scene.”

It is precisely these venues which Edinburgh is allowing to quietly slip away.

In 2002, a fire in the Cowgate took out several more vibrant night spots, including the much-loved La Belle Angele, home of Scotland’s trailblazing drum and bass night, Manga. Then The Venue was

sold and converted into offices and a gallery space just a few short years later. There have been other losses, too. Studio 24 on Calton Road is perpetually under threat of closure due to noise complaints from local residents, whose flats were built well after the establishment became known as a thriving night spot. Soon there will be barely any venues left to house non-mainstream club nights, save for tiny basement bars and student unions.

Of course, Edinburgh used to have a healthy and diverse club scene: nights like Pure, Taste, Pillbox, Dogma, Obscene and too many others to mention had packed dancefloors and great atmospheres for local DJs and visiting guests, all in venues with medium-sized capacities, being able to host between 150 and 1000 guests, depending on the venue. Promoters had their pick of mid-sized venues: Studio 24 was known for hard techno, The Venue catered to the funk, hip-hop, house and techno crowds, La Belle Angele was the home of DnB, The Bongo for dub, world music and experimental electronica, while Wilkie House and the Vaults were known for excellent gay-friendly nights.

On any given weekend, punters could see a whole host of local DJs and regular international guests at a variety of places. Since that fateful Cowgate fire, the number of these venues has dwindled almost to nothing.

Three vital mid-size and smaller club spaces were lost when Edinburgh University Settlement went bankrupt, doing away with The Roxy, The GRV and The Forest café at one stroke. These last three losses were keenly felt because they were not solely club and gig spaces – they provided gallery space, rehearsal rooms, workshop venues and communitybased, versatile arts environments. The same is true of the Bongo Club, which has a long-standing relationship with arts organisation Out Of The Blue. With the news that the Bongo Club is to lose its home, we face a desolate landscape for club promoters and punters. “This potential closure of The Bongo is nothing to do with a lack of demand,” argues Robinson. “It’s an immensely popular venue that’s busy every Friday and Saturday night. It really would be a tragedy to lose it.”

The Bongo Club’s own official statement echoes these sentiments: “At the heart of this scene since 1996, The Bongo Club is a nightclub, gig

The Bongo Club is part of the artistic DNA of Edinburgh, and to lose it would be an act of cultural self-harming Mark Thomas

venue and all-round artistic hub with a street-levelheaded attitude and an international reputation. It is truly independent, as the performance venue of local arts charity Out Of The Blue, which has an established track record as a catalyst for creativity in Edinburgh. This has allowed The Bongo Club to put the sounds of the underground and imaginative aspirations before the mighty dollar, encouraging the community to get involved and The Bongo Club to do their own thing. A long standing stalwart of the Edinburgh Fringe with a list of guests that reads like a ‘who’s who’ of cultural alternatives, the loss of this venue would be of real detriment to the city.”

Well-known comedian and activist Mark Thomas, a regular performer at the club, summed it up beautifully, saying that the Bongo: “...is part of the artistic DNA of Edinburgh, and to lose it would be an act of cultural self-harming.”

There are excellent small venues – Sneaky Pete’s, Henry’s Cellar Bar, and a few others – who support local and emerging club and gig culture. But once promoters gain success in these venues, and need a bigger space to go to, they will very soon be out of options. There is no room for growth, development or competition. Edinburgh has its club culture in a stranglehold.

Andrew Hobbes, promoter of successful and innovative club nights such as Trouble and Wonky, believes many of the closures, license denials and

sales of these venues are: “... due to spurious and suspect re-development reasons.” He laments the passing of the thriving club culture we once prized so highly: “At the turn of the millennium, the Scottish capital was acclaimed as one of the top ten places in the world to see in the New Year. But the last ten years have witnessed this cultural diversity being progressively eroded until there’s virtually nothing of any real substance and soul left.” He asks: “Do you want to live in a city that doesn’t care enough to recognise the value of its cultural institutions?”

In Glasgow, we see a culture where club culture is embraced, celebrated and even funded. In Edinburgh it is marginalised, misunderstood, and is in the process of being excised from the Old Town.

Why is this being done? Is it to keep club culture away from the precious tourist money being spent in that quadrant of the city? Is it because the wealthy property-owners of the town centre – the largest and wealthiest of whom is Edinburgh University – see no value in having a thriving alternative culture?

There are other places in Edinburgh, such as Leith, which could embrace the capital’s club culture. But for anyone who remembers the glory days, the closure of the Bongo will be the nail in the coffin. Club culture and live music is effectively being evicted from the heart of the city, save for a handful of small-capacity venues.

This process has already begun – opposing the closure of the Bongo Club is one small way to fight back, and support Edinburgh’s arts scene.

Paul Robinson has the final word: “I do not like this term ‘the closure of the Bongo Club’ that is being bandied about – I think the ‘potential closure of the Bongo Club’ is how we should all see it. There are simply far too many people who love, need and frequent the place to allow it to close. It may have to move elsewhere – and it may need an extension on its current lease, but anyone who cares about clubbing, live music, performance arts, comedy or simply the community needs to make their voice heard and come out and support this cause.”

Get involved: sign the petition to oppose the closure of the Bongo Club, or join the Facebook group to help organise resistance: www.change.org/petitions/edinburghuniversity-edinburgh-city-council-the-scottishgovernment-stop-the-eviction-of-the-bongoclub-or-provide-an-alternative-space www.facebook.com/savebongo

March 2012 THE SKINNY

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MUSIC

SHINE A LIGHT

Launching its fourth season this March, the minds behind THE BILLY KELLY SONGWRITING AWARD explain what makes the initiative stand out from the average battle of the bands INTERVIEW: CHRIS MCCALL PHOTO: STEWART BRYDEN

JAMIE WEBSTER AND CREON BROCK OF ÒRAN MÓR

24 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

CLIMBING THE ladder to success is an ambition that all songwriters seek to achieve in some relative form. But despite years of trying, many don’t even succeed in getting past the first rung. All fledgling artists need a helping hand to get their careers off the ground. Calum MacDonald, of Glasgow seven-piece Sunshine Social, was lucky enough to be given a leg-up by winning the Billy Kelly Songwriting Award in 2011.

The 23-year-old is now set to unveil his band’s debut EP at Glasgow’s Oràn Mór on 22 March to help promote the launch of this year’s event.

And once that’s taken care of, MacDonald will be returning to the studio with his band to record a full-length album, after being offered a deal with indie label Instinctive Records; a process of events unlikely to have transpired if he hadn’t first received the Billy Kelly award, which sees one lucky artist given a package worth £5000 to help get their music careers moving.

“It was the kick up the arse that I needed,” MacDonald says. “It helped me form a band, get a record out and get touring. When I first went down to the competition heats at the Oràn Mór,

it was just me and a couple of friends. We didn’t have a name or anything. At that point I didn’t even want to be in a band. I don’t know how we managed to get through, as the calibre was so high – and I was completely knackered after working a long shift that same day. But by the time the final came around, we’d evolved into The Sunshine Social. Winning the award has been a fantastic way to let people hear us. The help it gives you with promotion, touring and recording is amazing.”

The event first took place in 2009 and was founded by Colin Beattie, owner of the Oràn Mór venue in Glasgow’s West End. It is dedicated to the memory of music promoter and all-round good-guy Billy Kelly, who died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 58. A passionate music fan, Billy launched Glasgow’s Mayfest arts festival and was one of the main creative driving forces involved in establishing the hugely successful Celtic Connections festival. He also acted as musical programmer at the Fruitmarket venue, and latterly the Oràn Mór, where he worked alongside Beattie, an old school friend and fellow Yoker native.

The award is now organised and overseen by Jamie Webster, bookings manager at the venue, and Creon Brock, music and theatre programmer at the venue. “The basic idea of the process is we help the act get it together and help them get a record out, then get them on tour and get them in the press,” says Webster. “We give them a good start – it’s not like a five year process. They get a year of our time to help them shape their careers and get them in the right places. But after the course of that record, it’s back over to them to use that help in a positive way.

“It’s important to stress that this is less a competition and more an award. It’s not about who’s sold the most tickets or who has the biggest buzz going. It’s simply breaking the song down. We look at the lyrics and the song’s arrangement and often give credit just for ideas and the musicianship.”

Brock agrees, confident that the competition has a completely different ethos to other musical awards. “I think with a battle of the bands, a lot of the time it’s just who brings down the most people and whoever’s fans are cheering the loudest, they get the prize,” he adds. “Whereas with us, we’ve got industry judges, who are judging it on the actual songwriting ability. Plus it’s free to take part in the heats, it’s not a question of which bands make us the most money going through.”

All unsigned songwriters, regardless of whether they are solo performers or in bands, are invited to take part.

The 2012 event will be officially launched at the regular Oràn Mór open-mic night on Tuesday, 20 March, where registration forms will be available and there will also be a chance to have a chat with the organisers.

The four heats will take place in July and August.

Each act will be required to perform a set of three original songs. Then, the panel of judges will select one winner from each heat, who will be guaranteed a place in November’s final. Each heat runnerup will still have a chance to make it through. They will be invited to take part in a semi-final, along with two ‘wild cards’ chosen by the judges.

“We try to get as big a variety of acts as we can.

We do get a lot of acoustic singer-songwriters, so we try our best to encourage people from other genres. No one should be put off by it,” says Webster. “Billy was very keen on world music, which is what he was best known for. Colin wanted to establish a songwriting award that covered all genres, not just acoustic singer-songwriters.”

Webster adds that taking part in the awards process is a valuable experience for all participants, not just the eventual winners. “I think for a lot of people that enter, it can be an experience just coming and performing at a venue like the Oràn Mór. It’s great for them to come and work with our sound engineer – you’re not just stuck in the corner of a bar, like in other places.

“It also encourages them to think about the development of the song and its arrangement.

Even thinking about the lyrics more – sometimes with pop songs, people can just write down the first thing that comes into their mind – they worry more about the melody than the lyrics. So we try to encourage them to think about songwriting in a different way.

All acts that take part are also given encouragement and advice on how to develop their music.

There’s no X Factor style humiliation involved.

“The judges don’t go up on stage and act like Simon Cowell,” Creon stresses. “ A lot of the judges in the past have been very good in offering feedback.

“A lot of acts that come through the heats process, we use them in support slots and give them encouragement to get into the right sort of venues, and in many cases to play less, and instead concentrate on picking the right shows.”

For further details on how to take part, visit the Oràn Mór open-mic night on 20 March, or The Sunshine Social launch night on 22 March at the same venue. Information can also be found on the Oràn Mór website, with further coverage appearing on The Skinny’s website as this year’s contest develops.

THE SUNSHINE SOCIAL

It’s not about who’s sold the most tickets or who has the biggest buzz going. It’s simply breaking the song down JAMIE WEBSTER

WWW.ORAN-MOR.CO.UK

From the boardroom to the bedroom.

It’s a ruthless journey.

By Beaumarchais, adapted by DC Jackson

World Première

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MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

25

FILM

Once upon a time in the east end

The Skinny press gangs actor Dexter Fletcher to discuss his directorial debut, a London-set pseudo-spaghetti western about redemption and parenting interview: Nicola Balkind

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star Dexter Fletcher made his way to Glasgow FIlm Festival for the first time last month to screen Wild Bill. This impressive directorial debut is everything but the kitchen sink, a tale of life on the breadline that’s imbued with a western edge.

Honing in on a low-income family in East London, the film begins as 'Wild' Bill (Charlie Creed-Miles) is released from prison and returns home to find his estranged 15- and 11-year-old sons have been abandoned by their mother.

Sound like Ken Loach territory so far? Think again.

“I didn’t want the film to start feeling like it was brow-beating anyone,” says Fletcher by phone ahead of his film’s Scottish debut at the Glasgow Film Festival. “There are social issues in the film and I do my best to deal with them, but at the same time I’m trying to leave it open so as to

I didn’t want the film to start feeling like it was browbeating anyone Dexter Fletcher

observe it rather than making a big laboured point about it. There’s a realism about that – it’s not so much about the massive emotional effects [of poverty], it’s about how people in life invariably get on with it.”

As well as taking an alternative view on social issues, the western elements of Wild Bill take the film further from the doldrums of the kitchen sink and into more cinematic territory. “I looked at a lot of westerns in terms of how I wanted to frame [the film],” says Fletcher. “Even though I’m telling a small, contained story set in a council estate, I wanted to give the film scope, and these westerns felt like a good place to look. It always spoke to me, it kept that sense of drama, giving drama to something that otherwise could’ve felt quite small and kitchen sink-y. It was about paying homage to those films that I love and, at the same time, retaining this sense of scope of the big city out there.”

It’s a technique that raises the bar for gritty local films bringing universal issues into the mix and, as Fletcher says, “you could make this film anywhere.” The film is dedicated to his father, and it’s easy to see why. “My issues are tied up in that film – my dad and mum were together for 50 years, and we all lived very nicely in a nice house in the suburbs of London, but I still have issues with my dad. I still felt that I couldn’t do enough to please him and a lot of the issues [in the film] are about me trying to communicate with my father.”

The father/son relationship is another factor that distances the film from its presumed genre. “I want people to know that it’s a festival film, that it’s not about horrible gangsters dealing drugs and beating each other up! To me, it’s more than that. I needed to make something that I felt had humour and heart and hope in it. The festival circuit is a great place to show that.”

Wild Bill is released on 23 mar www.glasgowfilm.org/festival/ whats_on/3560_wild_bill

26 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

SPEECH DEBELLE VS TALIB KWELI:

MUSIC

CONSCIOUS MINDS COLLIDE

She’s a Mercury winning London MC with an inquisitive mind, he’s a critically respected Brooklyn rapper with heavy opinions to offload. We put the two together...

ILLUSTRATION: GUILTY GUN STUDIO

Episode 3

What star sign are you?

Libra Libra y’all.

What is your favourite Michael Jackson song?

Baby Be Mine. He was in his just becoming a man, disco era greatness. The world was not yet his when he did this.

How do you feel Barack Obama has done since being in office?

The president is a symbol. And politicians make promises they can only try to keep. The American government is not set up for presidents to effect any real change. With that said, he is one of the best symbols we have ever had. He’s doing exactly as I thought he would, which is great.

Are you aware of ‘chemtrails, and if so what are your thoughts?* I don’t have enough info to know if chemtrails are real or not. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t purport to know what I can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I’m no fool either, and if they are real that would not be a shock to me.

What are your thoughts on the current state of women in hip hop?

The state of women in hip hop mirrors the state of women in the world. Hip hop is male dominated.

But women by their very nature make better MCs and musicians, in my humble opinion. And [New York-based MC] Jean Grae is in my top 5 of all time, even rotating to number one every once and awhile. So is Ms [Lauryn] Hill.

Who would be your 5 dinner party guests, dead or alive?

Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Björk, Paulo Coehlo Will there be another Black Star album?** Anything is possible.

Do you think artists should create other ventures outside of music to be able to sustain a career?

KRS once said that if you are pursuing art as a way to make money, stop, because you will forever taint your output. Do it for the love. If that’s the case, then getting other revenue streams is necessary. However, nothing in life is more rewarding than doing what you love for a living.

The state of women in hip hop mirrors the state of women in the world TALIB KWELI Did Denzel have to play it crooked before he took it?*** The Oscar voting system is flawed, and Hollywood is racist by nature. But Denzel doesn’t need an award for us to know that he is one of the best we’ve ever seen. I’m happy he has one, regardless of what it’s for.

Is there such thing as a half way crook?**** Apparently not, according to Prodigy and Havoc.

Why do you think you are an artist?

Because I have faith in humanity.

I noticed on twitter you’re friends with Sinnamon Love, I am a big fan of her work.

Have you ever tasted her cooking and if so, is it good, really?

Sinnamon Love has cooked for me and my friends many times, and I can report that she’s a beast in the kitchen. * The conspiracy theory which suggests that trails left by aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for purposes undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programmes directed by government officials. ** Black Star is Talib’s trailblazing hip hop tagteam with Mos Def. *** In reference to Washington’s best actor win for his turn as a bent cop in the 2001 LA crime drama Training Day. **** See Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones Pt II from their 1995 classic The Infamous.

TALIB KWELI PLAYS THE ARCHES, GLASGOW ON 23 MAR. FREEDOM OF SPEECH BY SPEECH DEBELLE IS OUT NOW ON BIG DADA WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/TALIBKWELI

Fri 23 – Sun 25 Mar 2012 Tramway, Glasgow

COPYING

WITHOUT

COPYING

WITHOUT

COPYING WWW.ARIKA.ORG.UK TICKETS - FREE TRAMWAY 25 ALBERT DRIVE, GLASGOW, G41 2PE WWW.TRAMWAY.ORG 0845 330 3501

WITH: ANDREA GEYER, CHTO DELAT?, ASHLEY HUNT AND COMBATANT STATUS REVIEW TRIBUNALS, PP. 002954–003064: A PUBLIC READING. A MINI-FESTIVAL ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE SPEAK, OR WHEN WE HEAR SOMEONE SPEAK ON OUR BEHALF, WHEN WE SHARE A COLLECTIVE MOMENT OF HEARING AND UNDERSTANDING.

CO-PRODUCED BY SUPPORTED BY

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

27

BOOKS

Seven Stanzas about StAnza How best to preview the programme at this year’s StAnza Poetry Festival? There’s no way we can cover all the highlights. So here are a few, but written in verse. Why? Consider it a test – if you can get through this nonsense, you’ll bloody love StAnza...

Verse: Keir Hind

Previewing poetry in kind would seem Appropriate in this situation So I’ll use the ottava rima scheme, A facetious form of low reputation, It should fit in The Skinny like a dream.

It’s sure to draw reader indignation But if challenged, I’ll say it’s a mockery Most of the rhymes don’t even work properly.

StAnza begins with an event for Burns March thirteenth, at the festival’s start And after this, live poets get their turns To dazzle us with literary art.

I bet the first thing a poet learns, Before ignoring the head for the heart Is that preview verse will make you crabby This type of thing never troubled Rabbie.

But enough silly complaining for now Let’s look at some StAnza programme choices For promising poets, workshops can endow Writers with stronger poetic voices And Inspire Sessions could start to show how To turn ideas into sweet new noises The daily workshops are there to be used…

But the StAnza Slam is there to amuse.

photo: Mary McCartney

Chris Young, last year’s winner, is back for more And appears at another event too, The Scottish Slam champ Young Dawkins won’t bore But will both compete? Let’s hope that they do In proper battle that settles the score.

But the win’s not certain – it could well be you StAnza’s Slam’s an open competition – To win you just need to be a magician.

Jackie Kay

I’m neglecting listings. Who else will grace The St Andrew’s stage? Well, there’s Jackie Kay With shows for kids and adults, always ace, And Kathleen Jamie appears on Sunday, Glaswegians in the Clydebuilt Showcase, And there’s even a Denise Mina play Karen Dunbar stars, like a guided missile, It’s called A Drunk Woman Looks At the Thistle.

The daily workshops are there to be used…

But the StAnza Slam is there to amuse

There are plenty of film screenings to see Like Submarine, from Joe Dunthorne’s fine book Or Psycho Poetica which should be Amazing to see if you get a look But other films are more my cup of tea Like FilmPoem Live, by Alastair Cook And I’m rather intrigued by poetry loops A set of short films on poems and books.

As a StAnza taster this strange piece should Hopefully send you online to their site Which gives more detail than I ever could About Christopher Reid, Lyn Moir or Jazz Night.

If I had unlimited space I would, Probably not stop – there’s too much to write But that’s all for now, that’s all we can fit in And besides, this thing is terribly written.

Well, you made it through. Apologies, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

You can find the full programme, laid out in a far easier manner to read, online StAnza Poetry Festival, 14-18 Mar, various venues, St Andrews www.stanzapoetry.org/

Fire - Dance - Drumming

Costume - Procession - Community

Performance - Ritual - Celebration

30th April 2012, 8pm on Calton Hill Tickets available from The Hub www.beltane.org

@beltanefs #beltane2012

Beltane Fire Society

28 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

29

COMEDY

Glasgow smiles better Now in its tenth year, the Glasgow International Comedy Festival allows the best Scottish acts to mix it up with glittering international stars. That’s a marked contrast to the Edinburgh Fringe, where local acts tend to get drowned out by hordes of visiting Londoners, and a good reason to support this festival. We’ve interviewed some of the best acts appearing this year and made a wee list of ten other shows you won’t want to miss. Enjoy, and keep an eye on our website throughout March for more interviews and reviews

Josie Long

Late Night Gimp Fight

10 Shows You Must See 1. Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place The Stand, 28 Mar A brilliant mix of whimsy and politics from one of the best comedians in the country.

2. Late Night Gimp Fight Tron Theatre, 30 & 31 Mar Psychotic sketch team who put the ‘ow’ in outrageous.

3. Susan Calman: Revenge of the Cat Lady The Stand, 29 Mar Sorely missed at last year’s Fringe, Calman returns to Glasgow with a new full-length show.

4. Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World King’s Theatre, 23 Mar Pretentious tit or the Messiah of British comedy?

We lean towards the latter.

5. Abandoman The Stand, 23 Mar Stunning freestyle rap improv. By two Irish guys with an acoustic guitar. Seriously.

6. Raymond Mearns: Rock ‘n’ Roll Comedian, The Therapy Sessions The Garage, 15 Mar Scotland’s foremost raconteur shares stories of life on the road with Pete Doherty 7. Robin Ince & Michael Legg: Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire 2 – Back In The Habit Tron Theatre, 28 Mar The perfect show for people who like being cross at things.

8. Mark Nelson: Live & Unleashed Oràn Mór, 30 Mar Caustic, whip-smart humour from one of the big breakthrough Scottish acts of recent years.

9. The Unemployables Cottiers, 31 Mar Excellent mixed bill including two of our finest locals, Joe Heenan and The Reverend Obidiah Steppenwolf III. 10 Keara Murphy: Flypaper for Freaks The Griffin, 31 Mar She’s dated all kind of weirdoes for your entertainment. Read more about the show on page 61.

30 THE SKINNY March 2012

State of the union

On the day the Scottish government announced its plans for a referendum on the issue of Scottish independence, we caught up with the eternally hungover Doug Stanhope for a brief insight into his thoughts on all things British... and Irish Interview: Barrie Morgan

The Skinny: How’s your morning going?

Doug Stanhope: Well, I’m alive.

TS: And hungover?

DS: Actually, I just call them mornings now.

Relaxing in his bathtub, Stanhope comes across as comfortable, content and surprisingly personable. He interviews well and speaks openly, honestly and often misguidedly about any topic you wish to throw at him.

Conversation turns to Scotland; appropriate not only because of his forthcoming tour appearance here, but, more topically, the possibility of Scottish independence, and the break up of the UK. “I think it’s great. Personally, for me, all it means is that it’s just another fucking border I have to go through to work. But yeah, I wish the 50 states would break up. Lose the centralised government.

More choice. How do you want to live, there’s 50 different ways! You hate black people? We’ve a state for that. You wanna have an abortion? Here’s a state. You like drugs? Here’s a state. I think we should just keep breaking up countries now so they become just individuals. It’s the borders that are a pain in the ass.

“I mean the problems over there are so deeply

I hate London more than anything in the world Doug Stanhope

rooted. I’ve done bits on it and it’s like people hate each other for reasons that are centuries old and might not even be actual stories. I remember the first time I played Scotland the only thing you have to remember is, ‘Don’t fuck this up and call this England’.”

Being Irish I’m interested to find out what he thinks of us too. “I love Ireland. I mean, I hate the whole fucking island, in terms of weather and

shit it just depresses me, but as far as people go I fucking love Ireland. I love Scotland too. I remember we did Aberdeen last year and that was a fucking blast.” And England? “I hate London. I hate London more than anything in the world.”

He’s just as at home discussing national politics as he is discussing booze: “I mean I don’t drink for the flavour but you guys drink like you’ve got a gunshot wound and you need to kill the pain immediately;” or neds: “I’ll never forget the day someone said to me, ‘fuck them they’re neds’. But they just look like some bags of shit. I suppose they could be quite dangerous but they just look like some retarded homeless orphans.” Stanhope is a journalist’s dream.

Proving this, at the end of the interview he openly requests I make up as much stuff as possible about him. “Write it up however you like and feel free to include giant lies! If you put in whatever you want, say that I said them, and I’ll back you up. Makes the creative writing process more fun.”

So, for the record, Stanhope’s favourite movie is 50/50, he’s got chronic tuberculosis and his favourite tipple is Buckfast.

Doug Stanhope Live is at King’s Head Theatre, 7.30pm, Fri 30 Mar. Tickets £21 www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com/shows/#!/shows/212

The Man Of 10,000 Voices Go Mr The human sound effects machine, with a voice-box known to the world from movies like Police Academy and Gremlins, Michael Winslow tells us how he developed his talent Interview: Barrie Morgan The 80s were an incredible decade for movies.

As a child of that decade, so many images and characters have stayed with me, whether it be a sweetly timed air-punch by Judd Nelson, Michael J Fox on a hoverboard, or Michael Winslow’s performance as Motormouth Jones in the Police Academy films.

Now a touring comic, Winslow tends to hold the hand of his voices rather than letting them take the lead. His style is unique as no-one else on the circuit has such a powerful and impressive tool at their disposal. “The sounds themselves tend to take on a life of their own. Especially for me,” Winslow reflects. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up so I ended up using the sounds like I had, kinda, an imaginary friend.”

As an isolated youth Winslow is now making up for it by getting his audiences involved in his shows.

“They always end up taking some stuff home with them. Sometimes people learn Gremlin voices from me or sometimes it’s a flight attendant call on an airplane but I tell them if they get in trouble with any of them then my name’s Chris Tucker.”

Winslow’s a busy guy these days. Not exactly trying to shake his 80s persona but trying to embrace his past and move forward with the times, performing sell-out stand-up shows across the world. “At the minute I’m getting more and more into production things too, ‘cos finally technology caught up to me. I’ve got a children’s book in post-production with Bill Cosby which is going to be very interesting.”

“And we have Police Academy 8 of course which is starting production in, it’s supposed to be April,” states Winslow proudly. I admit to Winslow that I had been unaware of the news. “Well, not to worry, we’re back man.” [Barrie Morgan]

Tony Go!

King of high-energy nonsense, Tony Law, returns to Glasgow for one night only as part of the International Comedy Festival Interview: Kirsten Innes

Michael Winslow: The Man Of 10,000 Voices at King’s Theatre, Thu 22 Mar, 7.30pm. Tickets £21 www.glasgowcomedyfestival. com/shows/#!/shows/202

Show Me Your Tattoo Billy Kirkwood gives us a taste of what’s in store at his Comedy Festival gigs Interview: Bernard O’Leary

“I wanted to do three shows about things I was really passionate about,” says Billy Kirkwood.

Luckily for him, his passions are fertile grounds for comedy: geekiness, tattoos and wrestling.

First, the geekiness. BIlly is an all-purpose nerd, but has a special love of B-movies. “I love all this stuff that you just accepted as being brilliant when you were a kid. When you’re young, you just say, ‘Dolph Lundgren as He-Man? Brilliant!’ I like films like Troll 2, which is one of the worst movies ever made. I watch it every Christmas day with a couple of mates. ‘” I mention a childhood fondness for Krull.

“I love Krull! For the first couple of years of my career, I’d try to get a Krull joke into every gig.”

The geek test officially passed, we move onto tattoos. “The concept behind it is talking to people about the stories behind their tattoos and having a bit of fun with it.” With a special treat for Glasgow audiences, who will be invited to design a new tattoo for Billy. Is that wise though?

“When I did it in Edinburgh, I ended up with a tattoo of a lion on a skateboard running away from a packet of Fruitella. I don’t know what Glasgow will pick, but there will probably be a cock in there.”

Finally we talk wrasslin’, which Billy is involved in as ring announcer for ICW. “I’ve been a wrestling

Dolph Lundgren as He-Man? Brilliant!

Billy Kirkwood

fan since I was a kid,” he says, “so I love being involved with ICW. Life’s worked out for me so that comedy is my dayjob and wrestling is my hobby.

Not too shabby.”

Billy recently landed a wrestling fan’s dream job, supporting Mick Foley on his UK stand-up tour.

“Mick used to get me on for his Karate Kid sketch where I was Daniel-san and he was Mr Miyagi. I remember at one point he was beating me up and I thought, ‘shit, this might be the peak of my career’.”

BIlly & Des’s Geek Comedy Night, Plan B Books, 29 Mar, 8.30pm, £5 Show Me Your Tattoo, The Stand, 26 Mar, 9.45pm, £8/£7 The One Wrestling Show, Blackfriar’s Basement, 25 Mar, 8.30pm, £8, £6

You’re taking last year’s award-winning show, Go Mr Tony Go!, to the Glasgow Comedy Festival next month, what can we expect?

New nonsense and old nonsense, last year’s nonsense and next year’s nonsense! All the nonsense! Last year I sold it as if it was the sister piece to the movie The Tree Of Life by Terrence Malick, although I hadn’t actually seen the film at the time. My show was what I guessed the film ought to be about. It was pretty profound.

Do you find that this allows you to pick and choose the kind of gigs you do more than you used to be able to?

It took a transition of about three or four years where I had to move away from the big clubs, because I wasn’t going down too well. It just meant I had to find enough places where I could still play and make a living. In the last few years there seems to be more comedy nerds out there now, which is good for me!

How do you explain your recent success?

My theory is that it’s because you now have a beard.

I think it started the year before the beard, though. I hadn’t been at the Edinburgh festival for three years, then when I went back up in 2010 I did a show at noon which acted as a really good filter.

The only people who came were those who really wanted to and that meant that they were my kind of people. It built from then by word of mouth, I suppose. I think then it just happened to coincide with the beard. Now there’s too many people who know me and like me for my beard, so if I got rid of it, they wouldn’t know who I was. I’m stuck with it.

Tony Law: Go Mr Tony Go!, The Stand, 28 mar, 7.30pm, £9/£8

March 2012 THE SKINNY

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COMEDY

BRATCHPIECE FAMILY ALBUM The only family to have played all ten Glasgow Comedy Festivals, the BRATCHPIECES – that's Dad and sons Neil and David – talk to us about sibling rivalry and nicking bog roll

INTERVIEW: CARA MCGUIGAN ILLUSTRATION: KATE COPELAND

“PEOPLE ALWAYS assume our surname is made up,” says Neil. I nod and smile, and don’t say I’d thought it was a brand of merkin.

An ex-Herald hack, Dad got into stand-up after a colleague foisted an application on him for a series of comedy workshops.

“David was at the university at the time and he was meant to come too, but he never turned up. Anyway, we did these workshops with Bruce Morton, and at the end we got five minutes at the Tollbooth, and it was terrific. I virtually had to get dragged off.

“Next was Neil. He came home from school one day and said, ‘I’m going to be on the news’.” Dad jerks his thumb at Bratchpiece junior. “Turns out him and his pal had won the Glasgow heat of the Fanta Teen Comedy Awards.”

Neil sits forward on the sofa. “The finals were at the London Comedy Store, compered by Jonathan Ross. My very first gig, not a bad start. Gone rapidly downhill since then.”

Sibling rivalry was biting and David started doing stand-up too. “Dad ran the primary school football when we were wee, but Neil and I were always shit and never got picked. I do wonder if the comedy’s a subconscious way of trying to impress him.”

Is there anything that they argue about? Who’s most likely to nick the other’s stuff?

“I steal their clothes, they steal my jokes,” says Dad. “I’ll steal off anyone. Particularly bog roll,” says Neil.

I ask Neil if he’s ever had trouble in his Ned get-up?

Neil shakes his head. ‘Not so much after the first video (Here You, Neds Kru feat. The Wee Man 2,978,964 hits on YouTube and counting), because people are more likely to recognise me. But I did notice at first that people just averted their eyes and steered away from me. Everyone apart from real neds. It was like Bilbo with the ring in Lord of the Rings: put it on and no-one notices you apart from the other goblins. We were filming in Govan, and this guy stopped his car and shouted, ‘You’re not a real ned!’ They can smell their own.”

Glasgow Comedy Festival 2012 is the

Bratchpiece Family’s tenth and final show together, with Dad coming out of retirement for one last gig. It’ll take place at the Arches, the place they debuted, which all agree was their favourite performance.

“It absolutely stowed out,” Dad says, “People sitting on the floor and everything, and the reaction was great – the first night they took record takings at the bar. Neil did a double act, David ranted manically and I put everyone to sleep.”

I ask what they’ve liked best about this Festival?

“The great thing about the Glasgow Comedy Festival,” says Bratchy, “is that it’s a chance to see some great comedy in the places you’d be going to anyway. There are some brilliant Scottish comedians who are totally underrated, like Gary Little and Mark Nelson, who’s dark and cynical but so sharply written.”

“Aye, that’s right,” says Bratchy. “There’s loads of things on – plays, kid’s shows...”

I ask what plays he’s looking forward to. “...eh, well, nothing.” He reddens slightly. “I just said that to sound highbrow.”

“The Glasgow Comedy Festival is just an exaggeration of what Glasgow is like all the time,” says Neil. “During the Fringe it’s like Edinburgh sparks into life for a month, but a day later there’s tumbleweed rolling past and everyone’s asleep again.”

Mrs B appears back in the cafe, and I leave them all bickering about what picture they should have on their flyers.

I’ll steal off anyone NEIL BRATCHPIECE

SYNERGY CONCERTS PRESENT

MARCH

18 TH

BLANCKMASS+Konx-om-Pax THE ART SCHOOL

MAY

11 TH

ERRORS

ERROL WHITE COMPANY

THE ARCHES

22

TRAMWAY

Glasgow: 2–3 March

ND

SLEEP

BYRE THEATRE

JUNE

THE LEMON TREE

THE ARCHES (IN ASSOCIATION WITH ATP)

Musselburgh: 10 March

EDEN COURT

Inverness: 17 March

HOWDEN PARK CENTRE

TH

DaM-FunK+ The Blessings THE CCA (IN ASSOCIATION WITH OPTIMO)

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM WWW.SYNERGYCONCERTS.COM/TICKETSSCOTLAND/RIPPING/MONORAIL

32 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

BRUNTON THEATRE Aberdeen: 14 March

11

WWW.SYNERGYCONCERTS.COM |

St Andrews: 8 March

@SYNERGYCONCERTS

Livingston: 21 March

TRAVERSE THEATRE Edinburgh: 22 March

MACROBERT

Stirling: 31 March

THEATRE

Arika 12: Episode 3, Copying without Copying The final part of Arika’s triptych of programmes presents a weekend of four free events dealing with originality and identity words: Gareth K Vile

Chto Delat?

Arika’s love affair with hardcore Marxist dialectic has always been tempered by a fascination with post-modernity, especially in its most nihilistic and deconstructive versions. Marxists tend to claim that post-modernity’s preoccupation with excluded narratives like feminism, anti-colonialism or antiglobalism can be threaded together around a socialist core, and much of the debate in Episode 1 centred around this possibility.

For Episode 3, Arika are going straight for a prominent post-modern concern: what is originality, and can it exist in an age when even individual identity is being questioned? Copying without Copying is Arika’s most theatrical Episode so far – it includes performances of Eichmann’s trial and Chto Delat?’s musical The Russian Woods – and throws down in the cat fight between artistic ownership and the collective creativity of communities.

Marxism and deconstruction may share a passion for the savage critique of normative culture, but their intentions are radically different: Marxists want a better world, while deconstruction is happy to break up the existing one.

Luther Blisset – the pseudonym used by various anarchists, after a charming British football hero – articulates the heart of this Episode in his Radical Subjectivity. Arika’s programme notes echo Blisset’s belief that nothing can be told without the teller including their own history or value system – but where Arika use this to problematise the way that media is experienced, Blisset was encouraging artists to embrace it, even as he critiqued the false objectivity of the curator or writer. The sharp irony is that Luther Blisset could be anyone: meanwhile, each performance at Episode 3 has a clearly defined author.

Compared to the usual festival rush, Episode 3 is sparse: four events over a weekend, climaxing in two and a half hours of a “spectacular musical show which discusses the representation of a nation state, its characters and history.” Chto Delat? acknowledge that it seems absurd to struggle against the violence of our times through art, yet their intellectual engagement does not

prevent them from co-opting popular forms: mythology, musicals, the idea of a nation’s soul are all reconstructed towards a serious end.

Starting the weekend is a performed installation based on the transcripts of the 1961 trial of SS Lieutenant Adolf Eichmann: the difficult content – Eichmann’s trial threw up questions about state sovereignity, international law and personal responsibility – is matched by an appropriately challenging format, a fusion that Arika actively encourages. Throughout the three episodes,

Mythology, musicals, the idea of a nation’s soul are all reconstructed towards a serious end

the festival has analysed militarism, the agenda behind advertising, the problems of art in a world bedevilled by callous politics and the suspicion that individual identity is being manipulated by consumerism. The discourse moves well beyond the events, and has inspired a series of online and radio discussions.

For this last episode, Arika has gone free: there is no door tax, only a request for emotional and intellectual engagement. The transition from experimental music to experimental festival has happened, and even Luther Blisset’s radical attack on the intrinsic bias of the curator or writer is slightly satisfied.

Tramway, 23-25 Mar, free

World Premiere Tour

Also touring to London, Aberdeen, Inverness and Belfast Glasgow Theatre Royal, 11–14 April Box Office: 0844 871 7647* Online: atgtickets.com/glasgow*

Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 18–21 April Box Office: 0131 529 6000* Online: festivaltheatre.org.uk*

*Booking fee | Production suitable for age 12+ | Registered in Scotland No. SC065497. Scottish Charity No. SC008037 | AW Conqueror Typeface created by Jean Francois Porchez, distributed by Arjowiggins.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

33

FASHION

Tomboy Princesses

Swedish-born, Glasgow-based designer Jennie Lööf gives us a peek at what has formed her as a designer, influences as diverse as Disney princesses and snowboarding Interview: Rena Niamh Smith

If the Glasgow based designer Jennie Lööf could dress anyone, living, dead or mythical, it would be Princess Giselle from the Disney film Enchanted.

The story of an animated princess of the instantly recognisable form; all breathlessness, wide eyes and bursting with spontaneous song, transported by spell to modern-day New York, it deals with how the fantasy of ultimate girlishness deals with the real world.

Indeed, Jennie’s clothes are very much about that escapist ‘pretty’ meets modern girl. Fresh, but with plenty of dresses that reference past decades such as the 1950s but often in more va-va-voom prints, with exaggerated details and thigh-skimming hemlines. Sugar sweet meets caffeine rush.

The collection’s video by John Johnston shows model Cristin Haussman, with her punky tattoos and delicate features, twirling on the banks of the Clyde, in front of glinting water and quayside high rises. She is a great model for Jennie’s designs, in gorgeous, unusual vintage fabrics with a modern silhouette. This is androgyny where minimalism does not feature; girlishness with a smattering of ballsy attitude.

Jennie was fascinated with princesses when she was small, and so, sketched fantasy dresses with her grandmother in Sweden. “We used to sit together and draw princesses when I was little, the most fashionable princesses you’ve ever seen!” Surrounded by like-minded women, she grew up learning her trade. “My mum and grandma are both very talented seamstresses and we always had a sewing room in our house.

I think I was probably around 8 or 9 when I made my first scrunchie.”

Yet despite that, it wasn’t always her dream to make clothes full-time, but something wholly different. “I never wanted to be a designer while growing up. It sounds rather random but I always wanted to be a professional footballer. I did play a lot of football when I was young and on a professional level as a 15-16 year old but when I got into snowboarding at college, I dropped everything and decided that I wanted to be a snowboard pro instead. Youth eh?” she jokes. “I just didn’t have the same focus back then.”

34 THE SKINNY March 2012

With sporty credentials in the mix, it is this balance of perceived gender elements that lends Lööf her special edge. Her dresses are not so sugar sweet as to sicken, and the use of off-beat shapes give things punch. Also, as well as her main line of bespoke pieces, she has branched out into accessories with a line LOVELY by Jennie Lööf which include spats, her first menswear piece under her own label, which she premiered at Granny Would Be Proud’s Boyroom Blitz All-Male special in February 2012.

Typically, the spats are wholly retro in inspiration. We imagine some Glasgow boys, with their healthy love of the faded glamour of the past, will slot these easily into wardrobes with secondhand tweeds, 50s hair cuts and old school specs.

For Lööf, there are some crucial differences to consider when making men’s clothes. “Women would generally wear anything that makes them feel fantastic. For men, on the other hand, comfort has just as much importance as style. I also find that they are more into details.”

However, she does see a gap on the market and wants to bring her own tomboy take to this. “I am planning to do one menswear collection this year and see how it is received. I feel that there is a certain amount of longing for some independent menswear garments in Glasgow so I want to see if I can fill that hole.”

It is her place on the Scottish scene that shapes a lot of what Lööf does. She has shown at In The Company of Wolves, Nightwalk and Bold Souls.

She feels that buying independent in fashion means supporting what is important: “You are supporting your community and reinvesting in the finances of your area”.

She dabbled in menswear when she designed for the stage. This background in costume obviously informs her wonderful escapism. She finds shopping on the high street “boring”. “I have a very sentimental wardrobe,” she muses. “I like second-hand and independent shops where you can stumble over something unique. I have many leftovers from theatre shows and I’m a ‘victim’ of the hand-me-down.”

Informed by a sense of the past and by her

Women would generally wear anything that makes them feel fantastic. For men, on the other hand, comfort has just as much importance as style Jennie Lööf

inheritance, she uses vintage fabrics that she picks up on her travels in her collections, but last year she took her heirloom of a skill-set as mood-board and material for her collection Family Chest.

“All the fabrics from that collection were saved by my mum from my grandmas and great-grandmas and finally handed down to me.” Shot by John Johnson on sunlit streets of suburban Glasgow with old photos of glamorous Lööf’s past, it is a sweet tribute to the women in her family.

She in turn is handing on what she’s been given, and with a sweet demeanour and infectious enthusiasm, she’d make a great teacher. She did a fashion course for the Impact Arts summer project Gallery 37 for people aged 14-19, which has turned into a bona fide business venture, “Gallery 37 has now bloomed into the fabulous shop Eco Chic Boutique on the High Street in Glasgow. It’s run by the genius that is Lisa Carr and some of my summer students now work there. I don’t have words to describe how proud I am of them.”

With princesses past and present, royal or blue blooded, catwalk fantasy or contemporary, flooding the media at the moment, this snowboarding Scandinavian is certainly one to watch, and a go-to name for a princess moment of your own. www.jennieLoof.com Photographer: John Johnston (www.johnjohnstonphotography.co.uk) Photographer assistant: Ross Wilson Model: Julia Bell

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Arcade Beach – Jamie Johnson £100 (from £10 per month)

£1 – Rabiya Choudhry £150 (from £15 per month)

The Skinny on Culture Label Buy beautiful, high quality, limited edition prints by seven Scottish artists at an affordable price with the Own Art scheme. Own Art provides an interest free loan, allowing you to spread the cost over ten equal monthly payments. Prices on The Skinny Shop start at £10 a month. www.theskinny.co.uk/shop www.culturelabel.com/art/unsigned/the-skinny

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MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

35

SHOWCASE

JACK HUDSON

Jack Hudson introduces himself.

"I'm an Illustrator and Designer currently based in Salamanca, Spain. I studied Illustration in Bristol, UK for three years. My main inspirations tend to come from midcentury illustrations, 80s adventure movies and 1960s / 70s film posters. My favourite artists and filmmakers are David Hockney, Charley Harper and Michel Gondry.

"I often like to use discreet references of popular culture within my work. I mainly use these materials: Indian ink, pencil, gouache and a scanned library of textures to work with digitally. The main thing I want to communicate to people through my work is a positive sense of fun, energy and enjoyment. In the future I'm looking to experiment with more moving image and even try and translate my work into live action footage or photography."

This page (Top to Bottom, Left to Right): The Anxious Choice, The Roof-top Scenario, Poster 1, Poster 2, Poster 3 Opposite page (Top to Bottom, Left to Right): Woodland Home, Nobrow, The Moth’s Trail

36 THE SKINNY March 2012

March 2012 THE SKINNY

37

FASHION

London Fashion Week

A/W 2012

This London Fashion Week we heard and read about the idea that the ‘trend’ this season was that there was ‘no trend’ (as ridiculous a concept as that may sound). We, however, disagree. Although it is true that a lot of the collections shown this Autumn/Winter 2012 certainly had their own distinct personalities and clearly fell within the designers’ signature style and look, there were certain threads of similarity running through the work on show, whether this was in the type of fabric used for key pieces, the colour palette or elements of embellishment WORDS: Alexandra Fiddes and Emma Segal IllustrationS: Kristen ORME

Fabric and Silhouette: It seems lazy for editors and journalists to cite leather as an Autumn/Winter trend; in recent years, the two have almost become synonymous. As extreme lovers of the fabric at The Skinny, we may also be guilty of magnifying its importance. It is therefore a testament to British design talent that leather, in new and exciting forms, has once again become the KEY fabric of A/W 12. Whether it came in the form of grey embellished dresses and wine coloured A-line skirts at ACNE, or in accessories and panelled looks, as was the case in Aminaka Wilmont and Emelio De La Morena, it was king on the catwalk. The key to making leather definitively A/W12? It’s all about the effects.

Treated and metallicised leather bronze gilets stood out at Todd Lynn, and plasticised leather tops at both J W Anderson and Simone Rocha made the look futuristic, cool and covetable. The only reservation to note is that these looks will be difficult to replicate on the high street, meaning it may not be achievable for

38 THE SKINNY March 2012

everyone.

Though leather was a hugely important fabric, velvets and silks are also enjoying a big comeback.

Unique featured an elegant midnight black velvet jumpsuit and loose fitting trousers; at Christopher Kane, striping the fabrics added a fresh new take to the mix. Also at Kane, the juxtaposition of velvet against silk dresses enhanced the beauty of some of the simpler silhouettes and structures on display.

By contrast, armoured lamé (and related iridescent and metallic-effect fabrics), was heavily used in the collections despite being less commonly associated with Autumn/Winter trends. Antonio Berardi used the fabric to great effect in a variety of silhouettes, particularly in outerwear. Holly Fulton’s final look featured an armoured crop-top that simply has to be seen to be believed. Some designers chose to literally create shimmer with sequins; Eudon Choi’s use of paneled sequin sections in multi-fabric tops presented an elegant new way of using shimmer.

However, most designers used the fabrics to enliven some simple, clean silhouettes. Christian Blanken’s excellent use of what can only be described as ‘Disco Silver’ fabric (!) transformed an ostensibly simple pair of casual fit trousers into laidback, luxe-sports chic.

Moving away from fabric, the silhouettes and shapes on display this season can be roughly divided into two camps. On one hand, there was lots of extreme volume to be found; particularly in the shorter hemmed dresses of Bora Aksu. Additionally, within this camp, oversized and cocoon shapes were present. 2011 Fashion Fringe winners Fyodor Golan’s debut collection featured a beautifully constructed cocoon shaped red skirt, and ACNE’s knitwear and jumpers were loose fitting and artfully rounded in shape. By contrast, more designers were wooed with the idea of simple, sleek silhouettes already espoused by the likes of J JS Lee. Trousers, for the most part, were loose and flowing irrespective of fabric, in general, cuts

were slick. The Skinny coined the ‘luxe-simplicity’ look to describe S/S12 collections; it was certainly present again in the A/W catwalk shows.

Finally, a quick note on two micro-trends. We’ve been keeping our eye out for examples of the ‘Van Der Ham effect’ on designers for the past few seasons. Increasingly, designers have been taking risks, and utilising his signature patch-working and multi-fabrication techniques. This season, multifabrication was everywhere, with garments being constructed from a variety of contrasting panels.

The result was a wide proliferation of asymmetrical hemlines and interestingly structured garments.

The look was mostly used in tops, skirts and outerwear, particularly at Choi and Unique. The second micro-trend also has its roots in seasons past, but now stands firmly in the design zeitgeist of London’s talent. This season, separable collars, such as the plastic and lace ones as seen at Simone Rocha, or in Asku’s collection, were the order of the day.

Colour and Embellishment: The A/W 12 collection from Mark Fast, entitled Questions In A World Of Blue and inspired by the David Lynch lyrics, was drawn from a colour scheme of dark grey, ivory, navy blue and dusty pinks. Garments were sexy, continuing with Fast’s trademark elastic look, with short hems, double slits, bare shoulders and cut out pieces on hip bones and waists. Textures were soft, emphasised by the cosy soft fringes of what looked like raw wool used as beautiful details. For the closing of the show, there was a display of bright, intense cobalt blue pieces; the embellishment here was glittery stripes over knits and overlays of black beaded fish-net style body jewellery.

The use of raw wool as a design detail was also seen in other collections; namely those of Simone Rocha and J JS Lee. The resulting look of these embellished garments was more subtle but no less beautiful, much like the overall collections themselves. J JS Lee, never really one to go for all bright colours, produced a cream and ivory heavy collection with hints of smokey grey and diluted yellow. Up close a few of the minimal garments

39

had tiny amounts of raw wool coming through the fabric in pale dove grey in graduating density around necklines and down arm seams. The work of (daughter of John Rocha) Simone Rocha was a body of work full of simple shapes – drop waists, above the knee skirts and biker jackets. The use of boning, lace, tufts of raw wool and also crocheted wool on necklines and collars elevated the collection to something ethereal and otherworldly, which was emphasised by the use of ivory throughout.

Additionally, LFW debutante Sophie Hulme used subtle amounts of lace as detailing in her tough but still feminine garments. Unexpectedly, the lace was made up of dinosaur shapes. Genius!

This dinosaur element ran through her collection, appearing as laser cut sections and gorgeous gold jewellery.

In comparison, lace decoration was a bold and central feature in the stunning work of Turkish born Bora Aksu. Based on American outsider artist Henry Darger’s In The Realms of the Unreal, a story of the Vivian girls, so unsurprisingly the collection produced was full of fantasy. The

colour choice here started with a lovely mix of dusky pinks and muted greys before offering splashes of fuchsia and orange later in the show.

Pencil skirts, jackets and capes (and billowing short dresses towards the close of the show) were given interest in the form of a large lace-like repeat pattern used in and on a variety of textures of material. This lace print was taken from old fabrics, tapestries and 1950s wallpaper samples.

Complex knits, ribbons, pussycat bows and 3D flowers also added contrasting details. Aksu’s work was, yet again, breathtaking.

So, prints as garment embellishment were prevalent in the LFW A/W 12 collections, but were generally very specific to each designer’s style. For example, Mary Katrantzou changed the mundane into something outstanding, taking everyday dreary objects – spoons, clothes, hangers, a bath, a typewriter to use as a starting point (our favourite was possibly the pencil skirt with a pencil print).

These were then used with a colour synonymous to the object itself. Here in places the knitwear was made to resemble the print itself.

Another print aficionado, Holly Fulton gave us a burst of exotic, hot house prints in her distinct art deco style, a stunning new print element was in the form of a swarm of butterflies rising from a trouser hem, this look was met by a gasp of appreciation from the crowd. Again bright fuchsia and cobalt blue were a hit on the runway, at Fulton’s show this was paired with black. More embellishment came in the form of lavishly jewelled earrings and necklaces and the fringing of fabric on the last look shown.

Hints for Autumn/Winter 2012? When choosing a colour, go for either innocent ivory, all hues of grey (from dove to charcoal), berry pinks and orange, or bright eye popping blue. Fabric is of the utmost importance - whether this be plasticised, leather, metallic, velvet or silk - think opulent and unusual.

Shapes are simple, oversized or sleek. Detailing and embellishment are to be considered carefully, it can be a subtle sprinkle of wool stitches or an in-your-face overlaid body piece. Remember, like the designers, start with your own signature style and go from there.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

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FOOD & DRINK

A Guide to Food Telly

With much of the food world rocking itself into a pre-spring lull, we pore over the best food-based telly in search of inspiration, tips for media domination, and some clues as to the enduring popularity of Mr Heston Blumenthal words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Kyle Smart

Christmas is long gone, we’re a couple of months into THE FINAL YEAR OF THEM ALL, but spring is yet to... well, spring. Without fluffy rabbits and lambs to massacre and turn into tasty dinner, those in charge of the television seem to be compensating with lots of food-based television programming. After all, the only thing better than tasty food you can eat is tasty food prepared directly in front of you, yet completely beyond your grasp, to be enjoyed by some smug, well-lit twazzock. With that in mind, we sat down for an evening of the finest food telly around to try and distil the essence of the perfect food programme.

That was the plan, anyway.

A Question of Taste – 7:00pm And we begin with A Question of Taste, a food quiz hosted by noted political journalist and Weegie Kirsty Wark. It looks cheap, and immediately strikes as a bad idea. The set-up is simple – a team who love rhubarb take on a gang of supper club enthusiasts in a variety of ‘fun’ ‘games’ of food identification. It’s a cross between Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Countdown, but with food. And it’s shit. Kirsty has a sidekick who sits in Kitchen Corner (TM), who isn’t very interesting or good at his job, and the whole thing looks very weird. There are a lot of crash zooms on our Kirsty, presumably to keep the viewer in a perpetual state of terror at the next violent camera move onto a group of dull dull people.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Food programmes should involve some cooking; self-professed ‘rhubarb enthusiasts’ should stay off the telly.

How to Cook Like Heston – 7:30pm Oh good, some actual cooking. Well, some selfaggrandisement first, then cooking. First line of the episode, from Heston: “I taught myself to cook,” followed by a sly glance to camera. What. A. Prick. Heston is going to let us in on his innermost secrets in the field of potatoes, the first of which appears to be that he’s a mentalist who shouldn’t be allowed out of the house. In fact, that’s unfair, he’s really just a misunderstood scientist. You can tell because he uses loads of hi-def slowmotion close-ups for no reason, and follows talk of mashed potato with the phrase “You’ll need a blow torch.”

As for the show itself, it’s an odd one – it’s like an old-school Delia Smith Christmas special, but with more incongruous shots of dog-shaped

40 THE SKINNY March 2012

This must be what it’s like to go on a crack binge lamps and cutaways to Heston cooking food with a hair-dryer. Having said all that, I do want to eat everything he’s making, and it’s a nice touch for him to invite real people along to puncture his mad bastard bubble. Heston cracks on with a potato mash with lime jelly, a bizarre and wilfully zany recipe that no amount of crisp Helvetica font and stop motion animation can excuse. Heston closes by encouraging viewers to set wood on fire in their kitchens and make potatoes into jam, sending us off into the evening with a burning rage at the continued popularity of this absolute lunatic.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Quirky graphics are handy distractions from odd and unpleasant food; there is such a thing as being ‘too out-there.’

Masterchef – 8:00pm We join BBC One’s titanic prime-time cookery bunfight midway through the series, yet there’s no recap. Why is there no recap? Because this is Masterchef, and there’s no room for part-timers.

Suffice to say there were more Masterchefs, and now there are not. Our contestants are asked what they would do if they had to leave the competition, to which they give stock reality show answers about this meaning the world to them. Well, apart from the guy who states that he’d “kill everything and everyone.” There are eight Masterchefs at this point, learning three European cuisines, taking part in dinner service and receiving motivational niceties from swarthy foreigners. That blazed by in a total of 14 minutes. There are pans everywhere, everyone’s running, and there’s constant music blaring in the background. You can tell this is primetime BBC One, because there’s a cast of thousands and mad camera angles everywhere.

From the pro kitchens, we move into the weird Thunderdome-by-Habitat that is the contestants’ kitchen. Oh, and our judges Statler and Waldorf

are here. Note: only one of these two is actually a chef. The other is just a fat bald man.

There’s a challenge: cook something you aren’t sure of for a panel of experts and a fat bald man.

Needless to say, there are hilarious telly mistakes.

One man throws a £150 truffle in the bin, while another hits himself in the head with a pan. There is a tasting, with drama, extreme close-ups and food photography. The French-inspired contestants respond to their tuition by capitulating at the first opportunity, allowing smarty-pants writers to make unfair cultural comparisons. The production team do the full food photography bit on some melted ice cream, in a top-notch display of passive aggressive direction. That gets topped by the French chef icing the eventual eliminatee by saying that her cake would have to be perfect to be French. He tops it with a WINK DIRECT TO CAMERA . He may as well have kicked a stool away, that woman was dead from then on. Consequently the tension falls away, and The National come on in the background as I recover from the breakneck pace. This must be what it’s like to go on a crack binge.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Time constrains only weak fools; it’s possible to accidentally learn cooking techniques as the information whooshes by; every TV programme should have its own ice-cold Frenchman.

Home Cooking Made Easy – 9:00pm Lorraine Pascal is a model, and not a chef.

Realising she had too much money, she tried her hand at hypnotherapy and car-mending before getting into the cooking game. Here she presents some of her favourite recipes, recipes that you as a pleb can make at home. She then proceeds to make cheese and ham toasties, and to complain, to camera, about how fiddly ham can be. This is followed with salad, cheesecake and chutney recipes. Bonus points here for some bogus hygiene advice, as our hero states that “some people boil their jam jars, I just put them in the dishwasher on a hot setting.” Some people dry their hands before climbing a ladder to change a lightbulb, but here at The Skinny we reckon shaking them a bit should do, and will gladly print such advice knowing that nothing bad could come of it.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Genuine chefs should do the cooking on TV; if you see a range of Lorraine Pascal jams, run a mile.

The Fabulous Baker Brothers – 9:30pm One’s a butcher, the other’s a baker, they live next door to each other, and they fight crime. Well, most

of that is true. Yes, after 150 minutes it’s time for some slightly awkward and homo-erotic scripting. I kid of course, there’s no homo-eroticism here, just some buff lads in tight t-shirts with big knives shooting each other unsettlingly intense stares. Nice lads though. They make manly food, like PIES and RED MEAT. Their set is constructed entirely from brown materials. They use words like WAR and BANTER, and make statements such as LARD IS GOOD FOR YOU. They cut to recaps of information they never gave in the first place, and they drill holes in bins to make smokers for their hot dogs. They are men, men cook with fire, men eat meat.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Fire-starting is becoming increasingly common in these programmes; it’s very hard to be cool when you’re wearing an apron and covered in flour.

Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman – 10:00pm Raymond Blanc is a very very good French chef, with two Michelin stars. He also has a wild accent that can’t be tamed. Clearly the only logical plan here is to send our Raymond off to meet more French folk to ensure that you’re straining to work out what everyone is saying, not just him. Raymond says “ooh la la” a lot, and drives a Citroen 2CV because of course he does. The programme compensates for the incomprehensible French accents with overly perky narration akin to an Open University guide to French food. After three and a bit hours of culinary onslaught it’s both a welcome relief and a taunt. Anyway, Mr Blanc picks grapes with the locals, gawps at cows, complains about French-on-French prejudice, then does a little cooking. He looks at cheese, and points out that different people like different cheeses, followed by more cooking. He does a big final meal, and everyone loves it because of course they do. It’s been four hours, and either the narration has been taken over

by Thierry Henry or it’s time to wrap this up.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Sarcastic Frenchmen beats genuine Frenchmen; an hour is a long time without any tension or drama whatsoever.

So, to conclude, the ideal food programme would involve a legit paid-up chef with a pithy French sidekick going on an emotional journey.

There should be lots of pyrotechnics, and plenty of crazy cutaways and graphics to distract from the safe, sensible cookery. There shall be no questions, and absolutely no baldy super-chefs.

We'll decide on the day whether to use the dogshaped furniture...

Phagomania With Lewis MacDonald

So, unless you were ‘that kid’, you have no doubt experienced and rejoiced in a childhood of hideously sugary breakfast cereal in the morning, courtesy of our Yankee friends the Kellogg Company and their ilk. Let’s take a moment to spare a thought for the breakfast relics: the discontinued cereal brands. May your memories snap, crackle or pop to a few of these blasts from the past.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 20 DRINKS:

NORWAY

In the first of a new series, we begin our drinking journey around the world with Vikings, whisky salesmen, and drinks that look like wee-wee

coffee bar

café

Quality, Speciality Coffee

WORDS: PETER SIMPSON ELK, FJORDS, and loads and loads of oil. Tiny little islands and topographical oddity. Norway is, objectively, one of the best places in the world, and, as anyone who has been will insist on endlessly telling you, it looks nice too. Unfortunately, it’s easier to sell a weird combination of national history and mythology (Braveheart, Highlander, Maisie the Cat) than a semi-factual representation of a nation’s current social and political outlook.

With that in mind, Highland Park are releasing a new Norse-inspired whisky. It’s called Thor.

Thor, to quote Highland Park, ‘takes inspiration from the legendary Nordic gods of old. Not for the faint hearted, only those brave enough to accept the challenge of Thor shall be rewarded with the ultimate experience; a whisky of divine power.’

You too can leap buildings in a single bound, and dispense mythologically sound street justice by way of an enormous hammer, thanks to the ‘divine power’ vested in you by this whisky. And in case you doubted the providence of this whisky, know that it retails in a display case based on a Viking longboat.

So far so funny, but surely this kind of cultural exchange is a good thing – we get some Norse variety in our hard liquor, and Norwegians see their folklore spread further out into the world by means of said liquor. Everyone’s happy, right? Nope.

For one thing, Norway does in fact have its own

local beverages. Spirit-wise, the Norwegians tend to plump for Akvavit, a caraway or dill-flavoured spirit that looks a tiny bit like urine. We’re informed by recent visitors that it doesn’t actually taste like urine though, so that’s a redeeming feature.

Secondly, Norway is terrifyingly expensive. In a typical Norwegian pub, two beers will set you back £14. You can’t even cry into your beers, because that’d just dilute them and make the problem even worse. Given those circumstances, and the hilariously high taxes on foreign food that meant that the entire country ran out of butter just before Christmas, it’s hard to see the locals plumping for our Viking-inspired whisky, even if it does come in its own longboat.

So, to sum up: Norway is an almost heavenly land of incredible history, abundant resources and stunning natural beauty. It is represented here on Earth by a mythologically-inspired spirit that’s brought its own transport. Still, at least it doesn’t look like pee.

THOR BY HIGHLAND PARK, £120RRP WWW.WHISKYOFTHEGODS.COM

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FOOD NEWS WITH PETER SIMPSON

Loyalty, dangerous dough, and free beer are all on the menu in this month’s round-up We begin this month with the return of an Edinburgh institution. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Grant Stott! We kid of course, this small-time column could never get Mr Edinburgh. We’re talking instead about Henri’s, the premier deli for the Francophiles of Stockbridge. After a refurbishment that’s seen the addition of a cafe and wine bar area to the deli operation, it’s a great place to grab some tasty produce and use your best Inspector Clouseau voice when asking for stuff from behind the counter. Henri’s re-opens 16 Mar, 48 Raeburn Place Edinburgh.

Say what you will about the corporate monoliths of the catering industry, but their loyalty schemes aren’t bad. Their coffee may taste like burnt ear wax and their sandwiches constantly remind you that mayonnaise is one of the cheaper ingredients around, but at least you’ll get a free one every so often. Well, now you can get freebies as well as diverting your money away from ‘the man’ with the Edinburgh Community Cafes loyalty card.

20 community cafes across the city are involved (edinburghcommunitycafes.org.uk for full list), from Captain Taylor’s at the Bridges to our old gaff at The Drill Hall on Dalmeny St, and you can rest assured that your cash will be reinvested back into your local area rather than kept in an enormous locked vault for a rich old white man to roll around in. That, and you’ll get free stuff.

Now, this column doesn’t presume to know any more than the rest of you. We’re nice like that. However, if we were hosting a pizza-making class for beginners, and knew that spinning pizza dough involves chucking it in the air, we wouldn’t

DRILL HALL ARTS CAFE; NOT A STARBUCKS

host that class on an open balcony overlooking a city street. Fanelli’s of Glasgow’s Merchant Square would presumably laugh in the face of our cowardice, as well as teaching you all the important stuff you need to know to make great pizza. Now you can save on takeaway bills and help reduce the number of hurried maniacs on scooters riding around on a Friday night (various dates, £26.50pp).

For those of you who’ve made it this far, we have a treat for you. Edinburgh’s finest, Stewart Brewing, have been putting the finishing touches to some new beers. They want to show them off, so are hosting a launch night at the Leith Malmaison.

As well as beer, there will be canapes. Entry is free.

Yes, you read that right. Top-quality local beers ‘to sample’, along with lovely canapés, in a cool setting. For free. We may not have any celebrity endorsements, but don’t say we’re not good to you. Stewart Brewing Launch Night, Malmaison, 4 Tower Pl Leith, 30 Mar, 7pm, free entry.

WWW.EDINBURGHCOMMUNITYCAFES.ORG.UK

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MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

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DEVIANCE

Conversations with an Escort This month Deviance takes a closer look at some of the people in the sex industry. In part one we talk to Laura Lee, an independent escort working in Glasgow. She describes herself as a ‘happy hooker’ Interview: Ana Hine Illustration: Peter Marsden

First can you just explain what ‘escort buddies’ is?

It’s a scheme set up by a friend of mine down south and basically what it aims to do is match up new ladies that come into the industry with more experienced ladies so that we can share experience with them, give them some dos and don’ts and also share with them lists of known time-wasters, idiot clients.

Unfortunately there are guys who search the net looking for new girls and they will try to push boundaries. In an ‘oh, all the girls do this they just don’t advertise it’ sort of way. So it’s really to safeguard them against that, and to advise them as well so that they know what they’re up against. The stigma, the social isolation, the lies, the secrecy.

If I personally take a newbie under my wing I don’t spare any blushes, I let them have it, the reality of it.

So you have a lot of responsibility for a newcomer?

I guess you do. In the first instance you want to make sure the lady really knows what she’s getting herself into and the ramifications that decision has.

That sounds very negative, and it’s not meant to.

[Escorting] can be a fabulous career for the right lady. Certainly, I love it. I wouldn’t comprehend working for anybody else now. Working for myself is just what I love doing, but you need to go into it with your eyes open. So I do feel responsible for anyone I take on, yes definitely.

Are there things that you are happy you didn’t know when you first got into sex work?

I guess I’m grateful I wasn’t really aware of the seedy underbelly that exists. There is a large group of men, I suppose, who really don’t respect women, and they’re all about pushing boundaries, trying to get away with things that ordinarily they wouldn’t do. You hear about these guys every so often, a warning will go up on the various [internet forums]. So yes, I was a bit doe-eyed, but I was very lucky way back then I had two older ladies who took me under their wing.

The first time somebody asked for, um, watersports I thought we were going yachting for the day [watersports being sex acts involving urine, golden showers etc] and the women who were looking after me nearly peed themselves laughing.

What kind of advice do you give to newcomers?

First and foremost it’s a cutthroat industry. It’s very bitchy so choose your buddies carefully and don’t give away too much about yourself and your real life. Sort out tax, it’s important to give the tax man something. Cover yourself in the event that the unspeakable happens and the press do get a hold of you.

You also need to establish what sector of the market you want to appeal to. From that you would also decide what services you want to offer, your pricing structure, your advertising and where’s best to do that, and then obviously your sexual health practices as well.

Some of the advertising websites do more than others to protect the people who use their sites when offering commercial sex. Do you think there is proper protection online?

I’m not sure that protect is the right word, but certainly the ethos of many of the major sites is very much pro-sex worker, so it comes down very hard on things like trafficking and under-age girls. If we get one whiff of that the person is then reported to Crimestoppers.

Other sites seem to allow women to advertise things like barebacking, which is not really in their best interest. To me it’s slow suicide really. Russian roulette. So they have a less caring attitude maybe.

42 THE SKINNY March 2012

How does the current legislation – that sex work is legal, but working in a group is not – affect you? Does it make it more difficult to create a network of support?

You can always have a network of support. If there are two ladies together in a premises then it’s deemed to be a brothel and that’s illegal. So in terms of touring together how you get around that is simply to have a hotel room next to your buddy and then if anything were to kick off she’ll be there. It does make it difficult, what they are effectively doing is leaving women as sitting ducks for the various psychopaths that are out there. For instance if you look at the Ipswich murders, they should never have happened. It’s that simple. The state had blood on its hands there.

I can’t fathom why they would say that it’s okay for one woman but not okay for two. After all we’re not talking about a big, all singing, Nevada style ranch here, we’re talking about a private apartment with two women in it.

And surely it’s not as bad as having students living beside you…

They’re actually worse. They party till like two, three in the morning. It’s like ‘shut up, I have a booking at 9am’. That’s where the whole stigma thing comes in.

When I got outed in the last town I lived in the neighbours were all like, ‘oh, but she seemed such a nice girl.’ Hello, I am a nice girl. Just because this is my job doesn’t change who I am. It’s the tag that’s given to us, automatically people look down their nose at you.

I don’t know what needs to change first. Does the legislation need to change or the attitudes towards us in society?

Are there parallels between this situation and that of the stigma surrounding homosexuality?

They’re both minority groups, sex workers and gay people, but gay people’s rights have come on so much since, say, the 1950s. They can get married now, they can adopt children, they have nearly all the same rights as heterosexual people.

And so it should be.

When I was growing up the stigma around gay

The first time somebody asked for, um, watersports I thought we were going yachting Laura Lee

men was so strong that they were automatically assumed to be paedophiles. They were this group of horrid individuals that were to be shunted away into a corner and never discussed. That’s all changed.

Why has it taken so long for the laws around sex work to catch up?

I just don’t know why we haven’t caught up in our attitudes towards sex workers. It is improving, but it’s painfully slow. We need more people, like myself, to stand up and let people know that we’re normal. Honestly. I burn toast and stuff too.

There’s a mystery surrounding sex work and that is caused by the fact that it’s all so damn clandestine. People are afraid of press or family, neighbours finding out.

Will we ever have a Whore Pride March in London? I don’t know. I hope so.

What about Slutwalk?

Yeah. It was a missed opportunity. There was a snobbery around that which I found rather comical. I hang around lots of forums where ladies only,

escorts, post and some of them were saying, ‘I don’t consider myself a slut, I’m not going on that.’

I thought ‘For fuck sake!’

There’s an elitism in the industry where some girls at my level (urgh, even that sounds snobby), will look down their nose at parlour girls, who in turn will look down on street workers.

From my point of view, and certainly from the IUSW’s point of view [the International Union of Sex Workers] we’re all sex workers, end of. We all do the same job. You might do it in your boot and heels, or round the back of ASDA, doesn’t matter.

You get the anti-s and the abolitionists bandying around aged reports, usually on street workers, to say that oh 70, 80 per cent of them are the result of some abusive or traumatic experience. It’s all rubbish.

I’ve worked in this industry on and off for sixteen years and met a lot of different people from various different levels of the industry and some of the strongest women I’ve met have been sex workers.

Some of the most together people.

No-one is saying it doesn’t happen, of course it does, but it is very much in the minority.

What I was quite shocked about was how many of the government reports on prostitution had been funded by groups with an ideological stance against it. Groups who considered all prostitution to be exploitation, as a foundational belief. How can that bring up objective data?

Well exactly. I think the key to moving forward is to open the channels of communication between the police and ourselves, so that we don’t need to live in fear of having it on our record for the rest of our lives that we’re a known sex worker.

That’s currently happening in some sectors of Scotland. Say I go to a flat tomorrow and I’m really unhappy with what I see there, maybe a couple of eastern European women who don’t look… right.

I should be able to go to the police and say ‘you need to look into this’ rather than trying to stay under the radar. They’re shooting themselves in the foot by creating a rift between us and them. www.escortbuddys.com/

TRAVEL

A TRAVELLER MANIFESTO Backpackers : you’re not big, you’re not clever and you’re not Buddhist. Put the souvenir T-shirts and the Lonely Planet down, and accept you're tourists like everyone else WORDS: RACHAEL ANN FULTON ILLUSTRATION: JACOB STEAD

WHETHER YOU want to traipse the white sand beaches of Koh Samui or absorb spiritual serenity at Borobudur, tourists do their utmost to ruin the experience for you. Our planet’s most idyllic natural landscapes are invariably disfigured by the presence of horse-faced gap yah students and dishevelled backpackers, all of them pursuing the elusive meaning of life and losing all concept of personal hygiene as they go.

Amidst the matted dreadlocks and weather-beaten faces of the backpacker community you may find the occasional stunner. This person is usually female, and usually French. Whilst you may look as if you were bludgeoned at birth with an ugly stick and raised in a small space with no natural sunlight (Scotland), she looks as if she has spent her life cycling dans-la-campagne in the French sunshine, the basket of her bicyclette brimming with quinoa, flaxseed and fresh bread from the supermarché.

On the travelling circuit, these girls are normally found scaling volcanoes and engaging in other sickeningly outdoorsy events. By comparison, British girls are usually found vomiting Chang beer and fried rice over their friend’s flip-flops.

Despite the occasional belle française, the scourge of backpacking blights an otherwise attractive crop of young people. By the third month of living from a grotty rucksack, sleeping in flea-infested hostels and binge-drinking buckets of vodka and shrooms, those who are normally easy on the eye can make you wish you’d grow cataracts.

Seasoned backpackers and gap-yah students repeatedly fall victim to the same aesthetic afflictions.

They acquire an outer crust of dirt and dead skin cells as their sun-charred bodies become dappled with missing patches of tan. Fungal skin infections caused by hot weather, sweat and infrequent showers spread white blotches across their backs and chests. Monstrous scabs from mosquitoes that just keep on biting, despite the maniacal slathering of DEET, pepper their limbs. Their hair looks like they’ve been changing plug sockets with wet hands. Couple this with a near-constant hangover and the travellers in no way resemble the T4 Shipwrecked lovelies they hope to emulate.

British girls are usually found vomiting Chang beer and fried rice over their friend’s flip-flops.

Western travellers’ clothing choices are also dubious. Under no circumstances should the mass-wearing of vests saying ‘I WENT TUBING IN VANG VIENG, LAOS’ be permitted, especially if you are still in Vang Vieng. In this situation, everyone knows you went tubing, because they went with you. They watched you leap onto the rope swing of death and they dragged your drunken ass out of the water before you drowned. They don’t need reminded. Besides, if you don’t go tubing in Vang Vieng, there’s not much else to do except get high and watch Family Guy. Then there’s the jewellery. Spiritual Cambodians at Buddhist temples will envelope you in intoxicating plumes of incense, wrap a piece of wool around your wrist and sell you faux enlightenment for ‘a contribution to the monks.’ Wearing said piece of tatty wool for the next six months through sea salt, bathing and grotesque toilet conditions does not make you a Buddhist, nor does it make you enlightened. It makes you grubby.

Tattoos are also popular when travelling. It is simply insufficient to upload 2000 Facebook photos, keep a diary or rely on the incredible data-storing capacity of the human memory to record your travels. No. Everyone knows that in order to truly remember an event, you must pay a stranger to permanently imprint an image or sequence of words onto your body. Travellers can turn themselves into atlases with the popular outline-of-country-I-went-to-that-like-totallychanged-my-life tattoo, or choose to emblazon themselves with a lizard or another animal indigenous to the country they’re visiting. Or, like my friend recently did on a trip to Thailand, they can have their arm drunkenly inked with the phrase ‘Fuck Bitches, Get Money’, and return to explain this choice to their mothers.

On their quest for bohemian self-discovery, Western travellers frequently exclaim their need to experience real culture. They condescendingly dismiss the well-trodden tourist trail, considering themselves superior to its meagre cultural offerings. They don’t want to see what everyone else sees. They want to go off-road, man.

This idealisation of uncharted territory is a hangover from childhood Indiana Jones obsessions and exposure to the glorification of slave-mongerer Christopher Columbus. Freud might have also argued a subconscious sexual theme in our desire to explore unspoiled lands, but regardless of intention, the outcome is the same. We want the Travel Trump Card that no-one else can trounce.

We want to rub it in everyone’s faces for years to come, telling our grandkids about how we spent our youth ice-fishing with Inuits and body-painting with Amazonian Quilombolo tribes.

Travellers want all this, but home comforts too.

When they open a menu they want to be able to admire the complexities of the ethnic food and still be able to opt for a cheeseburger and curly fries. When street-food induced diaorrhoea has ravaged their insides from Mumbai to Mexico City, the proximity of good old Western stodge soothes their gastro-intestinal tract and stops them from missing their mummies so much.

The obsession with ‘going off the beaten track’ while travelling is usually spoken by someone who has not experienced the horrors of the beaten track itself. Traversing over landslide rubble on your hands and knees, scrambling from the wreckage of an overturned coach, being chased by rabid packs of street dogs and robbed at gunpoint are all events that frequently occur in the civilised parts of developing countries. The advantage of built-up, well-populated areas is that there are people there to protect you and apply a tourniquet to a severed limb if need be. You do not have this luxury when going Bear-Grylls in the Peruvian mountains or navigating yourself by compass through the Sumatran jungle. In the red Cambodian landscape of Ratanakiri, they sometimes bury their own people alive. Just imagine what they might do to you.

Tourists become frequently irked by the proximity of other tourists during their travel experiences, despite the blatant hypocrisy this situation entails.

It’s as if backpackers expect a private audience with the Angkor Wat sunrise or a personal tour of Halong Bay and are pissed off when they don’t get it. While people enjoy a French breakfast from a Scandinavian Bakery in the middle of Cambodia, you might overhear them announce, “It’s a lovely place, but it’s just a bit touristy for me,” without pausing to acknowledge the irony.

Westerners believe their faux-bohemian aura and feigned cultural superiority differentiates them from the rest of the travelling masses. They shun the identikit tour groups that flood from coaches at historical sites and temples. They sneer at Chinese business convoys in matching fluorescent tour caps and T shirts. They moan at the uncouth nature of other people’s telescopic zoom cameras and shoot evil stares at the cheery family who wander into the background of their sunset snapshot. They like to think that their baggy-pants-andsandals-wearing approach to cultural exploration blends them unassumingly into laidback Asian life.

This is a fallacy. How many native Cambodians do you see rocking harem pants, top knots and RayBans? Not many.

Tourists must come to terms with the fact that ‘real culture’ is practically inaccessible, and that they must instead succumb to the melting-pot limbo zone of backpackers that exists in travel hotspots across the globe. A diluted version of local culture, forcibly bred with the demands of the white hoards of conquistadors, that educates us while pandering to our bratty First World needs.

Once you have abandoned all hope of chipping away your own, personalised chunk of authentic local culture amidst the plethora of fakery and myriad of travellers clambering for the same goal, you are able to appreciate this travelling society.

A community where German dermatologists can banter Welsh butterfly enthusiasts, Parisienne plumbers can discuss wine with Dutch architects and post-military service Israeli kids can share joints with hipster Londoners. The multi-faceted backpacker culture that allows you to eat croissants while overlooking the Mekong Delta and discuss Scottish independence with a Spanish sex tourist in Vietnam should be appreciated, rather than shunned.

It’s embarrassing that we European travellers wander the world wearing baggy clothes, flirting with Buddhist ideology and speaking broken Standard Grade French to impress pretty Quebecois. But we have to consider our alternatives.

Austerity cuts, -15 degree winters, a shitty job market and the existence of vaginally-bejewelled airheads on fake-reality TV. Enough to make anyone want to disappear into the jungle and become a grubby backpacker with a lizard tattoo.

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

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TRAVEL

A FINNISH DELIGHT

Our writer treks to Helsinki to take in DOCPOINT 2012, the largest documentary festival in all of Scandinavia WORDS: GARETH RICE

FATHER, SON AND HOLY TORUM

THE MERCURY is at nine below zero. I’m sitting in the comfortable lounge area outside the Andorra surrounded by snatches of people who are peeling off layers of clothes. Some are chatting amongst themselves but most are reading green and white glossy programmes. No one seems to hear the sound of the cracking pool balls from upstairs in Bar Corona. The atmosphere is relaxed and people have that look on their faces which suggests they have been looking forward to this event for some time. No wonder, since they are about to start their documentary film festival with Werner Herzog’s My Best Fiend in the Kaurismäki brothers’ cinema in Helsinki.

DocPoint is in its 11th year and there is no sign of it ceasing, offering the richest of packages to the film-hungry Helsinki crowds. Whether your passion is new Finnish documentaries, a masterclass by Eyal Sivan or silent film concerts, the annual end of January symphony would be to your liking. The 172 films attracted around 22,000 people to the city’s cinemas. One of the reasons for its continued success in reach and reputation is not just a bigger pool of films to choose from, but also a willingness to take risks. “Key to this is not to have an overly strong commitment to my own personal favourite filmmakers when selecting titles,” Erkko Lyytinen, the festival’s former artistic director, told me.

As someone who attends a fair share of film festivals, the familiarity of some of the films – Bombay Beach, From the Sky Down and Senna were hits at other festivals including Tribeca, Toronto and Sundance respectively – could have rendered the festival's programme relatively pedestrian had it not been for a clutch of other, decidedly more obscure offerings: for instance, Father, Son But I am pleased to report that DocPoint introduced me to films that I hadn’t seen, let alone heard of, like Father, Son and Holy Torum, which screened as part of the 100 years of Estonian Film series. I made a point of watching films that encapsulated something of DocPoint’s six main themes: Waiting for the Spring, Lost Europe, After War, Nature

44 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

Crying for Help, Thicker than Water – Family Portraits, and Human Matters. These were shot through with realities ranging from the outlandish and reticent to the enigmas of memory and madness.

There were also plenty of those great moments of recorded spontaneity for which so many documentarists strive. Anthony Baxter, the director of You’ve Been Trumped, was arrested and shoved into a car by Scottish police for filming at the Aberdeenshire site where Donald Trump is building his controversial luxury golf course on one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of land. In Enemies of the People, meanwhile, shows it's worth via moments of gut-punchy emotional intensity, with one encounter being of particular note. Thet Sambath, one of the film’s directors, revealed to Nuon Chean, Pol Pot’s right hand man, during an interview that his family were among the one and a half million victims of the genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime.

There was a showcase of local talent, too, from Finnish Film Schools. The shorts Migratory Bird, Soup, Alone in the World and Paula Korva’s Hypermarket were in their own ways insightful, touching and funny. There was also Sirkka-Liisa Kontinen’s brilliant documentary photography in Writing in the Sand and Letters to Katja, which is a personal and poetic depiction of her relationship towards Finnishness.

When it comes to film festivals everyone has their own priorities. That’s fine since the prime virtue of DocPoint is that so many tastes are catered for and it didn’t disappoint. Roll on January 2013.

TO GET TO DOCPOINT THERE ARE REGULAR FLIGHTS TO HELSINKI FROM EDINBURGH, VIA COPENHAGEN, WITH SAS AND DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM GLASGOW WITH KLM. HELSINKI IS IN THE EASTERN EUROPE TIME WHICH PUTS IT 2 HOURS AHEAD OF THE UK. ESTABLISHED IN 2001, DOCPOINT IS THE LARGEST DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES. IN FINLAND IT IS THE ONLY FESTIVAL SOLELY DEDICATED TO DOCUMENTARY FILMS. WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DOCPOINTFESTIVAL DOCPOINT.INFO/EN

RECORDS

THE DIRTY DOZEN JENNY REEVE of Strike the Colours and Sparrow and the Workshop’s JILL O’SULLIVAN unite to assess the month’s singles INTERVIEW: ROSS WATSON PHOTOS: NICK MILLIGAN

SINGLE OF THE MONTH

THE DRUMS – Days (Moshi Moshi, 5 Mar) Jenny: I’m liking this so far.

Jill: It’s got that brassy California sound.

Jenny: I like the drums. Ha! Jill: It reminds me of a poppy Sea and Cake...

This is one of those hype bands you just can’t get away from, which starts to give you a bad impression. I was hoping I could say something negative about it...

Jenny: I can’t think of anything bad to say about this.

Jill: I’m finding this pleasing. I’ll say eight. It makes me want to float on a waterbed in space.

It’s sunny without being sickly.

PINKUNOIZU – Parabolic Delusions/Hooded Fang – Clap (Full Time Hobby, 5 Mar) Jenny: Pinkunoizu has a tonne of reverb. There’s a wee bit of The Flaming Lips as well. But it’s inoffensively nice. Oh shit, that’s a horrible thing to say.

Jill: Yeah, you’re right, Jenny, you’re horrible. I would agree though! It’s pleasant to listen to, if you were, say, chopping an onion. It’s not lifting me out of my emotional state of depression, but it’s not making me feel any more depressed.

Jenny: Hooded Fang are going more for performance than perfection, I like that a lot.

Jill: The Pinkunoizu side was giving me jazzhands, but this one is giving me dancing feet. I want to shake my booty. I’ll say six and a half.

SWEET LIGHTS – Endless Town (Highline, 5 Mar) Jill: This is a bit auto-historical. Say, like, in ‘94 when I was getting very excited about bands and wearing converse. I probably would have been like “this is so cool”. Now that I’m older I can appreciate it, but I already know what it is.

Jenny: That’s a kick-ass harpsichord solo, though!

Jill: It’s like Roy Orbison mixed with The Smashing Pumpkins, but without the excitement.

Jenny: I’m sitting at a five. I would sit listening to this in the car and not even know it was on.

Jill: I’ll give it a five too, I feel the same way.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – Look Around (Warner Bros, 12 Mar) Jenny: I already dislike the Red Hot Chili Peppers a lot, because I work with kids and they all want to play Under The Bridge every single night.

Jill: (laughs) You know what that is? A pelvic

thrust guitar solo.

Jenny: Yeah, the Joe Satriani-face.

Jill: These guys are too comfortable; they’ve been living in L.A. for far too long. It’s regurgitated shit; there’s just no reason to keep this up.

Jenny: You know they’ve got their tops off, right? That’s not necessarily a bad thing – I’m just pointing that out. Oh look, it’s a little bit the crowd can join in with.

Jill: Anthony Kiedis sounds bored as fuck.

Jenny: I’m not going to give it a one, because I’ve heard worse.

Jill: You are too nice. I’m giving it a one because I am like “stop, you are killing me. Just do something else.”

Jenny: I’m giving it a three because I quite like the handclap.

MARTYN – Hello Darkness (Brainfeeder, 19 Mar) Jill: I feel like I’m too out of the loop to even say anything about this.

Jenny: (reading press release) It’s a “sci-fienhanced joy-ride”, Jill.

Jill: Now that you put it that way...

Jenny: The top-line sounds a bit cheesy. It reminds me of when I was sixteen and wasn’t supposed to go to clubs but did anyway.

Jill: I never went to clubs...

Jenny: I did. I snogged a thirty year old fireman when I was sixteen.

Jill: Eugh!

Jenny: It’s true! Anyway, that’s besides the point.

I’m gonna give it an eight.

Jill: Could you just go with Jenny’s score on this one? I’ve never even left the house, ever, so I can’t really say anything about this.

DOG IS DEAD – Two Devils (Your Childhood Records, 5 Mar) Jenny: I like this already, just based on the cover.

Jill: It changes quite a bit... I’m still trying to figure it out.

Jenny: They’ve got a bit of an Arcade Fire vibe going on. The production’s great. I’ll give it a seven... Oh, is that too generous?

Jill: I think there was a lot of great stuff going on in there. I like how it wasn’t too overproduced.

I’ll give it a six. I’m not a huge fan of that big overflowing chorus, like, “we’re lifting people!”

Jenny: That’s fair – let’s go with six.

LIZ GREEN – Bad Medicine (Play It Again Sam, 12 Mar) Jill: Oh, I know Liz Green.

She’s incredible live, she’s practically a comedian. She wears a huge, massive bird head. I love her lyrics.

Jenny: I really like the way that she’s choosing to place her melodies.

Jill: She’s evocative of an almost imaginary world. She pulls you out of reality. And it’s creepy.

I’ll give this an eight.

Jenny: I was gonna say a nine, I really like it.

She’s kind of like a more upbeat Karen Dalton. It sounds simple, but it isn’t.

ALT-J – Matilda/Fitzpleasure (Infectious, 5 Mar) Jill: A bit of Devendra Banhart in the vocals.

Jenny: This is doing nothing for me. I mean, his voice has got a lot of character, so it seems a shame to me that it’s swamped in this bleepy, trip-hoppy beat. It’s like he can’t decide what his sound is.

Jill: I like when he’s being emotive, and that’s when the drums aren’t taking away from it.

Jenny: I’ll say a six.

Jill: Yeah, I’ll say six... Are we gonna get death threats?

ZULU WINTER – We Should Be Swimming (Play It Again Sam, 5 Mar) Jill: You know what this is? This is oversized T-shirts, boat shoes and tight-fitting trousers...

Do you think that falsetto thing is the result of the really tight trouser-trend?

Jenny: I can imagine they’ve got quite nice hair.

It’s almost going for that Tears for Fears thing, who I think are awesome. But this is just so smooth. If you asked me to sing this in five minutes? Not a hope.

Jill: It’s the kind of thing Zane Lowe would call [impersonates] “a triumph”. Fair play to them if people like it. I’m just gonna say a six.

SOAP & SKIN – Wonder (Play It Again Sam, 19 Mar) Jenny: (reading press release) I have a problem with when it’s a female songwriter, instantly the words ‘haunting’ and ‘beauty’ get used. How many times have you heard that?

Jill: It’s unfortunate for her. It’s a character portrayal, not actually talking about the music, because the music is too dull. I guess it’s just marketing. That’s what makes it so horrible.

Jenny: Yeah, but come on. She’s putting her face on the cover, that’s really unwise.

Jill: If I saw this live, I’d be shifting from foot to foot quite a bit.

Jenny: I’d be scratching my bum.

Jill: The person who wrote this press release obviously had a dart board with a couple of female singers and some adjectives. I’ll give her a six, and the press release a two.

Jenny: It just annoys the shit out of me. I’m going to give her a five.

YOUNG GUNS – Bones (Live Forever, 6 Mar) Jenny: That’s taking it up a gear! If they made a video, they’d be on a rooftop with a wind-machine.

Jill: Or there’d be that scene where the girl with the long hair is running and she’s been battered about, and you can’t tell if it’s spousal abuse or just her inner demons coming through.

Jenny: It’s angsty. The kids I work with, they would love this.

Jill: It reminds me of Nickelback.

Jenny: For what it is, they’re doing a good job.

It’s a wee bit tongue-in-cheek, it’s quite fun. I’m gonna give Young Guns a seven. Some of the other singles just dulled me out so much that this is quite refreshing.

Jill: I’ll say seven too, just for shocking me.

WE ARE AUGUSTINES – Chapel Song (Oxcart, 5 Mar) Jenny: I’ve heard this before, or something very like it...

Jill: If we picked up our guitars right now, we could go along with it.

Jenny: It feels like people who are passionately writing music just get put through a machine, and there’s a big sausage at the end... A big flaccid sausage.

Jill: Ugh, six...

Jenny: It’s just all so fucking safe, isn’t it... six. it’s not good or bad, it’s just a six. I hope I never meet any of these guys in the not-too-distant future!

SPARROW AND THE WORKSHOP PLAY DOUNE THE RABBIT HOLE FESTIVAL ON 24 AUG WWW.STRIKETHECOLOURS.COM WWW.SPARROWANDTHEWORKSHOP.CO.UK

EP REVIEW THE MACHINE ROOM LOVE FROM A DISTANCE EP

SELF-RELEASED, 5 MAR

rrr Edinburgh’s The Machine Room resemble a morning-after Delphic; they won’t necessarily make you dance, but their romantic melancholy could comfortably soundtrack time spent rueing drunken mistakes and missed chances. On opener Cost of Progress, John Bryden’s falsetto flirts with Mew over cold-packed guitar, while Your Head on the Floor Next Door is, lyrics aside, Love from a Distance’s highlight – a pace-dropping, New Order-indebted slice of electro balladry. Their compatriot tracks also earn their place – Camino De Soda’s sparkly melody confirms it the natural choice for single status, while Picking Holes closes on a suitably grandiose note.

But there’s aimlessness to certain stretches – a slackness that time will no doubt iron out, exposing their dreamy ore more fully, and fulfilling their undoubted potential. [Chris Buckle] PLAYING EDINBURGH WEE RED BAR ON 3 MAR WWW.THE-MACHINE-ROOM.BANDCAMP.COM

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

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46 THE SKINNY March 2012

MUSIC

Live Music Highlights

METAL COLUMN

revolutionary spirit, get schooled at The Arches on 23 Mar. A wee bit Mew, a little more Unwinding Hours – Happy Particles are an ambient rock treasure whose self-released album shamefully slipped under The Skinny’s radar while we were passed out in a hedge last Christmas. Counting members of Remember Remember, Stapleton, Prayer Rug and Tangles in their number – you know this is a recipe for greatness. Flanked by North American War and Olympic Swimmers. they get together for a rare show at Glasgow’s 13th Note on 31 Mar.

earth

Killng Joke's Jaz Coleman

HOT TICKET of the month Mark Lanegan Band O2 ABC, 9 Mar

Having cut a record with everyone but your mother (actually, better check that), modern bluesman Mark Lanegan returns – band in tow – to show off the fruits of his first ‘solo’ venture in eight years.

Full of the soul and grit we’ve come to expect from the man, new record Blues Funeral also wafts of Lanegan’s time recently served on his more electronic, synth-driven work with Soulsavers.

Whether as a Soulsaver, Gutter Twin, Twilight Singer, Screaming Tree, Queen of the Stone Age, Master of Reality or simply in his own right, Lanegan has been playing here since the late 80s; so what does he really make of our beloved homeland?

“Over the last six or seven years I’ve been to Scotland a lot because of working with Isobel [Campbell],” he tells us. “It’s still one of my favourite places. The audiences have always been really receptive and warm, the people remind me a little bit of the people from where I’m from.” So if you see him scowling down at you from the ABC stage, remember it’s nothing but love. [Johnny Langlands] 7pm, £15 www.marklanegan.com

Photo: Alex Woodward

The drone daddy himself, Dylan Carlson brings the second half of his Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light opus to the capital as Earth take to The Caves on 8 Mar – an inspired venue choice for a band so adept at stirring atmospherics. As the influence of folk music increasingly seeps through Carlson’s latter-day output, it’s fitting that the frankly chilling Mount Eerie and Ô Paon will be there to set the mood. The stars are aligned for this one.

Glasgow’s Captains Rest is your only destination on 9 Mar as Chemikal Underground’s latest export (via Song, By Toad) Loch Lomond swoop in from Portland with last year’s intimate, folkinflected gem Little Me Will Start A Storm. Also playing Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s on 10 Mar (with support from ever-enchanting Vaselines’ co-pilot Frances McKee).

By the way, the new album from Killing Joke is playing on the office stereo as we prepare this here guide to the month in gigs – and by Jaga’s beard that shit is epic. It is MMXII, after all. You can have a sneak peek ahead of its April release yourself when founding fathers Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth and Big Paul bring the thunder to Glasgow ABC on 12 Mar. As important to new wave and post punk as they were to industrial rock, there’s simply no overstating the importance of this band. Joe Cardamone presents his reassembled vision of the incendiary The Icarus Line on the side.

Can the same matter occupy the same space at the same time? The crook in Timecop says ‘no’, but eerie Italian doom-core mothers Father Murphy will find out first hand when they meet their like in Glasgow on a bill with Citizens and Fat Janitor (featuring members of the mighty Vcheka and Sunsmasher) at Nice ‘n’ Sleazy on 14 Mar. Yo’ ears gon’ bleed, son.

When all the Tinie Tinchy Dizzy Rizzle Dappy Bizzles of this world just sound like the same old over-produced Hollyoaks-hop shizzle, who are you gonna call on for a proper fix of rugged beats and vivid metaphors? Fortunately, an elite team of vintage funk-freakers called Souls Of Mischief are being flown over from Oakland especially this month, paying a rare visit to Auld Reekie in another coup for the Electric Circus on 13 Mar. Kicking out bangers since their seminal 93 ‘til Infinity landed, 2009’s Prince Paul produced Montezuma’s Revenge proved that these Native Tongues still represent the essence. Weegies, dinnae greet, they’re playing the Classic Grand the following night.

Living a Wu life, as we do (C.R.E.A.M and all that), it was perplexing to learn that there’s actually a band of Mancs called Wu Lyf out there – skulking in the shadows, declining interviews and wearing masks to bamboozle the press. Hats off to them for trying to retain a bit of mystery in an age where everybody’s all in each other’s online shit, so to speak. The tunes? They sound a bit like Chris Rea lost his mind on E. Oh you’re into that?

Righto, Glasgow SWG3 on 17 Mar. If you’d asked any discerning, natty-dreaded back-packing art student back in 1998, they’d tell you that – alongside Mos Def – Talib Kweli had truly arrived with an underground classic when the once untouchable Rawkus label served up Black Star. Fast-forward to 2012 and his fanbase might have settled down with kids, but the prolific New York MC has consistently delivered on that early promise, from his work with DJ Hi-Tek on the equally acclaimed Reflection Eternal and Revolutions Per Minute (delivered a decade apart), to a recurring partnership with the equally heavyweight Madlib. A consistent poet and performer with a

Photo: Alex woodward

words: Benny Blanco

Mainstream music has taken a couple of major blows in the past month. Whitney Houston – our favourite guilty pleasure – has become the latest victim of celebrity excess, and Chris Brown was unjustly given a free pass (and an award for best Rap&Bullshit album) at this year’s Grammys despite his shady past. The sight of Brown being attacked by seagulls while he tried to relax on a beach a few days later was small consolation; times are grim, people. So just give us our rock’n’roll.

Given their track record, 80s punks AntiNowhere League will likely be as snarly and confrontational as ever when they play Ivory Blacks (2 Mar), giving old-timers an excuse to get another wear out of their dusty cut-off denims and pump a fist in the air for So What. Edinburgh natives can see them at Citrus Club (3 Mar).

Your next stop should be Sneaky Pete’s for LaFaro’s seedy, riff-orientated rock. Not far removed from the screechy sonic assaults of Big Black or The Jesus Lizard, they’re supported by head-spinning tech-rockers Vazquez and sleazy dance-punks Battle Adds (4 Mar). On a similar note, the indigenous Carnivores will be bringing their complex yet catchy math-rock to Stereo (5 Mar). They’re joined by the slightly sinister (yet undeniably poppy) outfit Cuddly Shark, as well as the snappier, more abrasive young bucks No Island. Proceeds are going towards Charity Action for Children, so you’d be a terrible person not to go.

The Destroyers of the Faith tour screeches into town on 8 Mar, with sets from brutal deathgrinders Cannibal Corpse, Job for a Cowboy, Enslaved and Triptykon at the O2 ABC. Boy, that’s gonna hurt. The following night Cleveland groove-metallers Chimaira hit up Dundee’s Fat Sam’s (9 Mar) to shake the place to its core.

Aberdonians can catch them the next night at The Tunnels (10 Mar), with support coming from hard rock worshippers Revoker on both dates. Back in the central belt, Zappa-inspired post-hardcore champions Hey Enemy return victorious from a European tour with their long-awaited debut album to flog at Glasgow Bar Bloc (8 Mar) and Edinburgh Banshee Labyrinth (9 Mar).

Calling all Vikings: your favourite band Amon Amarth are set to provide the soundtrack to your village pillaging at the O2 ABC (13 Mar) alongside doom-merchants Grand Magus. All we ask is that you go easy on the mead. If you were a hip young thing five years ago and are starting to feel nostalgic, Enter Shikari are heading to The Corn Exchange (17 Mar). Remember them? It’s hard to believe they’re still going; easy to believe they’re still divisive. Rave-metal or something. A paradox, surely? We’ll let you be the judge.

You’ll no doubt be hankering for a chance to show off your sensitive sides after all that manly brutality, and that’s why L.A. melodic hardcore kids Touché Amoré are not to be missed at Stereo (24 Mar), especially with the inclusion of post-rock-tinged screamo act Pianos Become the Teeth on the bill. Glasgow’s own Departures will be providing (im)moral support. We’ll be there, most likely crying into our pints because nobody understands us. [Ross Watson]

March 2012 THE SKINNY

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Mastodon/The Dillinger Escape Plan Barrowlands, 7 Feb

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photo: Euan Robertson

It’s safe to say that The Dillinger Escape Plan have played a significant part in selling out tonight’s show; a touch of anxiety lingers before the inevitable storm erupts, the quintet taking to the stage hard and fast with Panasonic Youth.

Though the setlist tends toward relatively ‘safer’ numbers like Black Bubblegum and Chinese Whispers, the infamy of the band’s stage presence is in plain sight: secondary axeman Jeff Tuttle climbs high-stacked amps like it’s second nature while lead guitarist Ben Weinman and daredevil vocalist Greg Puciato take turns at stage diving headfirst into the wild masses. There’s a few spilt pints and no doubt a minor injury or two, but whatever – it comes with the territory.

In other words, Mastodon

have their work cut out for them, but with The Hunter now under their belt, the Atlanta foursome’s set is a varied beast, with new songs complementing darker, heavier fan favourites like I Am Ahab and March Of The Fire Ants, which are executed furiously and with the same passion audiences have come to expect.

There’s some clarity issues early on which lessens the impact of Dry Bone Valley, and there’s a feeling that the newer material needs a little time to settle in. But when their execution of the hyper-urgent Blood Mountain-era songs have jaws dropping left, right, and centre, such teething is easily overlooked, particularly when they’re joined onstage by members of Dillinger and Red Fang for a tongue-in-cheek, grin-inducing rendition of The Creature Lives.

An awesome night, all told. [Ross Watson]

The Twilight Sad Grand Ole Opry, 9 Feb

rrrr The Grand Ole Opry makes an unlikely venue in which to see The Twilight Sad. With confederacy flags and neon lighting adorning each wall, a neutral observer could be forgiven for assuming that tonight’s capacity crowd are waiting for a Dixieland jazz ensemble, instead of a band from Kilsyth who are promoting an album that draws heavily on the industrial goth aesthetic of Cabaret Voltaire and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Opener Kill It In The Morning sets the tone for the evening; drummer Mark Devine pounds out a brutal rhythm which provides an unshakable foundation

for James Graham’s mournful crooning and Andy MacFarlane’s guitar work, which, when the venue’s limited PA system allows, is both powerful and subtle.

Therein lies tonight’s only problem: it’s a terrific performance, with mesmerising renditions of songs from all three albums represented and the band appearing confident and content, but the sonic plane on which they now fly is simply too large for mid-sized Glasgow clubs to handle. The charging thunder of Dead City and the roaring guitars of At The Burnside deserves to be aired on a larger stage like the Barrowlands; it’s time for The Twilight Sad to move up to the next level. [Chris McCall] www.thetwilightsad.com

48 THE SKINNY March 2012

The Arches is already near capacity, with a crowd in boisterous mood when Hector Bizerk take to the stage. It’s the kind of environment where many support acts might struggle, but if Louie and Audrey, MC and drummer respectively, are nervous, tonight they certainly don’t show it. The Glaswegian duo don’t miss a line – or beat, opting for live drums – during their short set; Louie’s rhymes, about fat cat bankers and general life in his home town, might be obvious topics but they contain a sly humour that’s often missing in Scottish hip-hop.

The GZA is given a genuine heroes’ welcome when he arrives – a mere 15 minutes late.

There’s no hype man or backing MC for the Genius, just a DJ and two turntables – all he needs to deliver a powerful set that contains

RM Hubbert & Friends/Tattie Toes Stereo, 27 Jan

rrrr If Glasgow’s indie scene feels somewhat fragmentary at the moment, it’s all the more healthy for that: lacking a unifying narrative, perhaps, but throwing up myriad acts that combine a diverse pool of influences with a brilliantly carefree creative spirit.

Tattie Toes are a case in point: their blend of melodica, intricate percussion and looping basslines sometimes recalls late-90s postrock, before it swerves unexpectedly into folky rambunctiousness.

That richness and diversity has deep roots in the scene over the past couple of decades, and RM Hubbert’s new collaborative LP Thirteen Lost & Found traces some of them. Although an intensely personal work, which Hubbert describes as an attempt to reconnect with friends following a difficult period in his life, the list of contributors also makes it a trawl through some highlights of

www.facebook.com/theGZA

the city’s musical heritage.

Accordingly, a sold-out crowd appreciatively welcome a parade of contributors, among them Alex Kapranos (the album’s producer), Hanna Tuulikki, Alasdair Roberts, Emma Pollock and Aidan Moffat.

This kind of ensemble approach can dilute the personality of the underlying music, but Hubbert’s idiosyncratic, flamenco-inspired acoustic guitar provides a simple yet firm foundation, around which the singers’ divergent vocal styles coalesce.

Additional instrumentation is tactfully restrained, incorporating small doses of understated percussion, chinese harp, banjo and accordion; and Hubbert’s endearing stage presence – created through a mixture of deadpan humour and confessional reflections – augments the melancholy, reflective nature of the pieces.

Evidently, these delicately phrased guitar stylings provide the mixture of space and aesthetic coherence needed to unify this kind of project. [Sam Wiseman] www.rmhubbert.com

photo: Kenny McCOLL

The Arches, 13 Feb

Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 29 Jan

rrrrr A raucous troupe of misfit musicians specialising in frenzied polkas, gypsy-punk, “vulgar jazz” and such like, playing to an all-seated venue staffed by itchy wardens clamping down on unauthorised dancing: not, it’s fair to say, a match made in heaven. “If we continue to be so happy, he says they will stop the concert” grumbles Emir Kusturica, drily undermining security’s efforts to kettle front-of-stage carousers into the corners.

Tonight’s set draws from Kusturica’s twin careers as filmmaker and guitarist in one manifestation of The No Smoking Orchestra: cuts from the Black Cat White Cat soundtrack are amongst the former, while “the song that everybody knows in Europe – well, Eastern Europe”, Unza Unza Time, is one

of many highlights in the latter.

But tonight is memorable for more than just its music.

As hapless guards round up stragglers, the band spirits the crowd onstage to dance instead, an anti-authoritarian gesture that raises cheers. A conga-line snakes round the back of the stalls; a paper plane glides in from the monitored dance-pens; cheery revellers join hands and encircle a stationary, stony-faced steward: it’s as if a teacher has momentarily abandoned a classroom of children, and returned to a wild rumpus.

All we need is for a flock of geese to be bothered into the fray, and it would really start to resemble the playful chaos of Kusturica’s movies. By the time violinist Dejan Sparavalo plays his instrument with a twelve-foot bow, the evening has cemented itself as a joyfully ludicrous, if ludicrously mis-situated, triumph.

[Chris Buckle] Played as part of Celtic Connections 2012 www.kustu.com

photo: Euan Robertson

GZA/Hector Bizerk

a staggering number of hip-hop landmarks. His audience bellows every line from the title track of his understated rap classic Liquid Swords, later roaring their approval for the eerie calm and analytical rhymes of Shadowboxin’.

This might be a greatest hits set, but it’s certainly no limp nostalgia fest. Everyone in attendance is either too pumped to dwell on the past or too young to have known these songs first time around. The GZA himself is looking similarly youthful, despite his 45 years, and projects a quiet confidence throughout the show, which blends well with the atmospheric production of much of his material. His clipped delivery never falters, even when making one of his frequent trips to the front row to pound fists.

The esteem in which the Wu-Tang Clan are held seems to increase with each passing year, as the reception given to Clan in da Front and Killa Beez shows.

Wu material might still claim the biggest reaction, but tonight it lacks the quiet menace of songs like Cold World. The ubiquitous ‘W’ signs are still waved from the crowd at every opportunity: “Tonight that W represents three things,” GZA says, “Whitney Houston, and the O.D.B.” It’s a big nod of respect from a legend of equal significance in the great pop cultural pantheon.

[Chris McCall]

photo: Ingrid Mur

photo: Emily Wylde

photo: Euan Robertson

Live Reviews

Justice O2 Academy, 12 Feb

rrrr A brightly lit cross, two French guys whose haircuts bob like violent metronomes, and faux-Marshall amps that double as strobes piercing an otherwise Spartan setup: this is the scene that beholds the front row, and every row behind that (apart from the stragglers at the back bar, the detached few who opt out of the strammash). It’s nothing spectacular. Or, not nearly as spectacular as the rippling blanket of heads, arms and legs raised in appreciation of Justice’s alpha male-appeasing, medieval disco bombast.

Despite the arrival of a

sophomore album that foregrounds their softer side, Newlands and On ‘n’ On assimilate readily into the primal aggression of formative songs such as Stress. It’s visceral stuff, for sure, but there’s a certain tenderness about other moments that allays the suspicion that we’re being invited to strap in for an 80 minute rollercoaster of gurning and cheap drops. In fact, if tonight proves anything, it’s how far removed from electronic music Justice really are. They’re a rock band in all but the most superfluous of categories – that is, the instruments they happen to wield. What sort of DJs do you suppose come back for an encore? [Ray Philp] www.facebook.com/ etjusticepourtous

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ALBUM REVIEWS

RECORDS

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: GRIMES VISIONS 4AD, 12 MAR

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“I would say this is my psychedelic new jack swing IDM album,” says Claire Boucher without a trace of irony. She’s not too far off the mark either, considering the righteous grit and swagger of Eight and Circumambient – two tracks that underline just how far the young producer has come in a little over two years. It’s not that she’s abandoned the shadow and mystery of her earlier work either – in fact, for the most part, Boucher manages to have her cake and eat it, deftly balancing dance beats and a supersaturation of vocal hooks against imperious bass synthesis and ice cold atmospherics.

That said, Visions is not a perfect album; the relentless gymnastic density of Boucher’s multitracked voice can make it an exhausting listen – in much the same way that a Le Mystère des

Voix Bulgares album is almost too emotionally draining to get through in one sitting. Although apt to bewitch the listener with its seductive pop signifiers, this is music that stands up to obsessive scrutiny; each track resonating simultaneously with the pain of loss and the joy of transmutation – the mystical thrill of self expression.

[Mark Shukla] GRIMES PLAYS GLASGOW BERKELEY SUITE ON 7 MAY. WWW.4AD.COM/ARTISTS/GRIMES

MOUSE ON MARS

SPOEK MATHAMBO

MESHUGGAH

MONKEYTOWN, 5 MAR

SUB POP, 12 MAR

NUCLEAR BLAST, 26 MAR

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PARASTROPHICS

It’s six years since this German techno/post-rock duo released their last LP, Varcharz (five, if you count their work with Mark E Smith under the Von Südenfed moniker; the dizzying level of crosspollination seen in electronica over that period could justifiably raise fears that Parastrophics would be stillborn, its approach irrelevant or prematurely dated. Yet Mouse on Mars’ taut-yet-chaotic amalgamation of crazed hip-hop, techno and glitch sounds as fresh as ever. Appropriately, the LP is released on Modeselektor’s label Monkeytown, signalling the duo’s easy alignment with contemporary dancefloor experimentalism.

Parastrophics runs through 13 tracks at breakneck speed, with jolting gear changes and genre collisions at every turn; the hip-hop influence comes to the fore on pieces like Metrotopy, which lays tasteful autotuned rap samples over mangled, stuttering beats.

Some convergence with recent innovators is evident: Imatch, for instance, bears affinity with Rustie’s hyperactive, dayglo funk. Yet MoM’s sound remains startlingly distinctive: evidently enough to ensure their continuing relevance and vitality. [Sam Wiseman]

FATHER MURPHY

ANYWAY YOUR CHILDREN WILL DENY IT AAGOO, 5 MAR

rrrr Shivering breaths, an unbearably tense riff, a forceful death rattle: Father Murphy’s latest album opens with the Italian trio on typically austere form. Opener How We Ended up with Feelings of Guilt’s sonic sparseness only accentuates its creepiness, leaving plenty of pockets into which the listener can project drama; as it peters out on ritualistic drums, we’re aflame in the wicker man and it’s only track one.

There’s impressive diversity to what follows: It Is Funny, It Is Restful, Both Came Quickly’s punishing industrial din amplifies the nightmare, whereas closer Don’t Let Yourself Be Hurt This Time is almost lullaby-like (baby-waking clatter aside). At the dark heart of the record is In Praise of Our Doubts, its epic torment – wails, chants, Satan’s own orchestra – somehow skirting round pomposity. That such regular flecks of humour do little to dampen the sinister presiding atmosphere remains Father Murphy’s most potent spell. [Chris Buckle]

FATHER CREEPER

Soweto’s Spoek Mathambo situates his music amidst contemporary collisions between traditional African styles and hip-hop, dubstep and house. Opener Kites begins with bouncing highlife rhythms before swerving into bleepy dubstep, as Mathambo raps furiously over the top; here and throughout Father Creeper, the omnivorous absorption of styles reveals unexpected connections.

Put Some Red On It, with its luscious synths and minimalist scattershot snares, could be a Pharrell production.

Mathambo’s touch is less assured when a rock influence seeps in.

Let Them Talk and Stuck Together both begin promisingly, with fleetfooted clean guitar underpinning soulful vocals; but their attempts to create emotional weight through distortion and power chords ultimately feel lumpen, and somewhat awkwardly stitched together.

Not all styles submit to Father Creeper’s restless commingling, then.

But for the most part, it’s a record that demonstrates the value of audacity, and exemplifies the multifarious possibilities inherent in South Africa’s musical culture. [Sam Wiseman]

KOLOSS

Sweden’s – hang on, let’s just make that the planet’s – foremost tech-metal architects return with their answer to ‘difficult seventh album syndrome’; the task of scaling 2008’s formidable ObZen must have presented quite a challenge, even to Meshuggah. No sooner has the sinister slow waltz of I Am Colossus duped us into thinking the foot has slipped from the pedal than The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance ushers in a full-on assault to the industrial rhythm of Tomas Haake’s double kick drum.

A little grittier in the production department than its predecessor, Behind The Sun and Marrow show off the two enduring qualities that continue to define the Umeå quintet as an influential force in modern rock – their lead-heavy groove and the cosmic heights they can drop it from. But for all the visceral appeal and technical muscularity that largely defines Koloss, The Last Vigil finds the band comfortably gliding into more sedate ambient territory than the norm; a tranquil respite to finish another lesson in abject chaos. [Benny Blanco] PLAYING GLASGOW GARAGE ON 15 APR

HOODED FANG

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS

FULL TIME HOBBY, 12 MAR

DOMINO, 5 MAR

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TOSTA MISTA

To say Hooded Fang are retro is akin to saying Lemmy likes the odd drink. The Canadian outfit are quick to acknowledge their debt to the 60s and the explosion of garage rock that it heralded, yet that influence is so overwhelming that you have to wonder if the band have grown up in a musical vacuum. Certainly there are a few well-penned numbers on display, including Brahma and the vaguely contemporary Jubb, but there remains a pervasive underlying sense of irrelevance.

Hundreds of excellent albums of a near identical ilk already exist and have done for some time. Hooded Fang may well bask in the admiration of kitsch retrophiles and unschooled twee pop acolytes but surely it’s not too much to ask that, at some point in the intervening 50 years, musicians attempt to bring something new to the garage rock table. This is capable and good-natured stuff, but it is also uninspired and really quite lazy. [Chris Cusack]

LOVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Following the profile-raising 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt largely ditched the synthesisers that had characterised great swathes of the Magnetic Fields’ previous output, embarking on a ‘no-synth’ trilogy that culminated in 2010’s Realism. Love at the Bottom of the Sea restores electronics with a vengeance, its opening seconds sounding more like Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream than a ukulele-playing ABBA-fanatic has any right to.

Despite a lengthy tracklisting, the album is a trim 35 minutes, and brevity is an asset; try to extend expertly-crafted Faberge pop like Infatuation (With Your Gyration)’s prefab-OMD or the breezy Andrew in Drag and you risk extinguishing their sparkle. That won’t stop some dismissing Love… as a slight work, but with 69 Love Songs as a career benchmark, anything produced under the Magnetic Fields banner is bound to seem humble by comparison. Taken on its own, ahem, merits, Merritt’s added another chapter to a songbook without peer. [Chris Buckle] WWW.HOUSEOFTOMORROW.COM

DIRTY THREE

THE WEDDING PRESENT

TALL FIRS

BELLA UNION, 12 MAR

SCOPITONES, 19 MAR

ATP RECORDINGS, 12 MAR

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TOWARD THE LOW SUN

Over the Dirty Three’s career, a tension has become increasingly apparent: between the narcotic rapture of their live performances, and the sense of song-based narrative that drives the records. This was particularly evident on 2007’s Cinder, and like that record, Toward the Low Sun embellishes its core of violin, guitar and drums with additional instrumentation, including organ and piano. Yet its tone reflects a determination, as Warren Ellis has explained, to return to a more ‘improvised and instinctive’ sound.

The first two tracks explore the kind of flurried, loosely-structured approach to composition often downplayed in their later work. It’s later, on songs like Ashen Snow – which intricately entwines violin and flute – that the haunting melodies appear, and they remain subdued and tentative. Toward thus refuses to assert itself as a work of coherent, self-contained narrative, separate from the creative spontaneity and intuition that underpins it; and therein lies its formidable strength. [Sam Wiseman]

50 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

VALENTINA

They’re a long way off Fall-figures, but for their eighth studio album, The Weddoes have undergone another line-up change: two more personnel subbed out, and erstwhile drummer Graeme Ramsay moved into a more central position. In addition to taking up guitar and piano duties, Ramsay co-wrote all but one of Valentina’s tracks, and as such deserves a fair share of credit for it surpassing the patchy El Rey. Back a Bit…Stop and The Girl From the DDS are, respectively, fine representatives of the band’s boisterous and contemplative sides, the latter especially effective thanks to new bassist Pepe Le Moko’s German-sung counterpoint vocals. But ultimately, fluctuations in the cadre matter little: like Mark E Smith’s stranglehold on the Fall’s identity, The Wedding Present remain The Wedding Present so long as David Gedge’s droll lyrics and delivery stay put, and his undiminished knack for skewering cliché ensures even Valentina’s less distinctive tracks hit home. [Chris Buckle]

OUT OF IT AND INTO IT

Indie aristocracy all seem to agree that Tall Firs are a bit special. Having spent the last decade sharing stages with and impressing the likes of Shellac, Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus and Kurt Vile theirs is an intimidating roll-call of endorsements. Onto their third album, the prevailing ambience is of wistful, relaxed, mildlydissonant, lo-fi shoe-gaze.

Yet there is a strong and undeniable country fixation that pokes out repeatedly throughout the album’s modest 34 minutes, albeit heavily filtered through some textbook ‘Generation X’ racalcitrance.

Imagine a stoned Thurston Moore attempting to soundtrack the writing of Douglas Coupland.

Axeman is something of a stand-out track here, albeit the phrase is something of a contradiction in terms as nearly all the songs shrug reluctantly at the side of the dance-floor rather than daring to walk up to any girls. For sure, this is not an album to set your world alight, but it could provide the score as you burn one down. [Chris Cusack]

WE ARE AUGUSTINES

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS

ANDREW BIRD

OXCART RECORDS, 5 MAR

VAGRANT, 5 MAR

MOM+POP, 5 MAR

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RISE YE SUNKEN SHIPS

It’s hard not to admire Billy McCarthy, frontman and chief lyricist of New York band We Are Augustines. Their debut album is based loosely around the concept of “family”, but more precisely around the heartbreaking death of his brother, who battled homelessness, drug addiction and mental health problems. Yet, far from a rampageous car crash, this is a measured outpouring of grief; dignified and tuneful.

With a larynx like Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, backed by the kind of honest-to-goodness, anthemic indie-rock that’s been so kind to the Gaslight Anthem and (dare we say it?) the Killers, sans Brandon Flowers’ Anglophillia, Rise Ye Sunken Ships is lyrically superb. Between Chapel Song, Augustine, Book of James and Strange Days, it has a quartet of tracks that each come close to bettering anything penned by the aforementioned pair. The much-trodden road from tragedy to triumph has rarely sounded so good. [Finbarr Bermingham] WWW.WEAREAUGUSTINES.COM

GHOSTORY

Once lost, momentum is often difficult to recover – a plight New York’s School of Seven Bells must by now be familiar with. While 2008 debut Alpinisms jetted the former three-piece into the stratosphere, its follow up, Disconnect From Desire, saw their status dip toward also-ran territory. Now a duo (sans Alejandra Deheza’s identical twin, Claudia) on album number three, SVIIB once again struggle to regain the firm foothold of their initial offering.

Opener The Night sets the initial tone, radiating well-worn cathedral atmospherics that eventually worm their way into woozy, kaleidoscopic numbers like Lafaye and Reappear. But beyond this relatively pedestrian introduction lies more caustic thrills: Alejandra Deheza’s otherworldly intone scythes through White Winds’ guitarscarred torrent, while album swansong When You Sing is a relentless transient-pop triumph. A record of two parts, Ghostory isn’t the sound of a band regaining momentum so much as one still toiling to find it. [Billy Hamilton]

HEY ENEMY

THE WRONG SONGS TO RIGHT WRONGS

rrr At first glance Hey Enemy don’t seem so unique; there are countless riff-orientated rockers out there, and then Pink Steam comes in with the kind of typically flashy drumming and ever-familiar guitar tones we’ve all come to expect from a group like this.

Echoing the raw robot-rock of QotSA at their most infectious (I Am The Blues), they later evoke the much missed sleazy menace of Girls Against Boys (particularly on Chump Rebate) and more abrasive tendancies of fellow Scots Take a Worm for a Walk Week (check the deliciously nutty vocal performance on Happy Sanchez) across their debut’s 35 minutes.

This transition from one idea to the next occurs at lightning speed, but never do the trio lose focus. Sure, Hey Enemy could be accused of borrowing a few key ideas from their presumed influences, but the appeal of The Wrong Songs to Right Wrongs lies more in the execution than its originality. [Ross Watson] PLAYING GLASGOW BAR BLOC ON 8 MAR AND EDINBURGH BANSHEE LABYRINTH ON 9 MAR

THE ECHO SHOW

rrrr Despite the repugnant title, psych-pop’s been carving out a respectable comeback of late. Following the release of 2009’s acclaimed eponymous debut, Yeti Lane were firmly wedged into the genre’s electronically-enhanced shagpile. It’s not surprising then to find the Parisian ensemble’s follow up LP, The Echo Show, re-burrowing the vacuum of effects-entangled cosmic odysseys.

However, where its predecessor was often derailed by a tendency to over-elaborate, The Echo Show finds the duo of Ben Pleng and Charlie B rattling out potent slabs of retrograde swells, barely catching breath as they throttle through star-chasing melodies like Warning Sensations and Strange Call. Admittedly, there’s a familiar feel – akin to our own Errors – to the key-twitching palpitations of Analog Wheel, but Dead Tired’s emotively charged strains prove there’s more than just one gear to this dreamy, multi-disciplined affair. Carry on like this and the psych-pop revival may prove more than just a passing fashion. [Billy Hamilton]

THE SHINS

PORT OF MORROW COLUMBIA , 19 MAR

rrr Having shed all but one of their original line-up, The Shins’ long-awaited follow up to 2007’s Wincing the Night Away is rather more of a musical manifesto for frontman James Mercer than any collective vision. This, of course, should be no bad thing, given his delivery of three critically and commercially successful albums to date, in addition to a recent fruitful foray with Danger Mouse under their Broken Bells banner.

Port of Morrow largely makes the mark; the likes of Bait and Switch and Fall of ’82 smirk with the cheeky assignations of the band’s earlier work, whilst the sophisticated 40 Mark Strasse and For a Fool almost exceed expectations, languishing amidst a swirl of rich instrumentation. Though perhaps the most noticeable aspect of this release is Mercer’s willingness to embrace a more mainstream approach to production with the assistance of prolific pop guru Greg Kurstin; it’s this ultra-polished sheen, rather than the solid selection of tracks on offer here, that might divide their fanbase. [Paul Neeson]

MATADOR, 26 MAR

TRUE PANTHER SOUNDS, 19 MAR

rrrr

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MIXED EMOTIONS

Tanlines’ debut Mixed Emotions is a disappointingly non-committal affair. The New York duo speak of their belief in the enduring legacy of great songwriting, regardless of contemporary trends – which is certainly an argument with plenty to support it – yet they then proceed to avoid writing any particularly interesting or catchy songs. Dipping a toe into a lukewarm puddle of 80s influences, its an entirely inoffensive album, sporting some regrettably scarce gently warming moments of Duran Duran-lite electronic pop and a slightly cloy undercurrent of rootsiness that comes across a bit like ‘Paul Simon does Bladerunner’.

Within the context of the current musical landscape, Yeasayer are doing something close (but by no means identical), although theirs is a much more engaging take, packed with stronger flavours and bags more distinction. Tanlines’ restrictive format perhaps plays a part but if the object is memorable, timeless songwriting then it seems they need to go on a recruitment drive. [Chris Cusack] PLAYING THE ART SCHOOL, GLASGOW ON 24 MAR

LEE FIELDS AND THE EXPRESSIONS

BOBBY VACANT & THE WORN

TRUTH AND SOUL, 12 MAR

rrr

FAITHFUL MAN

SONIC CATHEDRAL, 5 MAR

WWW.ANDREWBIRD.NET

TANLINES

With any new Lee Ranaldo album, the first question to ask is: which Ranaldo? In Sonic Youth, his work veers from straight-up rock to obtuse noise; in his downtime, there’s improvised collaborations with jazz acts and wilfully avant-garde installation pieces to stretch his muse.

Between the Times and the Tides occupies the straightforward end of the scale, but its relative conservatism is rewarding; the general clarity of the guitar tones only accentuates Ranaldo’s immense skill (check out the dual-part introduction to Fire Island (Phases)), while the laid-back MOR gaits of tracks like Lost (Plane T Nice) or Stranded bear well the touch of Wilco’s Nils Cline, lending additional guitar throughout the album.

Other collaborators include Sonic Youth affiliates past (percussion from Bob Bert; bass from Jim O’Rourke) and present (Steve Shelley handles drums; John Agnello behind the desk), but above all, this is Ranaldo’s show: a confirmation of his solo talents just as his day job’s future seems rocky. [Chris Buckle]

YETI LANE

Now eight albums deep into his career, it’s tempting to view Andrew Bird as a latter day, violin-toting Paul Simon.

With the syrupy, seductive voice and the tunes (my God, the tunes) considered; the greatest trick the two have in common is convincing the world that their songs are simple: they share a marvellous knack of creating a sum that’s far less complex than the parts.

This is the abiding impression of Break It Yourself – an album which thirty years ago might have made Andrew Bird a superstar.

After all the loops, the tangents and the breakdowns, remain a set of fantastic, hummable pop songs that we can confidently call Bird’s strongest to date. From the lyrically kooky Near Death Experience Experience (“and we’ll dance like cancer survivors”), to the beautifully maudlin Lazy Projector and folksy Orpheo Looks Back, it comes with the multiplicity expected from a Bird album, but with a consistency he hadn’t previously presented.[Finbarr Bermingham]

LEE RANALDO

BETWEEN THE TIMES AND THE TIDES

PREDESTINATION, 5 MAR

BREAK IT YOURSELF

rrrr “Take it from me,” insists Lee Fields on the second track of Faithful Man, “I still got it.” It’s a claim that even a cursory listen renders undeniable: despite a career spanning 43 years, Fields’ irresistibly powerful development of classic soul sounds as strong and fresh as ever here. The arrangements are characteristically lush, incorporating strings, brass, organ and piano alongside the impeccably-rendered rhythm section and Fields’ James Brown-esque vocals.

The feel of Faithful Man is, perhaps inevitably, nostalgic and reflective: an atmosphere created as much by the arresting melancholy of Fields’ songs as by the album’s carefully-reconstructed vintage soul sound. Yet the songs are strong enough – Fields seems to mean it enough – to resist any sense of pastiche. While he may be uninterested in innovation for its own sake, Fields’ deep-rooted awareness of soul’s history has enabled him to develop a distinctive voice that shines through here. [Sam Wiseman]

VIRGINIA NEON WEAK, 12 MAR

The world of Virginia Neon is one simultaneously familiar and alien, an American landscape of deserts and bars by turns seedy, lonely and tender. On songs like Nobody’s There, Bobby Vacant’s direct lyrical evocations of a transient existence, laid over effectively simple bass and drums, occasionally make him sound like Americana’s answer to Ian Curtis. Virginia Neon, however, never plumbs the emotional depths of Closer, with Vacant’s tone more melancholy and reflective than tortured.

That register suits the pared-down When You Burned My Eyes, which features fingerpicked guitar, banjo, and mournful Damien Jurado-esque vocals. Such moments represent the LP’s highpoints; Vacant is less convincing when he ups the tempo on pieces like Let It Come Down, a weirdly wobbly amalgamation of clattering percussion, slide guitar and gospel-style backing vocals. Virginia Neon makes no attempt to hide such blemishes; and they feel somehow necessary, part of the fabric of this capricious and commendably odd record. [Sam Wiseman]

THE TOP FIVE

VCMG

1

rrrr

2 3 4 5

GRIMES

VISIONS

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS

LOVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

MOUSE ON MARS

PARASTROPHICS

DIRTY THREE

TOWARD THE LOW SUN

MESHUGGAH

KOLOSS

SSSS

MUTE, 12 MAR

SSSS represents one of the most intriguing reunions in the history of electronica, bringing Vince Clarke and Martin Gore back together for the first time since the former left Depeche Mode over 30 years ago. As both the LP title and their chosen moniker suggest, it’s a deliberately unassuming affair: ten no-nonsense, dancefloor-oriented instrumentals, which marry the pair’s synth pop sensibilities to stripped-back electro in subtle yet infectious ways.

Standouts include Spock, a deftly-crafted take on bouncy-yetdubby techno; and Aftermaths, which worms its way through a maze of metallic percussion and acid-tinged chords. A strength evident on every track, however, is VCMG’s ability to absorb contemporary influences without swamping the record’s unwaveringly minimalist focus. The end result is a record that resolutely shies away from ostentatiousness, while being as masterfully poppy, in its way, as anything in Gore and Clarke’s back catalogues. [Sam Wiseman]

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

51

LIVE WEIRD OR DIE HARD

MUSIC

NEW BLOOD

Not the John McClane nuts you were expecting, Glasgow trio DIE HARD are a talented band of mysterons who arrived overnight with a Technicolor debut. We tried to put the squeeze on them...

INTERVIEW: FRED WEEDON PHOTO: EUAN ROBERTSON

GLASGOW’S NEWEST anomaly, Die Hard – comprised simply of Adam, Craig and Ryan – meet us under the shadow of Monorail’s formidably eclectic record collection, where they talk about their influences and motivations for creating what has transpired to be both a welcome surprise and an accomplished debut album. Out now, the eponymous release is a textured aural montage of colour, darkness and life in their home city.

Appearing seemingly from nowhere, Die Hard’s constituent members are tight-lipped about where you may have seen or heard them before.

The band made its entrance this February via the independent Halleluwah Hits label, who introduced ambient wunderkind Dam Mantle to the world. The album instantly grabbed us here, and we couldn’t pass up a chance to find out a bit more about the trio’s kaleidoscopic LP. So, Die Hard, who are you and where did you come from?

Ryan: We’ve been living together for a long time, always been into the same music, same films, it’s been inevitable that we were going to make music together.

You don’t have much of an online presence, won’t give your surnames and insisted on ‘no faces’ in your shoot with our photographer.

Why do you want to remain so anonymous?

Ryan: Hmm. Well. it’s not that we wish to be anonymous; when we gig we won’t be hiding under masks, for example. We’re just in no rush to jump around asking people on Facebook to vote

52 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

NEW BLOOD for us in some pointless competition and one thing that gives us the fear is looking down the lens of a camera in a semi-seductive or slightly coy way. We really don’t think that makes our music any better, in most cases it detracts. In general, the people we respect are a bit more laid back about these things.

Fair enough, we’ll try not to make a big deal of it! There are a lot of fragmented parts to your album, using synths and sampling as much as more conventional instrumentation. Do you all have a set role, or is it not that rigid a set-up?

Ryan: We’ve each been doing music for years so moving between instruments feels really natural. That allows each of us to take to different instruments and have fun on our turn, which is really inspiring.

Which bands and records have stopped you in your tracks over those years and made you think ‘I’d like to make music like this’?

Ryan: Not just one band, or one album, sometimes it’s a sound, sometimes an attitude – we’ll like what a certain band have to say. We’re definitely into chaotic, colourful music, with movement. Movement is a key thing to what we do.

There seems to be a big Animal Collective influence...

Ryan: Yeah, and there’s definitely other stuff, of course. There’s not a direct influence from them, because we’ve been making music together for longer than we’ve been into them, but certainly from a live perspective, they opened up some ideas in terms of sampling and what you can do there.

Craig: You definitely can’t pin us down to just Animal Collective!

Point taken. The earlier songs on the record are really colourful and vibrant, but then it all gets quite dark and moody in the latter half, what was the rationale behind that contrast?

Craig: Some of the later songs, where it gets a bit darker, are more influenced by dark electronica – like some of that type of stuff that Warp Records have put out over the years.

Ryan: It’s interesting you say that, because we managed to get the record on one vinyl. The first half has a different colour and tone to the second, so you flip it over and the second half becomes a different part. It’s worked out pretty sweet Craig: It triggers pictures, and colours, that tie in with memory.

Did you intend to release it on vinyl from the start?

Adam: When we were at the Halleluwah Hits record shop, we were selling small run, limited vinyl-only releases – plenty of new bands coming through, on labels like Captured Tracks.

Ryan: We like the traditional way of releasing music. Sometimes things like Bandcamp reduce music too much to something almost non-existent.

We put our songs up on Soundcloud, and it’s great for artists to move their music about. But we’re bored of the whole ‘online everywhere, vote for us’ type thing.

Do you view it as more of a complete album, rather than a collection of songs?

Ryan: Oh, definitely – it’s a journey.

Lyrically, although a lot of the words are distorted and indecipherable, there seems to be an overarching theme of the progression of life. Or is that looking into it too far?

Adam: It wasn’t a conscious decision from the start. The sort of music that we listen to and like always has something a bit deeper hidden underneath it. I think it’s still a fun album but there’s things woven through the music that help make it more interesting. By the time we’d almost finished it, we noticed that [particular theme]. I guess by

We’re definitely into chaotic, colourful music, with movement RYAN

the end we became a bit more conscious of it, and thought ‘we’ll finish it off that way.’

Ryan: When you’re living together, and you’re sitting and getting into these deep thoughts when you’ve been sitting for hours and hours. Guys are like that, all guys do that – getting all philosophical on each other – and I think that’s ended up in the music – just talking about life ‘n’ shit, and opening things up. We’ve never felt like the kinds of guys that would write about getting thrown out of a club by a bouncer.

You’ve yet to play a gig but dates are in the pipeline, including a set at this year's Stag & Dagger festival. What can we expect?

Adam: Yeah definitely, we just want to do something special. Not a big gig. It’ll be intimate, but we need to make sure that it’s given as much care as that album – because we really lived in that album so we just wanted to make sure that the live experience is as good.

Craig: The visual aspect of the music is such a big thing for us, so we want to put a show together that portrays the visual aspect of how we see it, or leave it open, to let the people who

come to see us, see what they want. We’ve also got other tracks coming along, there are things happening in the future too, but we’re trying not to visualise it yet. Or we’re visualising not visualising it. I think we can’t help the visual aspect of it. It’s the way we make music.

Ryan: When you’re making an album, at least when we’re making an album – I’m sure it’s the same for everybody else – you’re not just thinking about the music, you’re thinking about the video, you’re thinking about how the live thing is, you’re dreaming it up in your head. Now we’re at that point where we’re thinking about what things we can bring to life to make that happen. Plus, if you go to a live show with great visuals you know you’ve had a good night.

Now the elephant in the room: why Die Hard? It’s virtually ungoogleable, for obvious reasons...

Adam: What we like about it is it can mean anything you want it to. It can be completely banal or it can be… strange. Dying with a hard-on, or whatever.

Ryan: We’ve got a mate called John who dyes all his clothes, constantly, and so we started calling him Die Hard. It doesn’t particularly carry into the band, but it seems to be a happy coincidence.

The album took nine months to put together, did it feel like you’d actually given birth when you’d finished it?

Ryan: I’ll tell you one thing that’s interesting about the album. There’s three of us, the album’s 33 minutes long, the size of the album on the hard disk is 333MB, and you play it at 33 1/3 RPM. There’s a lot of threes going on there; magic number!

PLAYING STAG & DAGGER FESTIVAL, GLASGOW ON 19 MAY. DIE HARD’S SELF-TITLED DEBUT IS AVAILABLE NOW VIA HALLELUWAH HITS WWW.DIEHRD.CO.UK

51 AUGUST 2010 THE SKINNY

See www.edinburghpeoplesfestival.org for further details and tickets WE NO LONGER CHARGE BOOKING FEES

• Drama from SpartaKi Theatre Company

• Why the finest comics in Edinburgh end up in Gorgie

FILMHOUSE 88 LOTHIAN ROAD EDINBURGH Box Office 0131 228 2688 BOOK ONLINE at www.filmhousecinema.com

• Aid for Afghanistan - a concert

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• 3rd Annual Hamish Henderson memorial lecture

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• Photographic exhibition 'The Bad and the Beautiful'

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• Investigating Rebus's Edinburgh

• Tour Edinburgh's dramatic radical past

August 7th-14th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival On Tour 10 Aug to 2 Sep

Highlights from this year’s hugely successful two-week festival, which took place in March at BFI Southbank. The season includes LLGFF Closing Night Gala Children of God, a fascinating and politically bold study of sexuality in the Bahamas; lesbian comedy And Then Came Lola; erotically charged crime thriller The Fish Child; acclaimed Argentinian drama Plan B; and two programmes of shorts, one for the girls and one for the boys!

A key work from an era that’s now considered the last Golden Age of American cinema, Bob Rafelson’s superlative character study established Jack Nicholson as the foremost actor of his generation. One of the few honest American films about social class, family and alienation. Don’t miss this wonderfully restored classic.

Five Easy Pieces 13 Aug to 19 Aug

Directed by Juan José Campanella and showcasing two of Argentina’s biggest stars, this is a riveting thriller spiked with witty dialogue and poignant romance. Receiving rave reviews and awards, it was also the surprise winner of this year’s Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film, beating off stiff competition from The White Ribbon and A Prophet.

The Secret in Their Eyes 13 Aug to 9 Sep

HOME OF THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

MILK SUPPORT FOUND AT THE ELECTRIC CIRCUS, EDINBURGH ON 7 AUG AS PART OF THE EDGE FESTIVAL

recommends this month...

www.theelectriccircus.biz

“CALLUM, up in the crow’s nest, is all guitar-cradling and neckerchief-wearing, while Sam will go down with the ship, laughing to the last at his cockpit of keyboards,” collectively explain Glasgow (via Fife) quartet, Milk. “Michael plays at drums and dressing up down in the engine room, and Pablo stands at the prow, full of windy rhetoric and last night’s leftovers.” Any room for a celebrity endorsement on board? After all, that ‘Got Milk’ campaign has done wonders for dairy sales over the years – want to co-opt any Milk-the-Drink lovers as spokespersons for Milk-the-band?

“Can we breed them? If so we’ll take the lithe and insatiable sexuality of Isabella Rosellini, couple it with the high-society histrionics of Elton John, and marry that off with the future-race breeding of the Olsens and the ruthless art-as-a-sacrificial-cow ambition of James Cameron.” Finally, this sexual, ambitious future-race progeny would be “wrapped in plastic, à la Joan Rivers.”

If their creation sounds elaborate and messy, it fits their musical identities; if their answers sound articulate yet obfuscating, it reflects their crafty, cultured smarts.

“We think that bands are too readily vilified for not nailing a signature sound,” they argue. “It seems to us that using a broad palette can produce the most interesting and enjoyable results.” Their particular palette reaps the rewards of a four-way musical input that doesn’t necessarily flow naturally in the same direction.

“I think it would be fair to say that we began this at odd angles, and so the approach has been to try and

challenge each other, taking our disparate inspirations and finding ways to harmonise them. We enjoy sifting through the noise.” When the sifting is finished, nuggets of Lizard King stargazing, smooth 80s grooves, moody atmospherics, deadpan humour and prog-squiggles remain. The unorthodox blend slips through genres like cow lactose through fingers. “We converge in strange places,” they acknowledge.

Milk confound classification in part through tactical shyness. Their low-profile moniker and lower-profile web presence constitute a genuine attempt to avoid the pigeonholing that rubberstamps acts straight from the womb. Milk are leaving their options open and keeping followers guessing.

“We’re still in the formative stages of playing this music together, so anything that allows the freedom to go off on creative tangents is a must,” they explain. “The name gave us the blank slate. If you treat a band’s name as a statement of intent, then ours remains open to interpretation.” Refreshingly, in an age where choosing a MySpace background sits uncomfortably high on new-starts’ ‘to do’ lists, they’re uninterested in cultivating a potentially-straitjacketing online persona. “We want the opportunity to surprise others and ourselves.”

Live, they don’t let such opportunities pass them by. But what about recordings? Any releases on the horizon? “In this regard,” they assert, “we reserve the right to remain mysterious.” Seems Milk will be whetting appetites a little longer yet.[Chris Buckle]

Text Chris Buckle Photo www.ryanmcgoverne.co.uk

Got Milk?

Ah Milk. Great source of calcium, won Sean Penn an Oscar… er, hang on, something’s off. Google has failed me – guys, you’ll have to introduce yourselves…

films worth talking about

Clockwise from top left: Pablo; Callum; Michael; Sam

www.theelectriccircus.biz

• Film premiere of 'Morticia' by Nabil Shaban

MUSIC

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

53

PREVIEWS

CLUBS

clubbing HIGHLIGHTS Words: Neil Murchison Illustration: Andrew Denholm

GPMG presents Danny Benedettini Saint Judes, Sat 10 Mar

The inagural outing of what has the makings of one of Glasgow’s most exciting new nights, Guilty Pleasures of Mother Goose (GPMG) nestles snugly into the intimate confines of the newly refurbished Saint Judes. The Bath Street venue now has a glorious new soundsystem in the form of the VOID setup as seen (and most notably heard) in locations such as DC10 and Sands Beach Club, Ibiza. The night brings together a host of creative minds and dedicated patrons of Glasgow’s eclectic clubbing community, aiming to give the city a Balearic-style party atmosphere, while keeping the music at the forefront.

This forward thinking approach will be exemplified in a special three hour set from the Scottish debut of Italian mystery man Danny Benedettini. Newly signed to Magda, Marc Houle and Troy Pierce’s new Items and Things imprint, Benedettini has been the talk of the proverbial town since his first EP on the breakaway label landed, and his recent Watergate debut was met with a positive response. Observant, genre-defying grooves which traverse techno, disco and industrial, with classic horror movie overtones are waiting to be discovered in anticipation of what looks set to be the first of many a golden egg for the GPMG crew. [Calum Sutherland] 11pm-3am, £7 advance, £10 door from The Saint & Ticketscotland gpmg-presents.blogspot.com

Mixed Bizness presents DJ Zinc and MC Script

Melting Pot 11th Birthday Party presents Danny Krivit

The Reading Rooms, Fri 9 Mar

The Admiral, Sat 3 Mar

Mixed Bizness continue with their pioneering idea of transporting club nights from Glasgow and Edinburgh up to that northern outpost known as Dundee, where the inhabitants are not only aware of electronic music, but are actually quite keen on it. And who could possibly resist when you have the likes of underground legend DJ Zinc gracing a booth there for the first time?

Zinc was responsible for some of the classic sounds of the nineties, contributing to the rise of jungle and d’n’b while delving into ragga and hip-hop along the way. From the original classics of 138 Trek and Super Sharp Shooter that cemented his place as a powerful force, he broke out of the genre and pushed into new territories. Zinc has recently worked with dubstep pioneer Benga, and was asked to muck in to write and produce on Katy B’s debut album.

Supporting the self proclaimed 'Dancefloor Devastator' is Zinc’s Rinse FM collaborator MC Script and Mixed Bizness figurehead Boom Monk Ben, whose Glasgow and international exploits know no bounds. Expect a hyped-up, eager audience flocking for a taste of something heavyweight as this shake up to Dundee’s clubbing landscape continues. [Jess Cowell]

Melting Pot has carved out a great niche for itself by attracting reliably solid guests who really understand house, disco and soul while making sure they have a sterling sound system to hear it on. Add in a crowd who are appreciative of both of these qualities and it isn’t a shock to see the night steamrolling on into a second decade.

As their 11th Birthday party rolls around they’ve bagged a DJ at the core of the very scene that Melting Pot has its roots in. An enduring fixture who has graced some of the greatest clubs in New York’s history, Danny Krivit has been spinning out tunes for the last 40 years and is ingrained in the scene that seamlessly brought disco, funk and house together. Moreover, he has been the driving force behind 718 Sessions, one of the most acclaimed and long-running nights in New York.

The celebrations will take place over the two floors of the newly refurbished Admiral Bar with Danny Krivit getting to work downstairs, while the guys from Glasgow based Big Break Records showcase their impressive back catalogue in the bar area. [Kenneth White]

10:30pm - 2.30am, £8/10

11pm - 3am, £12 / £10 Advance

www.readingroomsdundee.com

meltingpotglasgow.com

Bad News presents Coki, Pangaea and Benji B The Arches, Fri 9 Mar

First up, the good news: The Arches is ready to host some of the best DJ talent that underground music can offer in the shape of another one of Glasgow’s new club nights, Bad News. Following its launch in January, which saw redoubtable sets from UK cornerstones Loefah, Zed Bias, Pinch and Girl Unit, this event promises to be even bigger second time round.

Don’t be put off by the door tax – it’s practically a steal when considering the quality on offer. This second outing’s colossal headliners include Coki (one half of Digital Mystikz), Deviation resident Benji B, Hessle Audio co-founder Pangaea as well as Phaeleh and Mungo’s Hi Fi. As seriously heavy bass nights go, this is a line-up of big hitters that will have the archways drippin’.

On top of that, there will be live visuals from top graffiti artists – each performer will have a unique display created for them, right in front of you. Sounds as good an excuse as any to make like Greece and spend all your money before your creditors find out. [Laura Forsyth] 11pm - 3am, £10 www.thearches.co.uk

54 THE SKINNY March 2012

Benji B

Edinburgh has seen a number of venues close down in the last few years, a series of events that have collectively diminished the city’s clubbing scene. A lot of that might just be down to misfortune (some clubs, such as La Belle Angele and Faith, were even burned down), but last month felt especially damaging to Edinburgh night life.

The Cabaret Voltaire has shut its doors for the final time, and The Bongo Club could be turfed out of its current residence in September. The beauty of any city’s small hours scene is that it doesn’t follow any grand plan, relying instead on groups of DJs, promoters, clubs and, most importantly, the people who go to them regularly to create something bigger than any individual part of the ecosystem. In Edinburgh a vital part of that quartet – the clubs – is being severely threatened.

Edinburgh University relies, on some level, on drawing students to the city because, as a capital city, it should have an interesting, exciting nightlife and club scene. If the best way to achieve that is by closing down a diverse and successful venue like The Bongo Club, when a third of the previous year’s audience were their own students, then you start wondering where this trend is going to stop.

An ‘Occupy Edinburgh’s Clubs’ movement is one logical path, but before we accustom ourselves to living in tents for months there is always Trouble’s Save The Bongo Raveclash on Fri 23 March.

Elsewhere, Wonky’s Wolfjazz and Hobbes and the resident DJs of Edinburgh University’s No Globe collective bring together a genre smorgasbord from dubstep, hip-hop to afrobeats.

Pyramatrix launch their night at Chambre 69 on Fri 9 March with the huge, juggernaut sound of Heartthrob, signed to Ritchie Hawtin’s Minus

label. This apple hasn’t fallen too far from the label’s tree – the American takes familiar techno sounds and pushes minimalism to extremes. Moving from warped rhythms to merciless pounding bass workouts, this might go someway to satisfying everyone who missed out on Hawtin’s sold out Glasgow performance late last year.

Maya Medvesek, who plays I AM at Sub Club on Tue 13 March, may now go under the guise of Nightwave but her old alias 8Bitch was much more than just an frivolous bit of wordplay. Her gaming associations extend beyond the motion capture she did for DJ Hero, and her music has more than a touch of the hyper-rhythms of the 8-bit scene still embedded in it, which are even more pronounced in her mixes, veering from dub influenced sounds to new school techno and house.

She is a character too: her latest EP, The Feel, was a hugely accomplished first outing under her new moniker; she goes out with Rustie; she’s been a body double for Penelope Cruz on a number of occasions; she’s quite into Buckfast. You simply can’t argue with that.

After completing a mammoth 24-date US tour in just a month, Rusko returns for a second showing in the capital on Mon 19 March, delivering old school breaks over the buzzsaw synths synonymous with the man. Over the course of an album Rusko can be diverted too far away from this basic premise, but when playing live it’s a killer formula.

This isn’t ‘maybe I’ll go for a dance’ territory: this is undiluted mayhem. And after all that clubbing, there will be nothing else to do but enjoy the symphonic comedown masters Spiritualized as they tour their seventh album Sweet Heart Sweet Heart at the ABC on Thur 22 March.

CLUBS

Renaissance Man

O2 ABC Love Music Column

Global dance music royalty John Digweed speaks to us before he takes his Bedrock label to Edinburgh Interview: Neil Murchison

Odd Future / OFWGKTA O2 ABC Glasgow, Sun 1 Apr, 7pm, £16.80

When it comes to maintaining your position at the pinnacle of any profession, you have to work pretty hard to remain in the same place – a somewhat ironic concept when applied to John Digweed, who in dance music circles is synonymous with being ‘progressive’. Digweed has been a significant player since the release of his Renaissance and Northern Exposure mixes alongside longtime confederate Sasha in the mid-nineties. Since then, his label Bedrock has been, as the names suggests, a solid, permeating force in the cyclical world of electronic music.

The eternal search for the next great record without compromising on quality has rarely been met with such appreciation and respect by audiences, and the Bedrock / Digweed brand is one of the trusted few that has crowds lapping up many hours of music, rather than a few moments here or there.

Last summer Digweed released his second Structures album, a longplayer that took full advantage of his position as a global DJ figurehead and label boss by signing up many of the tracks he wanted to feature as exclusives, and in some cases requesting that changes were made to them so that they fitted exactly as he wanted them to in the mix. This reverses the old adage that a DJ just ‘plays other people’s records’ and seems a good place to begin our interview.

With Structures and Structures 2 you were working with a lot of unreleased material that you had signed exclusively for the album. Is that a response to the Beatport/Soundcloud democratisation, or the ubiquity of records?

I am just trying to make the tracks on my album stand out more so when it’s released it’s the first time you will have heard those tracks. Everything moves so fast these days that if you want to have something exclusive you need you make sure that you put the effort in and work with producers to make tracks for your projects.

As your focus seems to be on new and unreleased music do you still go crate digging for old undiscovered gems?

There is so much music out there that I can go back six months and start playing a track again and people don’t know what it is. For me it’s about trying to play an interesting set of great music that is not the top ten Beatport hits but can still rock the house. For me when listening to a DJ you want to be surprised and find out what his tracks are and not know every one.

How do you feel about listening back to

You want to be surprised listening to a DJ and find out what his tracks are, not know every one John Digweed

some of your old mixes, are they something you can listen to and enjoy, or do you find it uncomfortable?

I am happy with my releases over the years, every album – I always put 110% into them and made it the best I could. I think it’s nice to look back over the years and see a snapshot of each year and how the music changes and I changed.

What kind of music do you listen to that might surprise us? Do you ever feel the need to listen to something utterly different to what you DJ? As I run a label I spend most of the time listening to demos from producers so not much time to listen to other music as I don’t want to miss that potential big club track.

You probably spend more time in clubs than you get to at home – are there any favourite clubs that give you that the feeling of ‘being home’ in absence of the real thing?

For me it’s all about the relationship with the promoter. When you travel a lot having a familiar face at the end of a long trip makes the time spent away from home not so bad as it’s great to catch up with people and friends in the industry that I have know for many years.

DJs and air travel: do you have to hang your head in shame when someone challenges your green credentials?

Thats a tough one as I have no other option than to fly to most of the places I play outside of the UK. I try and do my bit at home with recycling and I drive a hybrid car and cycle as much as I can though.

With a shuffling pack of around ten members including Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean, Hodgy Beats and Earl Sweatshirt, the LA based rap collective variously known as Odd Future, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and OFWGKTA write, rap, sing, produce and direct videos either as solo material or as part of multiple splinter groups. Initially they posted songs and mixtapes online (which they still do) but having now got the attention of the rap world a second wave of releases are being put out through major labels. This group dynamic has them veering from grimy, roughed beats underpinning the provocative lyricism and rasping, deep voice of Tyler, The Creator on French to the silky, Kayneesque productions of MellowHype’s 67.

So why the hype? Parents who catch them on TV will probably end up freaked out while their kids will lap this stuff up. The music press, meanwhile, can sit them on their metaphorical couch and wonder at meaning behind the wanton misogyny, invocations to violence and all the other pronouncements they make. Something for everyone then. Most of Odd Future are still in their teens or barely out of them and are apparently in possession of some brilliant beatmaking and rapping talent, and armed with enough self-reflexive narratives (Free Earl / Fuck Steve Harvey/ Swag etc) as well as a healthy don’t-give-a-fuck attitude.

They seem to be the natural heirs to NWA and WuTang but with an unhealthy dark streak of ‘1998 Eminem’ era psychosis and the creative approach of The Neptunes. The Polar Bar will be hosting a SWAG party after the gig with some as yet to be announced local noise makers, and entry will be free for all ticket holders.

Nero O2 ABC Glasgow, Mon 19 Mar, 7pm, £19.50

Nero exist in a world in which basslines are nothing less than huge, the breakdowns are Earth shattering and where all control of your neck muscles has been subcontracted out to their tunes. Signed by Chase and Status to their own label, the London based group have arrived on the dance music scene with perfect timing as dubstep begins an assault on the charts and their devotion to planting massive, dubby bass wobbles at the heart of their records has helped to propel them to having both a number 1 album and single.

With contemporaries such as The Prodigy bereft of any radical new ideas and Pendulum sounding long in the tooth, Nero are unleashing records like the maniacally hyper Crush On You, which is not only completely deranged and lethally catchy but features enough musical gear changes to make your body pack in trying to keep rhythm. Even when Nero do play around with larger themes in their music it is never to the detriment of the tunes. Yeah sure, Doomsday might be about some impending apocalypse but it is one set to an orchestral death march, pounding beats and submerged in anarchic, juddering synth wobbles and supercharged bouncing bass. Pretty much how I want to go really. [Neil Murchison] www.o2abcglasgow.co.uk www.facebook.com/o2abcglasgow

Musika presents Bedrock Feat John Digweed and Guy J on Sat 3 Mar www.musikanights.com

March 2012 THE SKINNY

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REVIEWS

March Events FILM

Write Shoot Cut’s inaugural Short Film Networking Night sees the light of day on 12 Mar at the Banshee Labyrinth Cinema, deep in the bowels of Edinburgh’s most haunted pub. This free event will take place on the second Monday of every month and is aimed at both filmmakers and those interested in short film. A selection of films will be shown, followed by a Q&A with any filmmakers in attendance, and everyone is invited for drinks afterwards.

See write-shoot-cut.com for more details.

Starship Troopers The kid with a bike

The Kid With a Bike

Into the Abyss

Director: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

Director: Werner Herzog

Starring: Thomas Doret, Cécile De France, Jérémie Renier, Egon Di Mateo, Fabrizio Rongione Released: 23 Mar Certificate: 12A

Starring: Werner Herzog, Jason Burkett, Michael Perry, Richard Lopez Released: 30 Mar Certificate: 12A

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All you really need to know about the Dardenne brothers’ new film is that it concerns a kid and his bike. Watching the work of this extraordinary filmmaking team with no prior knowledge of its content is one of the most exhilarating experiences contemporary cinema has to offer. Driven by the turbulent emotions and restless energy of prickly newcomer Thomas Doret, The Kid with a Bike takes a number of unexpected turns towards its heart-stopping finale as the Dardennes once again prove themselves to be master storytellers. As Cyril (Doret) searches for the father who rejected him (Jérémie Renier), the Dardennes gradually draw us into his world to the point where we are completely riveted and begin to care deeply about the outcome of his story. That the film manages to move the viewer so profoundly while remaining completely free of any false sentimentality could be regarded as a special achievement, but it’s simply par for the course for this peerless filmmaking duo. [Philip Concannon]

Werner Herzog’s latest enquiry into human nature takes him to Texas, where he explores the fallout from a decade-old murder. Into the Abyss is built around interviews with various people connected with the crime, from the killers themselves, now languishing on Death Row, to the friends and families of the deceased. Such a subject leaves little room for the director’s trademark eccentricity (although he does bizarrely reduce one man to tears with the question, “tell me about an encounter with a squirrel”) but his curiosity and frankness serve the material well.

Herzog has a way of getting his interview subjects to open up and meander with him down unexpected avenues, and Into the Abyss resonates with the messiness of life. My only reservation is that it feels like the film could go deeper, as Herzog’s occasional struggle to find a focus for his story takes its toll, but that quibble aside, it’s yet another intriguing and surprising film from this ever-fascinating documentarian. [Philip Concannon]

Wild Bill

Tiny Furniture

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Director: Lena Dunham

Starring: Charlie Creed-Miles, Will Poulter, Liz White, Sammy Williams, Leo Gregory Released: 30 Mar Certificate: 15

Starring: Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham Released: 30 Mar Certificate: TBC

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Toeing the line between gritty social realism and slick gangster action, Wild Bill brings drugs, guns and family drama to Stratford, London. This directorial debut from Dexter Fletcher follows 'Wild' Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) upon his return to the East End after eight years in prison. Arriving, at his former home, armed with drugs and plans to grab, he finds his wife has eloped abroad, leaving his sons Dean and Jimmy, 15 and 11 years old, to fend for themselves. What follows is smarter than your average workingclass family drama as the contentious relationship between father and sons escalates – lashed together as they are in a case of social work intervention.

Bill must play dad while Dean attempts to rebuild his life and Jimmy diverges onto the trail his father formerly blazed. Muted, oaky tones and crisp shadows give cinematic depth to a realistic yet classically dramatic storyline. Fletcher successfully weaves a tale of redemption without traversing into schmaltz – a Hollywood home for low-income family drama. [Nicola Balkind]

After graduating from her film studies degree, Aura (director Lena Dunham) returns to her mother’s home with a lack of both professional and personal direction. The bubble of student life is yet to pop and, fresh from being dumped by her hippie boyfriend, Aura seems happy to kick back and wait until an opportunity falls into her lap. The only problem is, there are no job prospects on the horizon and no one feels as sorry for her as she’d like them to.

Exploring the nuances of family life while acting alongside her real mother (Laurie Simmons) and sister (Grace Dunham) must have been quite an odd art imitating-life experience for the precociously talented Dunham. Comparisons to Woody Allen and Wes Anderson are perhaps a little premature, but their influences certainly play a part. Tiny Furniture has been crafted in minute detail by a young filmmaker clearly bursting with ideas, quite the opposite of the film’s main protagonist. [Matthew Stanger]

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Bill Cunningham New York

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Director: Richard Press

Starring: Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan, Firat Tanis Released: 16 Mar Certificate: 15

Starring: Bill Cunningham, Anna Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller Released: 16 Mar Certificate: TBC

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Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a film of two halves, and regrettably, one half is so much richer than the other, which leaves Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest picture feeling rather unbalanced. The first half of this unusual procedural is rapturous filmmaking, as a group of police officers, a doctor and a murder suspect search for the body that is buried somewhere in the Anatolian mountains. The arduous night-time search is rendered hypnotic by Ceylan’s immaculate framing and Gökhan Tiryaki’s breathtaking use of light, and also by the witty, perceptive script, which is brought to life by a cluster of neatly underplayed performances. The film reaches its apotheosis in a magical sequence, in which the men are served tea by a beautiful woman who appears like an angel, but the film never really recovers from this astonishing high. As the sun rises on Ceylan’s film, it seems to lose its way, and the climactic hour is a deflating slog that fails to build upon what went before.

[Philip Concannon]

56 THE SKINNY March 2012

Mark Millar’s Geek Film Night continues, with Frankie Boyle attending the GFT on 4 Mar to introduce his choice of film, Starship Troopers.

Starring Casper Van Dien and the legendary Neil Patrick Harris, Paul Verhoeven’s Oscar-nominated film (yes, really) is a trashy, hammy, cult hit featuring giant space bugs. Would you expect anything less from the director of Showgirls? There will also be a Q&A with Boyle before the film, ensuring the night is a hilarious and crude one.

Dead by Dawn returns to the Filmhouse in Edinburgh from 29 Mar – 1 Apr. The annual horror film festival is keeping its line-up quiet so far, but attendees can expect independent films, classic horrors, short films, special guests, lots of free stuff to take home and, of course, the Shit Film Amnesty, in which attendees are invited to bring in their most embarrassing, rubbish DVD. The person with the worst one has the honour of getting everyone else’s offerings. You simply can’t lose, unless you win.

For four decades New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham has cruised the Big Apple on his Schwinn bicycle like a fashionista superhero. His batcave is a studio in Carnegie Hall that even Manhattan’s most scurrilous realtor would describe as cramped. His arch-nemesis? Bland cookie cutter apparel.

Watching Cunningham snap his subjects, who range from haute couture clad It girls to peacocking drag queens, is joyous.

On a crowded crosswalk, through the teaming masses, the wiry octogenarian will spot his target – an exquisite hemline, a pair of funky heels, a modernist sculpture disguised as a hat – and spring into action like a benevolent cheetah, chasing his elegant prey through downtown. Celebrity does not curry favour – he has no time for a drearily attired Catherine Deneuve. In fact, he has little time for anything beyond his work. During this quick-footed profile director Richard Press asks Cunningham only two questions: one about love, the other God. Both cut deep. The price of this lifelong quest to document beauty is a heavy one. [Jamie Dunn]

Into the Abyss

The Belmont in Aberdeen and Cameo in Edinburgh are showing a special screening of Werner Herzog’s latest documentary, Into the Abyss, on 27 Mar. The film, examining the difficult subject of capital punishment through one particular murder trial, in which one of the convicted men was executed eight days into filming while the other sentenced to life imprisonment, won the Best Documentary award at this year’s London Film Festival. The screening is accompanied by a satellite Q&A session with the director, who is always eloquent and fascinating.

This should not be missed.

Marx Bros. "A Day at the Races"

Were he alive today, Chico Marx would celebrate his 125th birthday on 22 Mar. In his honour, the GFT is screening a special double bill of two of the Marx Brothers’ finest films, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. Combining Groucho’s unrivalled quick wit, Harpo’s faux-Italian gibberish and Chico’s silent, childlike playfulness, as well as some fine musical talents, these films perfectly display the visual and intellectual comedy of these vaudevillian legends. [Becky Bartlett]

DVD REVIEWS SPECIAL FORCES

THE SNIPER

WEEKEND

DIRECTOR: STÉPHANE RYBOJAD

DIRECTOR: DANTE LAM

DIRECTOR: ANDREW HAIGH

STARRING: DIANE KRUGER, DJIMON HOUNSOU, BENOÎT MAGIMEL RELEASED: 12 MAR CERTIFICATE: 15

STARRING: RICHIE REN, EDISON CHEN, HUANG XIAMONG RELEASED: 12 MAR CERTIFICATE: 15

STARRING: TOM CULLEN, CHRIS NEW RELEASED: 5 MAR CERTIFICATE: 18

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To watch Special Forces is to go to war with your own incredulity.

Individual tolerances for cliché are rigorously tested as an elite team of French special ops parachute in to the Afghan/Pakistan border region to rescue a French journalist from a rogue Taliban leader.

Director Stéphane Rybojad and cinematographer David Jankowski take their cues from the Michael Bay school of military fetishisation, with formation helicopter swoops and unnecessary scenes aboard the CDG aircraft carrier showing off the hardware, while a macho cast of warriors line-up to fulfil the combat genre’s standard squad-roles: the stoic leader, the moody lone-wolf sniper, the joker prone to shouting “I love my job!” midst fire-fight, and so on. Initially, it’s possible to enjoy Special Forces at the level of a Gallic Tears of the Sun – daft, but entertainingly earnest in its laudation of the armed forces as conflicted humanitarians at heart. But as the plot holes mount up, even this modest benchmark grows hopelessly out of reach. [Chris Buckle]

'Experts can coexist.' The final, summarising line of dialogue in the The Sniper suggests the dead hand of China’s Communist Party at work in this story of rivalry, loyalty and correct breathing techniques in an elite police sniper squad. But director Dante Lam continues the maximal, almost baroque style that we expect from a Hong Kong thriller – intricately stylised camerawork, changing filmstock, split screen techniques, an impossibly melodramatic plot barely stitched together by a complex flashback structure, and a soundtrack which doesn’t so much hint at, as bludgeon us into, the correct emotional response.

The trick is to ignore the framing story and just enjoy the action.

At the heart of the film are a number of well-staged, exciting gun battles which exploit the high-rise backdrop of Hong Kong to great effect. Best of all is a shoot out which starts in a cramped lift before spilling out into the narrow corridors of an authentically down-at-heel apartment block. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

There are moments in life when you suddenly connect with someone and it changes your whole world. But even today it’s rare to see that in a film about two men.

Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is a refreshingly realistic story of mixed fortunes, love and unfulfilled expectations. When out-but-shy Russell bumps into the more outgoing Glen in a tacky nightclub in Nottingham, what was a one-night-stand becomes a weekend they’ll never forget. Forget saccharine platitudes; this is the real world, where good and bad things happen and life is what you make it. Haigh’s generally unselfconscious approach is tarnished slightly by a more ordinary need to make both leads trendy and attractive, but this is far surpassed by a script which gives them depth and allows us under their skin. By letting us share their all-too-human doubts, feelings and reflections as gay men, Haigh has made easily one of the finest gay-themed films of the last few years. [Scotty McKellar]

CHUNG KUO CHINA

THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT

TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN

DIRECTOR: MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

DIRECTOR: WOJCIECH HAS

DIRECTOR: STEVEN SPIELBERG

STARRING: RELEASED: 5 MAR CERTIFICATE: 12

STARRING: ZBIGNIEW CYBNLSKI, IGA CEMBRZYNSKA RELEASED: 19 MAR CERTIFICATE: 15

STARRING: JAMIE BELL, ANDY SERKIS, DANIEL CRAIG RELEASED: 19 MAR CERTIFICATE: PG

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In 1972, before impending Sino hegemony and fear of the day the tanks roll down Princes Street, China was a secretive state hidden behind a bamboo curtain. Yet this same state, at Mao’s behest, welcomed the Italian modernist director Michelangelo Antonioni and gave him the chance to shine a rare light on the nation in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. Antonioni rejected his hosts’ desire for a propaganda film, instead stating: “All we hope for is to present a large collection of faces, gestures, and customs.” At over 3.5 hours long no footage is wasted and its value is significant, if flawed.

Hampered by restrictions on filming and attempted staging of events, much is left hidden, while the omnipresent Mao looms over the production. And yet, the lens gives a rare historical insight by capturing life stories both everyday and extreme. It’s refreshing to see playfulness and humour in the Chinese character, even now so often ignored by the BBC. [Alan Bett]

In the midst of a battle in the Napoleonic Wars two opposing soldiers find and begin to read a manuscript together. It purports to be an account by a Walloon officer named Alfonso Van Worden of the strange things that happened to him on a journey through the Spanish mountains a generation before.

The Saragossa Manuscript (1965), directed by Wojceich Has, recreates the hallucinogenic storytelling of Jan Potocki’s 1815 novel. The first part is filled with Muslim maidens, underground harems, torture chambers, magic potions and so many skulls that the characters trip over them. Recurring dreams echo and mirror each other until it is difficult to sort fantasy from reality. In the second part, stories of love and infidelity are recounted in a story-within-a-story structure so complex that one character is driven to shout: “It’s enough to drive you crazy!”

In this beautifully restored film, costume drama becomes surrealist fantasy. Downton Abbey this is not. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

The cinema release of Spielberg’s Tintin was met with predictable howls of outrage from certain quarters – mostly middle-aged, male Guardian writers – for whom the movie seemed a betrayal of their childhoods. But a film made from such well-loved source material will always be measured against the original. How does it fare?

The halfway-between-cartoon-and-real-life visuals manage to avoid Polar Express creepiness by concentrating on a warm period feel. Bell’s Tintin retains the blankness of Herge’s hero, while motion-capture wizard Serkis actually fills out the irascible Haddock with his performance. The mostly inventive script hamfistedly welds two of the orginal adventures together but this allows Spielberg his best scene – a plane caught in a storm and brought down in the desert is, by turns, exciting and funny. However, where Hergé’s ligne claire drawings kept Tintin’s world anchored and legible, Spielberg allows the CGI to get the better of him, constructing elaborate sequences which are both thrilling and heartless.

[Keir R-C]

TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA ORIGINS

Musical empathy and a passion for high-energy, innovative styles of playing come to fruition in the exuberant sounds produced on this debut album by the Glasgow based big band.

ALBUM AVAILABLE NOW TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA LIVE: 04.05.12 Shetland Folk Festival — Lerwick 25.05.12 Eastleigh Festival of Music 26.05.12 Shepley Spring Festival 16.06.12 Big Session Festival — Walton-on-Trent 21.07.12 Big Tent Festival — Falkland, Fife 27.08.12 Shrewsbury Festival More festivals and a UK tour to be announced soon Available at

“An album of rousing fusion work from the vibrant Scottish folk scene”  THE GUARDIAN www.treacherousorchestra.com www.navigatorrecords.co.uk Distributed by Proper

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

57

ANNA BARRIBALL, INSTALLATION VIEW, THE FRUITMARKET GALLERY, 2012

ANNA BARRIBALL FRUITMARKET, UNTIL 9 APR HANNAH IMLACH, ORIGAMI SHELTER AT RANNOCH MOOR (2011)

NEW CONTEMPORARIES 2012 RSA, ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY, 17 MAR-11 APR

It’s that time of year again, when the cream of last year’s graduation crop exhibit at the RSA New Contemporaries. It’s where the public is introduced to some of the best art graduates in Scotland, which in turn, gives the artists an insight into an art world outside of education.

Some of the top artists now exhibiting regularly in Scotland – and a few of those running art spaces around the country – showed for the first time at New Contemporaries after newly graduating. It’s an early sign of hope for many a nascent artist, not yet jaded by what might await them around the corner.

This year sees fifty-six graduates from a broad range of disciplines selected from the 2011 degree shows by a team of RSA Members and representatives of the six schools of architecture and five main colleges of art in Scotland. The show will take place across all 12 of the RSA galleries.

Among those on show will be Duncan of Jordanstone graduate Hannah Imlach who recently returned from a residency in Florence. Her degree show included a futuristic shelter, like the utopian imaginings of Buckminster-Fuller, photographed in the Scottish landscape, encouraging us to consider our relationship with, and impact on, the nature around us.

Since graduating last year, Rose Hendry has shown at film festivals across the UK, including Glasgow Short Film Festival. Her films are slick and sexy, often portraying women smoking cigarettes next to fried eggs – like a George Bataille film adaptation shot in the 1950s and with a dance music soundtrack added only just last week.

Without a doubt one the most exciting events on the Scottish arts calendar, this is one not to miss.

Art doesn’t get much more contemporary than this. [Andrew Cattanach] MON-SAT 10AM-5PM, SUN 12-5PM

rrrr The work of Anna Barriball smudges the lines of traditional art disciplines; simultaneously both drawing and sculpture, hers is a practice that occupies an endlessly intriguing fault line between the two- and the three- dimensional realms.

Taking architectural detailing – a bubbled glass window, a bricked-in alcove, a door – as her source material, Barriball produces rubbings using graphite, overloading paper with so much metallic powder it takes on the three dimensional moulding of the original to create a physical portrait. Hers is a labour-intensive, repetitive process that could bleed into the world of performance.

In the downstairs gallery, her rubbing-drawing of a door is particularly effective. Float mounted in a large white frame and propped against the wall, the piece proudly displays its fragile material, yet alludes to its three dimensional doppelgänger.

Elsewhere, a tracing of a mottled glass window is so palpably textured it seems at first glance to be a slice of moulded styrofoam.

Off the main gallery, Barriball creates a masterful

piece of trompe l’oeil. At first glance it seems a complex mechanical work has been installed, an angular beast that rustles and growls in the centre of the facing wall. Second glance reveals this to be a tracing paper-covered fireplace, noise and movement caused by the draught flowing up and down the chimney flues. Third glance (for the worryingly slow to catch on, i.e. this reviewer) reveals the whole thing to be entirely illusory, a DVD projection on a wall.

Upstairs the silver ink tracings of Mirror Window Wall I-IV, a series from 2008, betray the intensity of their production, torn paper disintegrating under the saturation of liquid, mirroring the disintegrating identities of the subject/object/source materials in this ritualistic melding of physical forms.

Elsewhere, a perfect graphite wall emerges behind a frame; tubes of thickly graphited paper lean against the wall, transformed into fully fledged sculptural forms by the repeated act of scribbling.

Barriball’s investigations of the disciplinary fault lines create transformative works, rendering her something of a magician, as an artist traditionally should be. Using limited materials – paper, pencil, ink – she creates the extraordinary from the very very ordinary. [Rosamund West] MON-SAT 11AM-6PM, SUN 12-5PM, FREE

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL PERSON

IMAGE COURTESY OF GAUTIER DEBLONDE

With GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF VISUAL ART just round the corner, it’s time to start getting prepared for the the two weeks of festivities and consider this great opportunity to support the biennial event

KARLA BLACK, AT FAULT, INSTALLATION VIEW PALAZZO PIZZANI, 2011. CELLOPHANE, PAINT, SELLOTAPE, PLASTER POWDER, POWDER PAINT, SUGAR PAPER, CHALK, BATH BOMBS, RIBBON, WOOD._DIMENSIONS VARIABLE. COPYRIGHT THE ARTIST

Galleries across Scotland are members of the Own Art scheme. By offering interestfree 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)

58 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL Festival of Visual Art is without doubt Scotland’s foremost contemporary art event. Kicking off on 20 April, the biennial festival sees 18 days of premium art exhibitions and one-off events take place across the city, with some shows running on until June.

Among the many artists on show, Glasgow International will host major solo exhibitions by Turner Prize winner Richard Wright and recent Turner Prize nominee Karla Black.

Now in its fifth edition, the festival includes more than 130 artists showing over nearly 50 permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, bringing with them a real festival atmosphere to rival anything the Continent might have to offer. There will be everything you can imagine to feast your eyes on from paintings and performances to sculptures and video installations.

As well as the major art spaces across Glasgow taking part in the festivities, including GoMA, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and CCA, many of the smaller, artist-run spaces, such as The Duchy, David Dale and Transmission, will be no less involved. This will make for a varied programme of groundbreaking contemporary art, with big-name acts alongside up-and-coming artists.

This year, the festival organisers offer you the chance to get more involved and support the event with a £20 donation, making you a G.I.P. – a Glasgow International Person. In return you’ll receive, among other things, an artist-designed G.I.P membership card and invitations to an exclusive festival director’s talk and curator-led tours, as well as advance bookings for ticketed festival events.

“Becoming a G.I.P provides you with the best possible opportunity to experience all that the festival has to offer,” says GI’s Dom Hastings.

“For a £20 fee, you’re sent a copy of the festival guide, receive invites to special events and are given advance booking privileges for performances, such as The Making Of at Tramway and A Piece Danced Alone at CCA. On top of that, you’ll have the opportunity to attend exclusive events such as the festival director’s talk, receive an artist-designed G.I.P. membership card and a badge designed by David Shrigley.”

The Making Of is a brand new collaboration between theatre director Graham Eatough and visual artist Graham Fagen. They’ve been working alongside director of photography Michael McDonough and film producer Angela Murray to create a cross-disciplinary event that encompasses theatre, visual art and film. During the first weekend of the festival, the work will consist of a ticketed promenade performance that takes place on a film set, where audience members are invited to participate as extras. For the remainder of the exhibition, visitors can look round the staged environment, which will at times be animated by performers; meanwhile, the resulting footage from the opening weekend will be made into a work in its own right, to be presented at a later date.

A Piece Danced Alone is Zurich-based artist, performer and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis’ most recent work. The performance, which will take place at CCA on Sauchiehall Street, will see two identically dressed performers carry out a sequence of simple movements that, through repetition and transgression, imperceptibly evolves.

To make sure that you get advance booking privileges for these two events, plus many more, visit www.glasgowinternational.org and become a G.I.P. Or for more information about becoming a G.I.P. email sponsorship@glasgowinternational.org or call 0141 353 8041.

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

PHOTO: RUTH CLARK, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND FRITH STREET GALLERY

REVIEW

ART

PREVIEW

BOOKS

REVIEWS WILDWOOD

LEAVING ALEXANDRIA

HIT AND RUN

TRACKMAN

BY COLIN MELOY AND CARSON ELLIS

BY RICHARD HOLLOWAY

BY DOUG JOHNSTONE

BY CATRIONA CHILD

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Prue McKeel was babysitting her baby brother, but could do nothing when he was kidnapped by crows and flown away. She has only one choice: to follow his abductors into the Impassable Wilderness that borders her hometown of Portland, Oregon, and find him. As she and fellow adventurer Curtis embark on their rescue mission, they discover that the threatening forest is not only passable but home to all sorts of creatures; both friend and foe. The two children are caught up in danger aplenty in a place where magic exists and they need to rescue more than just baby Mac.The first in the Wildwood Chronicles series by Decemberists’ lead singer Colin Meloy, this is a charming take on the expedition tale. While there is nothing wildly fresh about the story’s imaginative elements, the pace trots along, and Meloy has a lovely turn of phrase. Meloy’s wife Carson Ellis’s whimsical pictures add an extra dimension to what is a fun, well-crafted adventure story for children and the young at heart. [Alice Sinclair]

RELEASE DATE 1 MAR. PUBLISHED BY CANONGATE. COVER PRICE £10

Like the man himself, Richard Holloway’s autobiography is candid, entertaining and delightfully unstuffy. The former Bishop of Edinburgh traces a thoughtful path through the byways of his life, beginning with a modest upbringing in Dunbartonshire. It’s here that his lifelong love of the movies was ignited, and he ponders whether Hollywood inspired his search for heroic roles in his own life. Looking back, he suggests the search might have been misjudged. 'The tough lesson life teaches is the difference between who you would want to be and who you actually are.' Holloway’s restless, open mind propelled him out of the monastic life and into the wider world, from the Gorbals to Ghana, Edinburgh to America.

Peppered with prose and poetry, the book underlines a profound love of literature. Holloway’s own writing style is elegant and lucid, particularly when addressing religion. Repelled by the supreme convictions of conservative evangelists, Holloway much prefers the quiet, doubting souls who seek to ameliorate the human condition. His support for the homeless and drug addicts, for gay marriage and women priests, has attracted hostility inside and beyond his church. But to his many admirers, Holloway will always be on the side of the angels.

[James Carson]

Doug Johnstone continues his fascination with cliffs and cars in his fourth novel Hit and Run, a story following trainee reporter Billy Blackmore, who, after a night of drinking and drugging, accidentally knocks down Edinburgh’s biggest crime boss. True to the novel’s name, Billy panics and flees the scene of the crime, but fate catches up with him when he finds himself in the unfortunate circumstance of having to cover the story the following day.

Hit and Run promises much, and establishes a great, foreboding atmosphere, but somehow lacks the element of surprise even when it does provide the occasional curveball. You may not see it coming, and yet you remain unsurprised when it does. However, its predictability does not make for a dull read; it’s still a gripping plot with real characters and easy dialogue, which is not to mention its accomplishment in developing a charming central character (and criminal) within the crime genre. Johnstone makes writing an interesting story look easy. He is an exemplary author who works the ‘less is more’ angle perfectly. Anyone, and especially any Scot, will enjoy relating to this novel, at least on a cultural level. [Amy Balloch]

Trackman is a novel told from the perspective of Edinburgh-born Davie Watts. Davie is haunted by the traumatic death of his younger brother Lewey, for which he feels responsible. Following his parents’ divorce and his expulsion from university, Davie is alone and purposeless. That is, until a homeless man insists he take his MP3 player. In Davie’s hands the MP3, affectionately nicknamed Jamesy, helps strangers by playing them tracks in their moment of need. The notion of a magical MP3 player may seem ridiculous but Child skilfully manages to keep the focus on music’s ability to improve people’s lives. The brief glances at the ordinary troubles of strangers are juxtaposed with the extraordinary music player and its life-affirming effects. As 'Trackman', Davie relishes his role helping others, but it also brings home how he failed to help his brother. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with Jamesy and the details of Lewey’s death are revealed it seems that grief will claim Davie’s life as well. This tale of loss and isolation is a powerful piece of contemporary Scottish literature that expertly blends fantastical subject matter with a profound look at the destructive effects of bereavement.

[Rowena McIntosh]

RELEASE DATE 1 MAR. PUBLISHED BY CANONGATE. COVER PRICE £17.99

RELEASE DATE 1 MAR. PUBLISHED BY FABER. COVER PRICE £12.99

OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY LUATH. COVER PRICE £9.99

REVIEW

TECH

Directing people comes more naturally to people than traditional animation

MUVIZU’S MOVES Glasgow’s animators put you in the director’s chair INTERVIEW: ALEX COLE

BITE-SIZED TECH NUGGETS WITH ALEX COLE

THE FEED

FOR ALL the stuff the computer lets anyone do these days, from editing together crappy music video remixes to making your photos look like vintage knockoffs, 3D animation has always been one that’s way out of reach for the common mortal. Thankfully, there’s now a fancy-pants tool to make animating a scene or story as easy as it’s ever been, and all that’s courtesy of a couple of dozen brains in Glasgow.

Muvizu, the animation spin-out of the DA Group, is all about letting users direct an entire scene with minimal effort and maximum emotion. The way head honchos Vince Ryan and Kerry Kasim tell it, “…You tell your actor how to behave – angry, sad,

happy, scared etc. The actors therefore perform as directed, by mood.” The software, built on the Unreal 3 engine, is stylised to accommodate a good array of scenes, and users drop in their script and voices, and let the program take care of the rest. What comes out the other end is a shiny new animation right out of Pixar’s bag of tricks.

“Directing people – telling them what to do and coaxing a performance out of them – comes more naturally to people than traditional animation.”

The real strength of the approach seems to be Muvizu’s rabid user community, who become experts quickly and are very vocal on the forums.

The videos end up as school projects, music

PROOF The Water of Tech

videos, and even regular web series, but the core tools seem to bring together natural storytellers.

“What these clips tend to show is how powerful good writing and clever dialogue can be.” The fact that the software is free doesn’t hurt either.

While any digital start-up these days fights against the London bias, the team at Muvizu seem pretty pleased with the talent available in Scotland.

“We have artists working with us who are worldclass in their field; our developers, too, could give anyone a run for their money.” The office, too, seems littered with the detritus of creative types, all of which seems to contribute to some impressive design and natural animation.

There are a handful of ‘ordinary-people’ level animation programs out there, but few of them have quite the ease, charm, and Scottish irreverence as Muvizu. For a fast, creative tool that can churn out industry-quality work, there ain’t much better.

BOOZING AND tech seldom go together well, save for those moments when drunk dialling your ex seems like the best idea in the world. But webapp Proof seems out to change all that, dragging your laptop or iPad into the mix as techno accompaniment for your next whisky tasting. The app is set up when you’re dragging out the bottles of amber from the cupboard, and once you’ve numbered the guests and named the whiskies, guests take turns diagraming their tasting notes for each.

The app is a good tour of the Scottish whisky landscape, with well-designed little details about every region and bottle you can find. For those after a well-researched guide to the water of life, one could hardly do better.

All that said, it’s easy to think that the fancy pass-about tasting notes will go by the wayside by the fourth glass, to say nothing of your senses.

Whisky’s never taken itself quite as seriously as wine when it comes to tasting, so opining about the peatiness and strength like the professionals doesn’t really seem in the same spirit.

Proof is a good show of what can happen when good design meets a healthy obsession. It’s exactly the right kind of thing for those who want to get deeper into their glasses and the stuff in it, and it’s exactly the kind of thing liable to drown your iPad in a sea of single malt. [Alex Cole]

WWW.MUVIZU.COM

PROOFWHISKY.COM/PROOFAPP/

MASSIVE PROTESTS AGAINST EURO COPYRIGHT LAW, REALLY JUST PIRATING U.S. PROTESTS • SOCIAL NETWORKS STEAL MOBILE CONTACT LISTS, MAKE SNARKIEST APOLOGY EVER • GROUPON MAKES LOSS, EVERYONE PRETENDS IT’S TOTALLY UNEXPECTED • VIDEO GAMES SALES DROP, EVERYONE TOO BURNT OUT FROM CHRISTMAS MARATHONS • FEED FROM IP CAMERAS LEAKED, EVERYONES DIRTY SECRETS EXPOSED • STEVE JOBS DESCRIBED AS LYING LIAR IN RELEASED FBI FILES

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

59

Photo: Leslie Black Photography

THEATRE

the Spirit of adventure

venue of the Month:

Òran Mór

Spring in the West End reaches to Perth, Dundee and the Middle East words: Missy Lorelei

After a cold snap resembling Brigadoon, the first green shoots finally appear, with the Spring season at Òran Mór destined to appeal to a more discerning audience.

Working in conjunction with Perth Theatre for the first time, there are also two co-productions with Dundee Rep, including The Spirit Of Adventure which marks the centenary of Captain Scott’s death, taking place at Dundee’s famous Discovery.

Back in Glasgow, the institution that is A Play, A Pie And A Pint sees productions from such disparate talents as Mel Giedroyc, Gary McNair and Peter MacDougall. And not content with being Scotland’s busiest production house, PPP is introducing a younger generation of theatre-makers to the mix, as part of a double celebration.

The Òran Mór’s 250th performance will be celebrated in grand style with the staging of a

cabaret performance based on the life and work of Jean Jacques Rousseau, as it is 250 years since Rousseau’s seminal work The Social Contract.

Expect an edgier affair with the cream of young acting/writing talent including Cora Bissett, Dave Anderson, Kieran Hurley, Paddy Cunnen, Amanda Monfrooe and Catrin Evans among others.

As if all of this were not enough to drag a jaded punter blinking and bleary-eyed out into the sunshine, a more ambitious collaboration is set to take place – a series of six plays from across the Arab world, in conjunction with the National Theatre Of Scotland.

Curated by David Greig, and engaging directly with the events of last summer, the revolutionary heat of the Arab Spring burns Glasgow’s chilly seasons.

12.30pm, every weekday. Entry includes a pie and a pint, Plays and prices vary www.oran-mor.co.uk/playpiepint.php

All the Fun of the Fair King’s Theatre, 28 Feb - 3 Mar

rrrr Levi Lee owns a travelling fun fair. He’s middleaged, a recent widower and, to add to his distress, he’s in a perpetual fight with his teenager son Jack about the wall of death, a dangerous act during which Jack’s mother died. Around Levi, the lives of the other workers of the fun fair and of a local girl whom Jack loves, intertwine.

This relatively new musical (which debuted in the West End in 2010) is a curious succession of very well crafted scenes and cringeworthy moments, when the singers can’t quite hit their notes or the acting doesn’t flow into dancing and singing as smoothly as it could. The plot is compelling, touching, and not as clichéd as it would appear at the beginning, and in the choice of its subject and characters this musical really is something rather innovative (and has the most singular ending I’ve ever seen on a stage).

All the Fun of the Fair is the product of a

collaboration between producer Jon Conway and stage veteran David Essex, who made his debut in musical theatre in the 70s and has since enjoyed a career in the showbiz as rewarding as it has been varied. The musical features songs previously written by Essex, and re-arranged for the production, alongside new pieces. As it often happens when a celebrity is involved in a show, though, much of the audience’s attention was focused mainly on Essex’s character, and at times the musical seemed to be a tribute to the performer’s career more than anything else.

Although this musical is by no means flawless, and could benefit from recasting, it is a moving and beautifully staged piece of theatre, with exciting choreographies and catchy musical acts that you’ll keep whistling after you leave the theatre.

[Claudia Marinaro] Mon – Sat 7.30pm; Wed & Sat mats 2.30pm £15 - £33 Box Office 0844 871 7648 (Bkg fee) www.atgtickets.com/glasgow

Photo: Jason Tozer

PREVIEWS

GRETEL

Long Day’s Journey Into Night Glasgow Theatre Royal, 26 – 31 Mar

After David Suchet’s breathtaking, Olivier Award-nominated performance alongside Zoë Wannamaker in All My Sons last year, the nation’s favourite Belgian detective stars in another claustrophobic, American family drama. The Glasgow Theatre Royal hosts Suchet in Eugene O’Neill’s Tony Award-winning and haunting masterwork Long Day’s Journey into Night.

The irony is not lost that Suchet – forever Poirot – is portraying James Tyrone Senior, an aging actor who has become tired of playing the same character, but he isn’t the only star in this production. Long Day’s Journey into Night heralds the return to the British stage of Laurie Metcalf, who last graced the boards in the United Kingdom in a 2001 production of – guess what? – All My Sons. Best known for her Emmy

60 THE SKINNY March 2012

winning performance in the acclaimed comedy/ drama Roseanne, and more recently for her appearances as Mary Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, she is an exciting addition to what promises to be a fascinating production. Hopefully, the pair will rival Suchet’s last on-stage marriage.

Taking the director’s chair is Anthony Page, whose award nomination list seems to be infinite. Of particular note is his Tony Award for A Doll’s House; then there is his Middlemarch, which caused a sensation in the early 90s. A Long Day’s Journey into Night may not bring in as much tourism to New London, Connecticut as Middlemarch did with Stamford but it will certainly make an impact at the Theatre Royal.

[Thom Louis]

7pm, £6 -32

Beauty and The Beast Festival Theatre, 15 – 17 Mar

Voted Britain’s favourite ballet company for three years running at the National Dance Awards and housed in a new centre of excellence for dance, it would seem that Northern Ballet have it made.

But with funding cuts of 15 per cent for the period 2012-2015 from Arts Council England, life has been far from easy for the company.

Attesting that love can conquer all, the cuts have done anything but stop the company: box office targets for Beauty and the Beast were broken in 2011 and in the same year, dancer Martha Leebolt won the 2011 Critic’s Circle Award for Best Female Performance (Classical).

Starring Leebolt as Beauty and flaunting breathtaking haute couture style costumes and music

by Saint-Säens, Bizet, Debussy and Glazunov played live by the Northern Ballet Sinfonia, the show promises a feast of talent, melody and style;

having successfully directed and choreographed new productions such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and Peter Pan, Artistic Director David Nixon OBE seems to have tapped into what theatre and ballet buffs want.

Many of us will remember the tale from childhood but the production also offers uniqueness, as Nixon confirms: “This Beauty and the Beast is not an adaptation of the Disney version of the story – it is based on the original tale and will embrace the darker elements of the tale as well as the lighter moments.”

Giving a new lease of life to an old story can be difficult, but the energy, passion and determination on display gives Northern Ballet cause for optimism. Regardless of the critical consensus, you feel this performance is undoubtedly fuelled by love. [Zoë Keown] 7.30pm, Various Prices www.northernballet.com

COMEDY

FLYPAPER FOR FREAKS KEARA PATRICIA MURPHY introduces a few of the freaks she’s romanced and plans to dissect in her Glasgow Comedy Festival show WORDS: KEARA PATRICIA MURPHY PHOTO: MATTHEW BEECH

The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema Friday 16th - Sunday 18th March

A galaxy of stars.

Three jam-packed days.

One unique cinema.

Falkirk Community Trust Registered Charity No. SC042403

Scotland’s only silent film festival returns for a very special weekend of classic and rare silent movies with live performances by internationally renowned musicians and special events for all the family.

Tickets now on sale. follow us on @FalkirkCultural 10 Hope Street, Bo’ness, EH51 0AA Box Office: 01324 506850

BILL HICKS said, “It’s hard to have a relationship in this business. It’s gonna take a very special woman. Or a bunch of average ones.” But what of a woman on the road? Well, when asked if I am seeing anyone ‘special’, I like to say, “Nope, just a bunch of un-special ones.”

The truth is it takes a very special person to understand that being a comedian is not a job; it’s a lifestyle. And they must also put up with it. I was with a very special man who put up with me for seven years. I had a great teaching job at a prestigious girl’s school and a lovely life filled with exotic travel and astonishing crockery.

But I gave it all up to pursue my vocation as a clown. For the road beyond that cosseted world is a rocky one that I had to take alone. Trundling down motorways in hurricanes named after the scrotum, sleeping drunk on gunk-stained couches and vying for the validation of strangers nightly is a maverick’s quest.

Nevertheless, the human need for companionship even extends to comics. So, in an attempt to have some fun with the un-fairer sex, I stumbled into some bad romances. Here are a few…

The Comedian: I fell for his stage character without listening to his weak material and then fell drunkenly into him in a late night bar during the Fringe. Our communication was largely electronic except when he needed somewhere to crash; I was his girl in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, he also had a girl in Leicester, one in Newcastle, one in Melbourne and two in Sydney. Some say he also had a boy in Bognor, but I think that’s just a nasty rumour that I started.

The Television Celebrity: Let’s just say that Krusty the Clown is drawn from a very real character.

The Dotcom Wizkid: When you meet a man at the global event Twestival and discover he is a bit of an internet sensation, it’s something of a shock when he dumps you by snail mail. He might well have also considered dumping me by carrier pigeon or sending the village idiot with a gun. He did, however, send me the Stewart Lee book How I Escaped My Certain Fate. A cruel irony is that I cannot now read

www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org/silentcinemafest

I had a great teaching job at a prestigious girl’s school and a lovely life filled with exotic travel and astonishing crockery KEARA PATRICIA MURPHY

that book for every time I try to pick it up it feels like I have landed the consolation prize on Bullseye and reminds me of what I could have won.

The Incontinent: A very nice young man came back to mine one night to listen to some music, drink some wine and piss on my couch. Yes, it does end there!

The Man Between Contracts: Yes, this is a euphemism for on the broo. He pretended he was a big shot but when we went to pay the bill on our second date, he pulled out his giro. So, I paid the bill as he threw in a few coppers and a penny toffee.

As we were leaving, he asked me for a pound for the bus. So I gave him the pound, along with a map of Princes Street and surrounding district marking the best begging spots in Edinburgh with an X. The Open Relationship: I was offered one of these. I laughed and said, “Is that not just permission to cheat?” And he said, “Well, yeah, it’ll be great!”

So, until another ‘someone special’ arrives in my life, it is my certain fate to continue along this road less travelled fielding out the freaks.

KEARA PATRICIA MURPHY: FLYPAPER FOR FREAKS IS AT THE GRIFFIN, 31 MAR, 8.30PM. TICKETS £8/£6

Tournee With curtain raiser by Miss Gypsy Charms A finale to our Beginners Burlesque workshops, a special screening of the classic French film with an introduction and curtain raiser featuring Gypsy.

Wednesday 14 March 7.30pm • £8 / £6 conc

Falkirk Town Hall, Westbridge St, Falkirk FK1 5RS Box office 01324 506850 | ticketweb.co.uk www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

61

WIN TICKETS TO THE DOORS ALIVE

This year Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prizewinning play A Streetcar Named Desire, reaches the ripe old pension-drawing age of 65. To mark the occasion, Scottish Ballet are producing a new collaboration with theatre and film director Nancy Meckler and international choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

Not only are we offering you the chance to attend this vibrant reimagining of Williams’ stage play, but also the A Streetcar Named Desire Insight; a sneak peek behind the scenes, watching the Company taking class on stage and, time permitting, chatting to one of the dancers about the production and their career so far.

To be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is go to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and tell us:

The time to hesitate is through. The Doors Alive, one of the finest tribute acts around –think great renditions, not a mere lookalike lizard king – are coming to Glasgow’s O2 ABC and Edinburgh’s HMV Picture House. We’ve got our hands on two pairs of tickets for each show to give away.

To enter visit www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions, or scan the QR code with your smartphone, and answer the following question:

Q: WHAT IS THE NAME OF A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE’S LEAD SOUTHERN BELLE?

Please tell us whether you would like tickets to either: HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Fri 6 Apr or O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sat 7 Apr

Q: WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DID NOT APPEAR ON THE DOORS' DEBUT ALBUM? Break on Through (To the Other Side) Light My Fire Love Her Madly

Blanche DuBois Scarlett O’Hara Elle Woods

Competition closes Mon 2 Apr

Please also indicate whether you would like to attend either: Theatre Royal, Glasgow on Sat 14 Apr or Festival Theatre, Edinburgh on Sat 21 Apr.

Winners will be notified on the day of closing and will be required to respond within 72 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. For full terms and conditions, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/ about/terms

Competition closes Mon 2 Apr

WWW.SCOTTISHBALLET.CO.UK

62 THE SKINNY MARCH 2012

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

PHOTO: A. PRZYBYLSKA

COMPS

WIN TICKETS TO SCOTTISH BALLET’S PRODUCTION OF A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Glasgow music Tue 28 Feb

Fri 02 Mar

Sun 04 Mar

New Build

Woodenbox

Boots Electric

Xiu Xiu

Sun 18 Mar

Sleigh Bells

Lemon Party (Daizy Bomb, Meanwhile City)

The Idols Tours 2012 (The Sneaky Russians, Restless Sinners, Dana O’Hara, The Avenues, The Monty Hall Problem, The Wilde)

Collective made up of Al Doyle, Tom Hopkins and Felix Martin, between them members of Hot Chip and LCD Soundsytem, or both in Al Doyle’s case.

Jesse Hughes (of Eagles of Death Metal) does his solo thing as Boots Electric, his cheeky electro-esque side project.

Pulse

Wed 07 Mar

Experimental art-rock from New York riding along on ringmaster Jamie Stewart’s self-indulgent delivery, resplendent with obscure dollops of 80s new romanticism and lyrics about sex, love and politics.

Caro Emerald

Alternative band showcase as part of The Idols Tour 2012.

Ali Downey’s Americana-styled folk ensemble return with a clipped back moniker, but the same propensity for full-on barn-raising anthems, playing the night before they head to SXSW 2012.

Glasgow-based psych-rock trio comprising of JJ McGowan (aka solo artist Baldego), James Whyte and Michael Murray.

Gotye

Sound Of Guns (The Mirror Trap)

The Belgian multi-instrumentalist (apparently pronounced Gaultier) responsibe for the earworm that is Somebody That I Used To Know.

Liverpudlian alternative rock scamps, likely battle-scarred from touring with The View back at the end of 2011.

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £12

Super-hip and super-hyped NYC duo peddling the kind of aggressive, dynamic industrial-pop that makes for one helluva live show.

Norma Jean (The Chariot, Stray from the Path, Admirals Arms) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12

Atlanta’s post-hardcore giants tour on the back of last years Meridional LP. Expect nowt less than sonic bedlam.

Tyler Ward

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £15

Denver-based singer/songwriter and producer whose interests apparently include cheese pizza and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We hear you.

Circus of Sounds (Public Authority, Citizen) Pivo Pivo, 19:30–23:30, £tbc

Bizarre mish-mash of a night, much like a circus, mixing music, popcorn, facepaints and drunken antics.

Hot Jupiter (Bohemond, Mr Wishart)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8

Alternative indie-rock quartet hailing from the fiery musical furnace of Dunoon.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £3

Counterfeit Clash

Pivo Pivo, 19:30–22:00, £5

The Arches, 12:00–20:00, £15 (£10) festival pass

Annual festival of mould-breaking music, sound and performance, this year focusing on the idea of music as a gift, and featuring Julien Lonchamp, Wounded Knee and collaborative duo Jer Reid and Jenny Soep, amongst others.

Victim Of A Hero (Breakfast On Pluto, Bekon, Beneath The Oceans, Sunrise In Shanghai) Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £4

Rae Morris (Garbiel and the Hounds)

The King Hats (Wecamefromwolves)

Young Blackpool singer/songwriter singing about love ‘n’ stuff.

Wed 29 Feb Cast The Net (Nettles, The Last September, Airplay) Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Bi-monthly showcase taking in a handpicked selection of exciting new Scottish artists and bands.

Bellow Below (Mondegreen) Pivo Pivo, 19:30–23:30, £4

Energetic ensemble, full of hooks, shouts and angular guitar lines that lean towards the progressive.

Scroobius Pip

The Arches, 19:30–22:00, £12.50

Vocalist and rapper Scroobius Pip does his oft-political solo lyrical thing, minus regular sparring partner Dan Le Sac.

Boxes

The Arches, 19:30–22:00, £7

Sat 03 Mar The Stranglers

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £23

The long-standing punk-rockers celebrate the 35th anniversary of their debut single, Grip.

Majestic Dandelion (Rising Souls, Dirty Sally)

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:30, £5 adv. (£8 door)

The Paisley groove rock trio launch their debut album.

Green Door Clinic (The Blind Watchmakers, Paradigm Shift, Soul Circus)

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

The Duke Spirit (Sissy and The Blisters)

Alternative rock trio, made up of three ex-aspiring fisherman (so say they).

Punchy London ensemble noted for the authentic twenty-a-day vocals of irrepressible frontwoman Leila Moss, channeling the muscular spirit of classic rock with hella energy.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £5

Thu 01 Mar Justin Furstenfeld

Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

The Blue October frontman goes it alone.

Cast The Net (Suspire, Fridge Magnets) Bloc+, 21:00–23:00, Free

Bi-monthly showcase taking in a handpicked selection of exciting new Scottish artists and bands.

The Silver Seas

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £12

The Nashville duo further hone their brand of melancholy, countryinflected jangle-pop, all deeply nostalgic and lovely like.

Hooray For Earth (Cur$es, Nevada Base)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £7 adv.

Experimental thrash-pop New York duo built around the home recordings of frontman and multi-instrumentalist Noel Heroux.

Maverick Sabre (Ms Dynamite, Aruba Red)

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

London born, Irish-raised, soulful hip-hop singer/songwriter discovered by Plan B.

Cave Painting (Blue Sky Archives) Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £5

Ambient Brighton band gently traversing the line between chillout and tropical.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10

King Charles (We Were Evergreen)

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £8

Charming longhaired folkster and winner of the the 2009 International Songwriting Competition over America-way.

The Ruckus (Gutter Godz, Miss Lucid, The Shakedown Project) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £5

Alternative rockers The Ruckus launch their debut album, alongside support from label mates Guttergodz.

Gretchen Peters (Lynne Hanson) The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £16

The honey-toned American singer/ songwriter does her countified folk thing.

The Stagger Rats

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Tight psychobilly indie-rock from the Edinburgh-based quintet.

Sound Thought 2012

The Arches, 12:00–20:00, £15 (£10) festival pass

Annual festival of mould-breaking music, sound and performance, this year focusing on the idea of music as a gift, and featuring Julien Lonchamp, Wounded Knee and collaborative duo Jer Reid and Jenny Soep, amongst others.

It Girl, Sick Kids, The Mademoiselle, Imaginary Witch 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £6

The Northern Appointment

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

Protest The Hero (Long Distance Calling, Blood Command, Uneven Structure)

The Rosy Crucifixion (Mother Ganga)

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Glasgow garage-rockers offering a moody and atmospheric take on the genre.

Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £20

Alternative country types par excellence, Nashville’s Lambchop take to the road armed with their new album, another collection of pleasingly peculiar and melancholy songwriting.

Gabrielle Aplin (Josh Kumra) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Experimental musician working her magic over the folk-pop template, all hints of choirs and twinkly noises.

Carnivores, The Darien Venture, Cuddly Shark, No Island Stereo, 19:00–23:15, £5

Scottish music blog The Daily Dose brings together a trio of Scottish rock acts, including dynamic mathrockers Carnivores, all playing in aid of Action For Children.

Tue 06 Mar Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £19.50

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £11

The Ontario progressive metal quintet do their headcaving-cumdanceable thing.

Chimaira (Revoker, Neosis) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £16

Cleveland-based metallic hardcore crew led by the sing-bark of Mark Hunter.

Little Doses

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

Ex-Snow Patrol founding member and bass player, Mark McClelland, and his band of indie-rockers launch their debut album.

I Build Collapsible Mountains (Finn LeMarinel, Ben Proudlock)

Tchai-Ovna House of Tea, 20:00–22:00, Free

Acoustic fundraiser headered by former Gothenburg Address guitarist Luke G Joyce, aka I Build Collapsible Mountains, doing his rather lovely one-man-with-a-guitar-and-somemelancholy-tales-to-tell thing.

Max Raptor (Hildamay) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Midlands foursome fusing classic punk attitude with plenty ballsy riffs and raucous lyrical chants.

Chiddy Bang

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £10

Mary Jean Lewis and Her Low Men (Des Horfall, Andy McKerlie)

Nottingham-based quintet led by Robert Milton, doing a rather fine line in uplifting pop harmonies.

We Can Still Picnic Records launch their new 12-inch white vinyl, capturing the best of neu Scottish.

Portland-hailing new signings to Chemikal Underground, lush with multitasking strings and swirling vocals.

Sat 10 Mar Mayer Hawthorne and The County

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £13

Classic soul offerings from US singer/songwriter/producer/DJ/ rapper/all-round talented bugger.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6.50

Cass McCombs (Alasdair Roberts)

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £9.50

More musically melancholic but lyrically sharp offerings from the US singer/songwriter, all hesitant and delicately rendered.

The Hampshire-born nu-folkster moves from slow-burning tales of forbidden love to building barnstormers, as is her merry way.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £5

Glaswegian trio pilfering from across the pond, all heart-flipping indie grrrl harmonies, grunged-up guitars and shimmering LA rock.

Fri 09 Mar Mark Lanegan Band O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Mark Lanegan brings his soulful baritone to bear on Glasgow’s O2 ABC, touring on the back of his first studio album in eight years, the mighty Blues Funeral.

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £26.50

X-Factor winner done good(ish), touring on the back of his debut LP. The Wet Wet Wet bass guitarist makes his solo comeback.

Williwaw (Owen Brimijoin) Mono, 20:30–23:30, Free

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The tech-happy Glasgow five-piece tour on the back of their new EP, a predictably genre-hopping mix of jazz, rock and powerpop.

Nick Harper

Woodend Bowling Club, 20:00–22:30, £10

The English singer/songwriter does his acoustic folk-rock thing, complete with trademark acerbic lyrics.

A bit o’ ukulele mayhem as Williwaw brings his merry calvacade of melodious din to Mono to launch his new EP.

The Young Aviators (Copper Lungs, Smart)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

Alternative new wave from the Glasgow-via-Ireland trio of cheeky chappies.

Eddy and The T-Bolts

Killing Joke

Metallic punk-rock, all bishy-bashy and that.

Jaz Coleman’s uncompromising post-punk unit tour under their original incarnation, getting us even more hyped for the new album that’s scheduled for arrival in April 2012.

B Dolan (Hector Bizerk, Syanley Odd)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £19.50

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £sold out

Dutch singer/songwriter specialising in lyrical tales of romance set over a blend of Samba, jazz, bossa nova, mambo and crackling vinyl.

Diagrams (Yeti Lane, Matt Wilson) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7

Alternative pop offerings from Tunng’s former co-frontman, working with a rolling cast of collaborators (i.e it’ll be nothing short of magical).

The Four Tops, The Temptations SECC, 19:00–22:00, From £35

Classic Motown hitmakers, times two.

Open Swimmer (Adam Stearns, Easy Tiger)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Glasgow quartet based around the songs of frontman Ben Talbot-Dunn, intent on exploring pop music in all its facets.

Easy, Tiger! (Adam Stearns and the Glass Animals, Ben TD) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £5

The legend with the twangy fingers that is Jim MacAteer brings you his new project of harmonic, stripped-back songwriting.

Mon 19 Mar

Fri 16 Mar

Mon 12 Mar

Pivo Pivo, 19:30–22:00, £10

American rapper B Dolan jets into Glasgow for an intimate headline show, with support from two of Scotland’s finest hip-hoppers.

Nero

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Electronic dance duo made up of Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray, accompanied by Alana Watson on vocal duties.

Wild Mercury Sound King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Indie-rock foursome hailing from the haven of cool that is London, and named after a Bob Dylan quote to boot.

Nazareth

Florence and The Machine

Dunfermline legends Nazareth pull out all the proto-metal stops. Expect no mercy.

Florence Welch and her merry band do their much-loved indie-pop thing.

InMe

Tue 20 Mar

Bach Violin Recital (Agnieszka Opiola)

Essex rock quartet chock with the emo drum syncopation and Bullet For My Valentine guitars that we’ve come to expect.

Dispatch

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:30, £17.50

SECC, 18:30–22:00, £tbc

Amon Amarth

Haight Ashbury (Captain and the Kings)

CCA, 19:30–22:00, £5

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

Skippy Dyes (Wrongnote, Whigs and Rakes, The Mademoiselle)

Phat Trophies

Destroyers of the Faith (Cannibal Corpse, Triptykon, Enslaved, Job For a Cowboy)

Dog Is Dead (Strange October, The Craybees)

Wake The President, Casual Sex, Post, Aggi Doom, Sexual Objects

Loch Lomond

Birmingham duo of the grinding black metal type.

Thu 08 Mar

Up-beat tunes from the Glasgow polyrhythmic indie-rockers/super cool dudes.

Woodend Bowling Club, 20:00–22:30, £10

Cosmic Dead side-project, of the dark and jammin’ variety.

Thu 15 Mar

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £9

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Solo violin performance, with visual input from Craig Hausman.

Pronto Mama

The niece of legendary showman Jerry Lee Lewis showcases her own material and a selection of old classics, with full band support.

Graeme Clark

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Dublin quartet bonding over a shared love of distorted guitars, blistering harmonius pop, art rock and electronica.

Pop-sampling hip-hop duo (aka Chiddy and Xaphoon Jones) adding electronica and afrobeat to their club-styled frothy mix.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Fukpig (Sunsmasher, Circle of Tyrants)

French Wives

Funeral Suits (Great Cops)

Brooklyn ensemble intent on replicating the exact character of vintage soul, all authentic and heartfelt.

Seditionnaries live band night.

Matt Cardle (Roxanne Emery)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £6

The Old Hairdressers, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Debut gig for the Glaswegian post rock ensemble.

The Indiana native brings his countrified folk outfit to Glasgow.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Lambchop

Pivo Pivo, 19:30–22:00, £5

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

The mighty Future Islands do their badass new-wave pop thing, with funkinflected lead singer Sam Herring likely growling his way through the set.

Austin Lucas and The Bold Party (Moonshine Docks, Tragical History Tour)

LA-based, French singer-cum-actress SoKo (aka Stephanie Sokolinski) takes to Glasgow armed with her new LP, as lyrically whimsical as ever.

Alternative line-up of bands playing in aid of MIND.

Future Islands (Way Through)

Inaugural Metal Hammer tour, headered by death metal innovators Cannibal Corpse, alongside some of the biggest names in extreme music.

Mon 05 Mar

Echobass, Tongue Acrobats

Glasgow-based Celtic rockers drawing inspiration from a variety of musical styles, from black metal to the minimalist compositions of Yann Tiersen.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £5

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

SoKo

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £10 adv.

Glasgow rock quartet made up of longtime friends from various different bands, united under the powerful tones of frontman Scott Hetherington.

Laura Marling

The Griffin, 19:00–23:00, £5

Emilio Largo (Hold The Suspect, Last Summer Effect)

Unashamedly informed by new-wave and punk, this chirpy fivesome delight in channeling everyone from Siouxsie Sioux to the Pixies and back again.

night out...

Heart Of Rust

Hard rockin’ Glasgow five-piece, fusing catchy guitar riffs with choirboyesque three-part harmonies.

Shrag (Tunabunny)

your

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8.50

Falloch (Thulah Borah, Suplex The Kid)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

would you rather spend

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £12

Stuntman Mike

Skullwizard (Low Sonic Drift)

How

Glaswegian indie-punksters headered by Alan Power.

Neil Young and Crazy Hourse tribute act.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

The Glasgow indie troupe do their twinkling folk-meets-spunky pop thing, all singalongable and lovely like.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Indie-styled electro popsters hailing from south east London, all colliding melodies and messed-up synths.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Sound Thought 2012

Edinburgh-based metalcore noisemakers, headered by self-proclaimed badass motherfucker Bruce Lean.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

The Clash tribute act.

Ottowa rockers formed as a sideproject to Hungry Monkey.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

O2 ABC, 18:00–22:00, £6

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

Organ and drum kit duo made up of Hillary Von Scoy and Chris White.

LMFAO

The Old Hairdressers, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Tue 13 Mar

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £12

Sat 17 Mar The Felice Brothers (Craig Finn) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14.50

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Swedish death metallers of the longhaired and melodic variety, playing ahead of their Hammerfest appearance.

NYC five-piece formed by brothers James and Ian Felice, ready to take you on a mud-stomping folk journey, as is their way. Rescheduled date.

Veronica Falls (Novella, Palms) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £8

Stripped-back acoustic set from the ramshackle London four-piece.

Yashin

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

Scottish post-hardcore sextet who enjoy screaming, ear-splitting riffs and guitar arpeggios.

Fiction Faction (Miniature Dinosaurs)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Glasgow-based quartet launch their new single, doing their keyboards on guitars that sound like guitars played on keyboards thing.

Bored rigid at the latest

3D sequel

Or Blown away

by fantastic live music...

Martin John Henry

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £6

Martin John Henry (aka the guy from the recently reformed De Rosa) launches his new single.

Muscles of Joy, Rad Kjetil Senza Testa, Wounded Knee CCA, 20:00–22:00, £5

Warm-up for Cry Parrot’s curated evening at the Swedish music festival, MADE, featuring a collaboration between experimental Scottish vocalist Wounded Knee and Swedish outfit Rad Kjetil Senza Testa.

Viking Galaxy (The Collective, John Hendry) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Pokey Lafarge and The South City Three Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £10

Country blues and early jazz restyled for the 21st century, thanks to the suited-and-booted St Louis musician and his live band.

White Hills

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £8

Expect psychedelia grooves, otherworldly bleeps and huge chunks of gnarly formless noise from the fuzzed-oot New York rockers.

Psykick Dancehall (Jack Allett, Ben Nash)

Who’s Who

The Old Hairdressers, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £11

Experimental guitar and electronics from Jack Allett and Ben Nash.

Thu 22 Mar Sunshine Social

Sinead O’Connor

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £23

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £10 adv. (£15 door)

The Oakland hip-hoppers make their live return.

Father Murphy (Citizens)

The Seattle rockers perform their self-titled debut album in full.

Experimental art rockers building their sound on the back of some hellish guitar noise.

Industrial techno-meets-dance duo aimed squarely at the heart of the dancefloor.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £8

Michigan-based indie-pop singer/ songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

Glasgow and London-stradding singer/songwritier blending country, soul and blues, launching her new album on the night.

The Presidents of the United States of America

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:30, £10

Alex Winston

Wed 14 Mar

Souls Of Mischief

XP8

Producer, MC and all-round grime master Wiley (aka Richard Cowie) does his electronic meets hip-hop fusion thing, topped off with his inimitable snappy lyrical flow. Rescheduled date.

Emma Jane (Chris Blair)

The Selecter

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

Wed 21 Mar Wiley

The Who tribute act.

Irish singer/songwriter taking to the road again after the release of her 9th album.

2-tone ska revival band formed in Coventry back in 1979, back on the live circuit.

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £5

Scottish indie-rockers led by Robert Shields, and accompanied by a fourstrong string section.

Glasgow’s very own Scandinavian keyboard-styled metal band. Amen.

Sun 11 Mar Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £14

Finding Albert

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12

Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £12.50

Hollywood-based electro duo made up of Redfoo and Sky Blu (could they sound any hipper?).

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £15

The Boston rockers take in Glagsow as part of their very first European tour.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £5

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway SECC, 19:00–22:00, £25

Live reproduction of Genesis’ 1974 album of the same name.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £5

Sting

SECC, 19:00–22:00, From £46.50

The musician-cum-activist plays the intimate (ahem) surrounds of Glasgow’s SECC, celebrating his 25th anniversary with a stripped-down set.

Stiff Little Fingers

Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

Original punk-pop four-piece, par excellence.

Port Cullas (The Heretics) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Classic-styled Glasgow rockers.

Summer Camp

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

New indie-pop project from London chap Jeremy Warmsley, accompanied by Elizabeth Sankey on softly, softly vocals.

Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £4

Launch of the 2012 Billy Kelly award for emerging songwriters, alongside a live set from 2010 award winners Sunshine Social, launching their first EP.

Spiritualized

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

With their textured guitar rock as thunderously emotive as ever, Jason Pierce and the gang tour their seventh album.

The Minutes (All The Young, Sonic Thrill) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Dublin cousins Mark Austin and Shane Kinsella, joined by fellow Dubliner Tom Cosgrove, grab their Fisher Price guitars for a bit of surging rock’n’roll.

The Wave Pictures

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £8 adv.

Witty indie-pop trio headered by vocalist and guitarist Dave Tattersall.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

63

G lasgow music

E D I N B U R G H music

Fri 23 Mar

Sun 25 Mar

Korn (Downlink, J Devil)

Tue 28 Feb

Inspiral Carpets

Jacuzzi Boys

The psychedelic Manc rockers regroup with original singer Stephen Holt, back touring their first new material in 15 years (plus some classics, naturally).

New member of Hardly Art’s roster, the Miami trio have been spitting garage-pop fire since 2009, when a run of successful 7-inches gave way to their first LP.

The Californian nu-metallers take their tenth studio album to the road, “filled to buggery with pointless robot noises and ultrahardcore WUB WUB WUB-iness”, so say we.

The Cast Of Cheers, Theme Park

Tippa Irie

MakethisRelate (Campfires In Winter)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

O2 ABC, 20:00–22:00, £12.50

The South London dancehall musician of yesteryear takes to the live scene again, accompanied by his full band.

Ben Poole Band (The Ashtones, Stephen Flavahan) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7

Young blues guitarist infused with a hard-hitting in yer face rock approach.

Organs Of Love (Uncle Chop Chop)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £tbc

Glasgow-based Optimo Music signees riding along on a veritable behemoth of lo-fi weirdness.

Hype Williams (Silk Cut, Nackt Insecten) SWG3, 22:00–02:00, £10 adv.

Elusive Berlin duo currently setting the underground scenes pants on fire with their unique brand of refracted dub, lo-fi scuzz and two step syntheses.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £7 adv.

Stereo, 19:30–22:00, £6 adv. (£7 door)

Glasgow alternative rock trio, offering up stadium-sized pop melodies with an energetic rock aggression.

The Queers

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Punk-rock outfit formed by New Hampshire native Joe King (aka Joe Queer) back in 1981.

Mon 26 Mar

The Pop Group mainman does his solo thing, in turn reflecting on an unmatchable track record of anarchic pioneering.

or Liz Green

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8

Tue 27 Mar

The influential New York MC deft at making minds tick and bodies move, such is his talent.

Bowling For Soup

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Sat 24 Mar A Night Of Queen with The Bohemians O2 ABC, 18:30–22:00, £10

Queen tribute act.

Black Stone Cherry

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £16

Kentucky rockers riding along on their anthemic tunes and long-flowing locks.

Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:30, £8

Principle songwriter in The Wonder Stuff since 1986, Miles Hunt takes to the road with fellow band member Erica Nockalls.

The Law (Vladimir, The Soviets) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

Dundonian rock’n’rollers in possession of big ol’ riffs, stirring melodies and a sweet harmony or two.

Touche Amore (Pianos Became The Teeth) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £10

LA-based hardcore rock quintet.

What The Blood Revealed

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £13

Jaret and Erik return to Glasgow for a stripped-back acoustic performance.

The Coatbridge duo play two special shows over the weekend; one stripped down accoustic performance, and one full live band show.

French Wives

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Glasgow indie troupe do their twinkling folk-meets-spunky pop thing, all singalongable and lovely like.

Little Dragon

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

Gothenburg natives splattering a broad pallet of influences against a canvas of intricate pop.

Wed 29 Feb BBDO: Big Band

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:00, £4 (£3)

Informal rehearsal-cum-gig, featuring 13 brass and saxes with four rhythm sections. That do ye?

Communion: Rae Morris (Gabriel and The Hounds, Naledi Herman, Reubam)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Cast

Ben Lovett (of Mumford & Sons) brings his touring night Edinburgh-way, with a headline set from young Blackpool singer/songwriter Rae Morris.

John Power takes his Britpop ensemble back on the road, touring their new album Troubled Times.

The Diversions, Callum Beattie, Blues For Pocketmoney

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £20

Latecomers

Lauries Bar, 20:15–23:00, Free

Acoustic pop loveliness from the Glasgow-based outfit.

The Bucky Rage (Seafield Foxes, Dirty Red Turncoats, The Wildhouse) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The veritable noisefest that is Glasgow’s The Bucky Rage, still riding high on their new line-up, new songs and the ever-present hard-ass ethic.

The Strange Boys

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8

Texan rock’n’roll ensemble headered

by Ryan Sambol, whose vocals we once described as “cartoon hound Droopy singing Rod Stewart”. Enjoy.

Sat 31 Mar Hue and Cry: Full Band O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £24.50

The Coatbridge duo play two special shows over the weekend; one stripped down accoustic performance, and one full live band show.

Song Of Return (Indian Red Lopez) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £5

Rock quartet hailing from Glasgow, who met and formed in the musical haven that is Nice ‘n’ Sleazy.

Whistlebinkies, 19:30–02:30, free

The Diversions do their alternative rock thing, served up in classic and progressive doses, alongside singer/ songwriter Callum Beattie and Blues For Pocketmoney’s blues-y thing.

Thu 01 Mar Venus Alone

Meadows Bar, 19:30–22:00, £3 (£2)

Venus Carmichael tribute act, accompanied by instalments of the musician’s life story being read aloud by Writers’ Bloc regulars Helen Jackson and Kirsti Wishart.

Withered Hand, The Pictish Trail (Second Hand Marching Band)

The Caves, 20:00–01:00, £10 adv.

Twisted folk fairytales are the order of the day as Withered Hand welcomes his new EP into the world with his first full band show of 2012, playing a doubleheadliner set with fellow Fencer’s The Pictish Trail.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Local alternative rock talent incorporating reggae, ska and jazz into their lively mix.

Wet Nuns (Fat Goth, Hagana)

Indie Funday Friday (Aperture, Sneaky Pete, Ded Rabbit, Universal Thee, Sister Bitch)

Sat 03 Mar

Double bill of alternative folk with Zoey Van Goey’s Michael-John McCarthy’s side project, Radio Trees, and cockle-warming Edinburgh folk quintet Loch Awe.

Monthly indie-pop night where a selection of, er, indie-pop acts play in aid of local charities.

The Anti-Nowhere League

Citrus Club, 19:30–22:00, £10 adv. (£13 door)

Long-standing punk rockers, on the go since 1980.

The Machine Room (Blank Canvas, Zed Penguin)

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4 adv. (£5 door)

Expect dazzling synth and sugary guitar pop noises as The Machine Room launch their new EP.

The Shattered Family (Homesick Aldo)

Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–23:00, £5

One off reunion for Edinburgh’s post-punk psychedelic sensation, purveyors of the finest schizo-pop between 1984 and 1988.

Imagineers

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Glasgow four-piece offering an intriguing blend of 50s rock’n’roll, Scottish twang and cinematic flair.

The Mike Kearney Ka-Tet (Lewis Gibson and The Midas Touch, Rossco Galloway)

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:30, £5

Anti-Nowhere League: Aftershow party (Sad Society, Shock and Awe, Acid Fascists) Henry’s Cellar, 22:30–03:00, £5

After-bash for the Citrus Club gig with long-standing punk rockers Anti-Nowhere League.

The Wakefield indie-rockers do their guitar-heavy and frantic thing, previewing a selection of new material to a sold out Edinburgh crowd.

Edinburgh indie-rockers The Alibis headline a charity fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support, with a live raffle alongside.

Studio 24, 19:00–22:00, £6.50

Opium, 20:00–23:00, £6

Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £15

Spaced In The City (Seventeenth Century, Adam Stears and the Glass Animals, The Japanese War Effort, Dead Boy Robotics, Los Tentakills)

Emilio Largo (Hold The Suspect)

Feist

Unique chance to explore Gallery 1 at The Lighthouse with a live music visual art and installation from a selection of artists.

The Plimptons (We Are The Physics, The Girobabies, Cracktown)

Amy Duncan Presents: Riley Briggs and PJ Lynch

You Me At Six

SECC, 18:30–22:00, £tbc

Angst rock of the mosh-by-numbers emo variety.

Black Veil Brides

Glam metal-styled Hollywood rock quintet, leather-clad and eyeliner-ed to the max.

Royal Concert Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £23.50

The Canadian songstress and Broken Social Scene showcases tracks from her album, Metals, at once stunning in its intimacy, and overwhelmingly powerful.

Wed 28 Mar Steel Panther (The Treatment) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £16

LA quartet churning out the tonguein-cheek glam metal tunes to a happy bunch of dedicated followers.

Leeds-based singer/songwriter describing his sound as “big morbid death pop”. We’re sold.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Thu 29 Mar Cast The Net (Copper Lungs, The Puppet State, Marionettes) Bloc+, 21:00–23:00, Free

Bi-monthly showcase taking in a handpicked selection of exciting new Scottish artists and bands.

The Lighthouse, 18:00–01:00, £8

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £6

Playful DIY pop offerings from the Glasgow-based mainstays on the go since 1999. All ticket-holders get a free copy of their new album upon entrance.

Happy Particles

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Ambient Glasgow space-rockers slowly shifting between chords.

This Feeling (Draymin, The Janice Graham Band, Selective Service, Sulk, The Coral DJs)

Chambre 69, 20:00–02:00, £8 adv. (£10 door)

The favourited Glasgow rock’n’roll night takes a trip to Scotland, with a selection of live bands warming up for indie-rock royalty The Coral gracing the decks.

Kylie Mynoise, Noma+Guy Veale, Lamplighter

The Old Hairdressers, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Local experimental music showcase.

64 THE SKINNY March 2012

Thomas Truax (Billy Liar) The one-man band that is Thomas Truax does his experimental joy of a thing, made al the more wondrous by his inclination to build musical instruments out of household appliances.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Alternative rock trio, made up of three ex-aspiring fisherman (so say they).

The Third Door, 20:00–23:00, £3

Singer/songwriter Amy Duncan is joined

by Aberfeldy’s Riley Briggs and PJ Lynch for her regular live acoustic session.

Fri 02 Mar The Friday Fix (Janey Godley, Susan Morrison, Keara Murphy) Voodoo Rooms, 18:30–23:00, £9

Favourited pick’n’mix Friday night bill of comedy, live music and DJs.

Big On Road Tour 2012 (Lil Simz, Exo, Geko, Colours Miyagi, Diva Twins, Mad Hat McGore) Studio 24, 19:00–23:00, £tbc

Live hip-hip showcase.

Motown Idol

Potterrow, 20:30–01:00, £8 (£5)

Ten singers perform ten legendary tracks from the Motown record label, alongside the mighty Edinburgh University Jazz Orchestra big band.

Maccabees

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £17

Brighton-based indie kids touring on the back of their new album, Given To The Wild – a decidedly jingly-jangly pop affair, as one might expect.

Tue 06 Mar

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £4

Home from Home (Roo Panes, Josh Flowers and The Wild, The Tin Cans) Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £5

Chilled, folk-styled music showcase, featuring London-based indie-folk singer/songwriter Roo Panes.

Wed 07 Mar The Black Diamond Express (Miss Hell’s Belle, The Strawberry Wildcard) The Caves, 20:00–23:00, £5

Voodoo Rooms, 19:15–23:00, £6

Rootsy-pop singer/songwriter Adam Holmes plays accompanied by his fivestrong band of players, The Embers.

Haight Ashbury

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Glaswegian trio pilfering from across the pond, all heart-flipping indie grrrl harmonies, grunged-up guitars and shimmering LA rock.

Dog Is Dead (Kyla La Grange)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6.50 adv.

Nottingham-based quintet led by Robert Milton, doing a rather fine line in uplifting pop harmonies.

Salsa Buena (Sierra Maestra) Jam House, 20:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

Salsa night headered by Cuban band Sierra Maestra, on the go since the late 70s.

Thu 08 Mar Earth (Mount Eerie, O PAON)

Sun 04 Mar

The Caves, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Little Doses

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, Free

Ex-Snow Patrol founding member and bass player, Mark McClelland, and his band of indie-rockers launch their debut album.

Alternative showcase headered by the fast and bleak melodic punk-rock of Uniforms, warming up for their UK tour.

Music download portal Ten Tracks and video LaB join forces for a rather ace night of live music and video art.

Edinburgh University Untapped Talent Society

Beautifully cinematic soundscapes consisting mainly of snail-paced, barely-there drumming, droney textures and minute guitar licks.

Fri 09 Mar

Instrumental rock trio featuring Guthrie Govan (guitar), Bryan Beller (bass) and Marco Minnemann (drums), playing the final gig of their 2012 tour.

Band showcase night from Untapped Talent.

The Selecter

Citrus Club, 19:30–22:00, £10 adv.

2-tone ska revival band formed in Coventry back in 1979, back on the live circuit.

3 Doors Down (Seether)

Who’s Edna? (The Diversions)

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4 (£3)

The local indie-pop outfit launch their new EP down’t the Wee Red.

to sweat it out in a mosh pit

or

£10 house

...

Amy MacDougall and Dave MacGregor

Nobles Bar, 22:00–23:30, Free

The lovely Amy MacDougall performs a live session alongside collaborative partner Dave MacGregor.

Lach, Cal Abungah Dee, Rossco Galloway

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £3

Lower east-side punk poet Lach, Brooklyn-based talent Cal Abungah Dee and local talent Rossco Galloway join forces for an antifolk threeway megajam.

Mon 12 Mar

Fiery blues-rock guitarist whose natural habitat is a barroom somewhere in Indianapolis.

Black Jack (Backlash, Angus Buchan)

The Marvels (Miasma, Nevada Base and Clog and The Quirks)

Hard, southern-styled rock as the Edinburgh quintet throw a digital launch for their new EP, which will then be available on their online store.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh’s own piano pop trio launch their new single, Perceptive Romance, with the help of Miasma, Nevada Base and Clog and The Quirks.

The 10:04s (The Little Kicks, The Rah’s)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv. (£6 door)

Local indie-punk quartet playing a hometown gig in celebration of the release of their new single, SOS.

So Many Wizards (Adam Stafford, LeThug) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Touring American popsters playing the Edinburgh leg of their, with stellar local support from Adam Stafford doing his ever-inventive solo thing.

Sat 10 Mar Jayhawks and Richmond Fontaine

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

The 80s-formed alternative country ensemble play a double-header set with fellow alternative country maestros, Richmond Fontaine.

Forever Young

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £3

Tue 13 Mar Souls Of Mischief (Silvertongue)

Electric Circus, 19:00–01:00, £10 adv.

The seminal Native Tongues Oakland hip-hoppers make their live return.

Fablewood

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £5

The Edinburgh indie-folk tunesmiths corral their freewheeling whimsy into beguiling song form.

Wed 14 Mar Edinburgh Unlimited #8 (Naledi Herman, Laurie Cameron, The Last of Barrett’s Privateers) The Third Door, 20:00–22:30, £3

Rather fine showcase night offering up a varied trio of acts, including The Last of Barrett’s Privateers stomping onslaught of songwriting brilliance.

Amen.

Jammin’ at Voodoo

Voodoo Rooms, 21:00–23:00, Free

Monthly live jam session, with some of Scotland’s leading musicians playing lounge grooves from myriad genres.

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Thu 15 Mar

Limbo (Chris Helme, Chris Bradley, Mike Nisbet)

Stomp The Yard (Nasty P, Jackin’ The Box, Psycho Stylez, Activate, The Symmetrix)

AC/DC tribute act.

Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Beloved gig-in-a-club night, this time headered by Chris Helme (of The Seahorses) playing an intimate set.

Nick Harper

Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–23:00, £11

The English singer/songwriter does his acoustic folk-rock thing, complete with trademark acerbic lyrics.

Bainbridge Music take their wares to Leith, with a showcase night headered by Edinburgh’s own Afroexperimentalists Bwani Junction.

Loch Lomond (Frances McKee)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £7 adv.

The Caves, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 11.30)

Fourth installment of the charity hip-hop showcase, raising funds for UNICEF, WaterAid and First Aid Africa.

Napier Live

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Live band showcase night hosted by Napier talent and their respective bands, plus other acts they reckon are worth a look in.

Click Clack Club

The Third Door, 20:00–23:00, £3

Occasional experimental music club bringing the good times with their Beefheart-inspired experimental funk.

Fri 16 Mar

Portland-hailing new signings to Chemikal Underground, lush with multitasking strings and swirling vocals.

UFO (Voodoo Six)

The Asps (The Daytonas)

Whisky Kiss

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

for the best seats in the

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £15

WT Feaster Band

The Granary, 19:00–23:30, £5

£50

Sun 11 Mar The Aristocrats (Godsticks)

Bwani Junction

Pay

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £5

Henry’s Cellar, 20:00–00:00, £3

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £6.50

Adam Holmes and The Embers (The Gillyflowers, Paul Gilbody, Donna Maciocia)

Unsigned Edinburgh indie trio, all braw and homemade-like.

Video Loves The Radio Star (Asazi Space Funk)

Opium, 20:00–23:00, Free

No-frills styled rock quintet led by vocalist and co-founder Brad Arnold.

Chasing Falcos (Frantic Chant)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns.

Uniforms, The Murderburgers, Question The Mark

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £20

Mon 05 Mar

Hoedown-styled party celebrating the forthcoming launch of The Black Diamond Express’ debut album, backed on the night by a selection of burlesque talent.

The Cribs (Spectrals, This Many Boyfriends)

Studio 24, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Third Door, 19:00–22:30, £5

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Unplugged Scotland showcase headered by melodic Glasgow rockers My Extraordinary.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10

New Mexico’s widescreen roving folk duo A Hawk and A Hacksaw present a brand new live score of Soviet director Sergei Paradjanov’s classic film, Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors.

Radio Trees, Loch Awe

The Irish singer/songwriter plays a stripped-back set, blending folk, progressive rock and electronica in one happy whole.

Pop-punk all the way from the USof-A, completing their last leg of their world tour.

Gemma Hayes

A Hawk and A Hacksaw: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £3

The Alibis, The Colour Ham, Caezium

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £sold out

Blistering alternative rock from the hard-riffing Small Town America acolytes.

Filmhouse, 20:30–23:00, £11 (£9)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6

Blues-punk red necks from, er, Wild West Yorkshire.

The Pineapple Chunks do their rather immense live thing, slick with nostalgia, with heady doses of upbeat, summery guitars and drums that hit all the right spots.

Pivo Pivo, 19:30–22:00, £5

This Silent Forest

Singer/songwriter led six-piece with one foot in modern Scottish folk and the other in joyous pop.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £19.50

Co-headline tour with Dublin roborockers The Cast of Cheers going head-to-head with alternative London quartet Theme Park.

Lafaro (Vasquez, Battle Adds)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Pineapple Chunks (Sixsevens, Matthew Collings)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £4

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £4

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £7 adv.

Edelweiss Pirates (Ded Rabbit, Owen Sinclair)

My Extrordinary, Monkey Genes, Penny Black

Think Big!, Fine Young Firecrackers

Charlie Barnes

Instrumental rock foursome hailing from Irvine

Dead Medicine (Deadly Inscription, Roxsteady, Death Trap, Kolumbia)

Hue and Cry: Piano and Vocal

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £12.50

Talib Kweli

Glasgow-based alternative acoustic singer/songwriter, aka Emma Gillespie.

The husky-voiced singer/songwriter takes it back to the 80s with a set of classics, which will undoubtedly include The Road To Hell.

Mark Stewart

Fingerpicked folky loveliness from singer/songwriter Liz Green, all dark and exotic like.

Emma’s Imagination

SECC, 19:30–22:00, From £27.50

Fri 30 Mar

Punk legend Godard returns with an incarnation of the Subway Sect, including ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Chris Rea

New pop-rocker on the block, as chirpy and teen-friendly as they come.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

with a whole new set of characters...

The Accies Club, 20:00–23:00, £10

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Essex rock’n’rollers led by Rick Nunn, throwing some soul, pop, dance and R’n’B into their mighty mix.

Matt Lonsdale

Fallingin love Vic Godard and the Subway Sect (Sexual Objects)

The Milk

Trash rock quartet built on dirty riffs and beer.

Same old faces at the same old pub quiz

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £29.50

Edinburgh-based electro-rockers led by PJ Dourley.

Fitzroy Soul, Volitantes, The Gold Lions Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Alternative Edinburgh rockers who’ve christened their sound ‘prog jock’.

Bruncheon!: The Sound of Muesli Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 11:00–14:30, Free

Brunch and live music event in the Drill Hall cafe, featuring local musical talent.

HMV Picture House, 18:30–22:00, £20

The longtime rock mainstays show the kids how it’s done.

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £7

21st-Century styled Scottish ceilidh music. That’ll be your cue to dance.

Dzordana Butkute

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £12 adv.

The Lithuanian pop star returns to the UK, taking in Edinburgh as she goes.

Free Gig In Leith

Nobles Bar, 19:00–22:00, Free

Chris Bainbridge (of Bainbridge Presents) handpicks a couple of scene stalwarts to try their hand with a proper Leef crowd.

EDINBURGH music A Fight You Can’t Win (Birdhead, Vasquez)

The Big Breakthrough

Usher Hall, 13:15–15:00, £5 (£3)

The Edinburgh trio deliver their short and subtly distorted blasts of grunge-y rock, launching their new EP down’t The Third Door. Let the moshing commence.

The young folks from The Big Project in Broomhouse are joined by several choirs and a selection of leading professional musicians, including Karine Polwart, for an interactive singalong of a show.

Sat 17 Mar

Spanglish (Orchestra Simbolika, Pellizco Flamenco)

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £5

Enter Shikari

Corn Exchange, 19:00–22:00, £21.50

Modern metal quartet hailing from St Albans, fusing hardcore, dubstep and D’n’B into one teenage-friendly metallic mix.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4

Tropical night of flamenco fusion and techno-rumba-hip-hop, whatever that may be.

Thu 22 Mar

Boyupatree

Wiley

Genre-defying Leithers, taking in romantic ballads, rockabilly, swirling guitars and rolling bass.

Producer, MC and all-round grime master Wiley (aka Richard Cowie) does his electronic meets hip-hop fusion thing, topped off with his inimitable snappy lyrical flow. Rescheduled date.

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4 (£3)

The Remnant Kings (William Douglas and The Wheel, Ded Rabbit) Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Indie rockin’ blues from the

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £12

Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £8

Principle songwriter in The Wonder

Pokey Lafarge and The South City Three Bongo Club, 19:00–22:00, £10

Country blues and early jazz restyled for the 21st century, thanks to the suited-and-booted St Louis musician and his live band.

The Cosmonauts (Missing Cat) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, Free

Dynamic Edinburgh quartet riding along on 60s-tinged rock, dark beats and brooding electro cello, launching their new album on the night.

Rainbow Fisher

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £5

Glaswegian alternative folk favourite Tom Snowball plays songs from his new project’s EP, By The Sea.

Sat 24 Mar Vakunoht

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4 (£3)

Mysterious experimentalists playing what they term progressive space rock.

Anchorsong (Asmatic Astronaut, Moprhamish and Texture) The Third Door, 19:00–22:00, £6 adv. (£8 door)

Opera.

It’s worth a second look.

The Law (The Stagger Rats, The Merrylees)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv. (£7.50 door)

Dundonian rock’n’rollers in possession of big ol’ riffs, stirring melodies and a sweet harmony or two.

Aaron Wright (Messiah, Dan Lowe)

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Indie-rock showcase headered by Edinburgh singer/songwriter Aaron Wright.

Casa De La Musica

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £5

New monthly music club of the Latin variety, with frontman Lino at the helm.

Expect some serious Salsa rug-cutting.

Sun 18 Mar Hypnotic Brass Ensemble The Caves, 20:30–23:00, £15 adv.

Youthful jazz renegades and band of brothers; pretty much as authentic as you can get, without Sun Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran actually being their father. Oh wait, he is.

Fatherson

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6 adv.

The Kilmarnock trio do their alternative rock-meets-powerpop thing, you do the moshing.

Tue 20 Mar Noah and The Whale

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Nu-folk singer/songwriter Charlie Fink churns out a batch of polished pop numbers.

Ben Poole

The Caves, 19:00–22:00, £8

Young blues guitarist infused with a hard-hitting in yer face rock approach.

Wed 21 Mar Black Stone Cherry (Rival Sons) HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £16

Kentucky rockers riding along on their anthemic tunes and longflowing locks.

Hailey Beavis

Bongo Club, 19:00–22:00, £4 (including EP)

Prepare for some acoustic indie-pop loveliness as Edinburgh singer/songwriter Hailey Beavis launches her new EP, with a free copy for all attendees.

Pet Jam (Censor Thoughts, Thank You So Nice, Jen and the Gents, The Spook School, Little Love and The Friendly Vibes, Universal Thee, Alex Foottit) Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–00:00, £3

A predominantly indie-pop line-up of bands play in aid of PDSA.

Bleeps ‘n’ Beats

The Third Door, 19:30–23:00, Free

New electronic-styled open mic night, where all you need do is bring your laptop and join the jam.

Fri 23 Mar RSNO: Brahms

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £11

The RSNO perform Brahms hearbreaker of a piece, A German Requiem, with Canadian bassbaritone Gerald Finley on operatic singing duties.

The Lost Telegrams

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Experimental Edinburgh-based quintet haiing from Japan, Canada and Scotland.

White Heath

Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–23:00, £8

Edinburgh-based quintet layering dark, sombre ballads with a diverse range of live instrumentation, incorporating strings, guitar, trombone and piano as they go.

Plastic Animals (Cafe Disco, Breezer)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based quartet of the sludge-noise-pop-punk variety.

The Minutes

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6 adv.

Dublin cousins Mark Austin and Shane Kinsella, joined by fellow Dubliner Tom Cosgrove, grab their Fisher Price guitars for a bit of surging rock’n’roll.

Tue 28 Feb

David Barbarossa’s Thing

Voodoo

Tue 06 Mar

Essex rock’n’rollers led by Rick Nunn, throwing some soul, pop, dance and R’n’B into their mighty mix.

Reprisal

Two floors of punk-rock, reggae and classic disco, with local scallywag David Barbarossa.

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

Reprisal

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Thu 29 Mar St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

The renowned Russian orchestra perform a selection of classics, including Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony.

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new Tuesday nighter manned

by DJ Mythic, who’ll be playing the best in rock, metal, punk and ska.

Wild Combination

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

Cathouse Fridays

Highlife: Talking Drums

Junk Disco

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Afrobeat, funk and house with a live performance from producer Drumtalk, plus support, as always, from the inimitable Auntie Flo.

Hotch-potch night of chart anthems, a live video feed, dress-up chests and karaoke in the wee room.

Make Sparks (Vukovi)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Well-crafted, hook-laden indie-pop from the Dundonian trio.

Absolutist

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–00:00, £5

Crust-meets-hardcore punk trio hailing from the fiery furnace of Aberdeen.

HMV Picture House, 18:00–22:00, £5

RSNO: Beethoven Eight

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £11

Glasgow-born conductor Douglas Boyd brings his trademark verve to Beethoven’s firecracker of a symphony.

Chantel McGregor

The Caves, 19:00–22:00, £10

Yorkshire singer/songwriter working her virtuoso guitar magic on the blues genre.

Dead Boy Robotics (Indian Red Lopez, Song Of Return) Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4

The OK Social Club (The Dots, Jack Rowberry)

The Edinburgh trio launch their new single, their myriad influences – from 50s girl groups to 70s punkrock – all well and in place.

The chap from Busted, then Fightstar, braves it acoustically alone for your pleasure.

Post War Glamour Girls (Dolfinz, Slowcoaches) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

The alternative Leeds quartet make the trip up’t north, joined on the bill

by Stonehaven noiseniks Dolfinz and fellow Leeds band Slowcoaches.

Sun 25 Mar BBC Symponic Orchestra: Rhapsonic Brahms

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

Donald Runnicles is joined by leading British mezzo Sarah Connolly and the men of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus in one of Brahms’s most moving vocal works.

Tue 27 Mar Joe Bonamassa

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £30

The American blues rocker previews songs from his forthcoming album, alongside a selection of songs cherrypicked from his back catalogue.

Wed 28 Mar Black Veil Brides (D.R.U.G.S, Reckless Love)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Hotch-potch night of chart anthems, a live video feed, dress-up chests and karaoke in the wee room.

I Am (Sinjin Hawke) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa joined by a variety of local talent, playing the usual mix of electronica and bass.

Wed 29 Feb

Charlie Simpson

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

Your New Favourite Band (Fitzroy Soul, Bag ‘n’ Bone Man, Jason Kyrone) Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

A selection of alternative up-andcomers fight it out to be your ‘new favourite band’.

Feast Records: Launch Night (The Nature Boys, Fridgemaster)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Launch night for Jewel and Esk’s student-run record label, showcasing a selection on underground pop delights.

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

New midweeker in the capable hands of Duncan Harvey and a rotating selection of guests, playing a distinctly vintage collection of sounds.

Garage Wednesdays

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

New weekly student night for Subbie, with residents Ray Vose and Desoto joined by various live guests.

Thu 01 Mar Jellybaby

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Boom Boom

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Considered mix of garage, post-punk and girl groups, presented by Adele of Sons and Daughters and the Sophisticated Boom Boom.

Jamming Fridays

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

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Badseed

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Subculture (Harri & Domenic, Junior, Esa & Telford) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£5)

Long-running house night with all five residents hosting proceedings.

Rip This Joint

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

TDC

Sun 04 Mar

New midweeker in the capable hands of Duncan Harvey and a rotating selection of guests, playing a distinctly vintage collection of sounds.

Quids In

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R, plus weekly live movie showings.

Sunday Roaster

Sub Rosa

Resident Wee Cheesy throws in mash-ups, chart-attacks and more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

New weekly student night for Subbie, with residents Ray Vose and Desoto joined by various live guests.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Absolution

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Pandemic

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Cross-genre danceathon with residents Noj and Mark. They will play The Fall.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Instruments Of Rapture Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Choice nu-disco and house picks from the Instruments Of Rapture label, hosted by Glasgow’s pitched-down house master, The Revenge and pals.

Nae Danger

Octopussy

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Thu 08 Mar Jellybaby

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Freaky Freaky

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Fortnightly fun with Vitamin’s Sam Murray, sifting through some fresh R’n’B and electronic from Scotland and beyond.

Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Get £10 tix if you’re under 26.

Any Seat.

Any Performance.

Emo, pop-punk and rock, plus extreme death metal in the back bar, for your pleasure.

Boom Thursdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and indie classics with yer man Gerry Lyons, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log your tune requests (#Garagelive).

Luska

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Deep house and techno selections for your Thursday night pleasure.

Up The Racket

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Paddy plays the newest in indie, rock, disco and pop. You do the dancing.

Feel My Bicep

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Melting Pot: 11th Birthday (Danny Krivit)

The Admiral, 22:30–03:00, £10 adv. (£12 door)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

New night manned by the motley crew of Jinty, I Hate Fun, Megamegaman, Kid Robotik and Tobgue Acrobats.

Fri 02 Mar

Bainbridge Music Showcase (Barry Van Dykes, Diego, Gigantic Leaves)

Propaganda

Nu Skool

Burn

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Monthly showcase selection of new bands who’ve been using Bainbridge Studios facilities this month.

Damnation

Cathouse Saturdays

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Garage Wednesdays

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £7 adv.

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Sat 03 Mar

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

An unabashed mix of 80s pop, electro and nu-disco. They will play Phil Collins.

Different Strokes

The mighty Melting Pot celebrate 11 glorious years with DJ giant Danny Krivit (of NYC night Body and Soul) on guest duty.

Led Zeppelin tribute act.

Take It Sleazy

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Italo disco with the boys from Thunder Disco Club.

Feel My Bicep

Led Astray

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Love Music

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The husky-voiced singer/songwriter takes it back to the 80s with a set of classics, which will undoubtedly include The Road To Hell.

Wed 07 Mar Subversion

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

DJ Paddy plays the newest in indie, rock, disco and pop. You do the dancing.

Heavy rock and metal offerings from the fiery furnace of East Lothian.

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa joined by a variety of local talent, playing the usual mix of electronica and bass.

Pick’n’mix of rock, metal, punk and old school hip-hop with DJs Quarterback and Muppet, plus a hip-hop bar on the side.

Up The Racket

Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s London night takes a trip north for a new bi-monthly residency in the intimate surrounds of The Berkeley Suite.

I Am

Hail Destroyer

Chart and indie classics with yer man Gerry Lyons, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log your tune requests (#Garagelive).

The Berkeley Suite, 10:00–03:00, £7

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chris Rea

Ben Lovett (of Mumford & Sons) brings his touring night Edinburgh-way, with a headline set from Americana-styled Peebles/Glasgow/Dunblane-hailing ensemble The Dirty Beggars.

One of the key players on Richie Hawtin’s Minus label, young techno talent Hobo, joins the Supernova massive for the night.

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

A Love From Outer Space

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £12

Misbehavin’

The Falling Rain (Solace, Anna’s Left Hook, Backlash)

Communion: The Dirty Beggars (Emily Scott, Jake Bugg, Ajimal)

Supernova: Hobo

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

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

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Six of Edinburgh’s finest metal bands go head-to-head down’t Studio 24.

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £30

Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Brand new queercentric night with its focus firmly on 90s-inspired new romantic and danceable pop hits.

The Rock Shop

Emo, pop-punk and rock, plus extreme death metal in the back bar, for your pleasure.

Glam metal-styled Hollywood rock quintet, leather-clad and eyeliner-ed to the max.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Blitz!

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £4 adv. (£6 door)

Taking Back Thursdays

Boom Thursdays

Studio 24, 18:00–22:00, £5 adv. (£10 door)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hiphop and chart classics over four rooms.

Octopussy

Church Of When The Shit Hits The Fan frontmann Ali Maloney curates and performs in a dark carnival of gothic theatrics and live music.

Sat 31 Mar

Booty Call

The Numbers crew host their first Glasgow party of the year with a set from prodigious Londoner Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet).

Monthly mish-mash of electro, dance and dirty pop with DJ Drucifer.

Red Dog Battle of the Bands (Wrath of Orios, Disposable, The Titans of War, Beneath The Oceans, Greywod Manor, Riding Shotgun)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Numbers: Four Tet (Spencer)

The Black Cabaret

The Third Door, 19:00–23:00, £tbc

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R, plus weekly live movie showings.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £15

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £5

Junk Disco

Edinburgh duo incorporating laptops, guitars, vocal yelps and tribal drumming in their rather epic brand of new wave.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 adv.

Freakbeats

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

Soft rock offerings from the Edinburgh-based five piece.

Vic Godard and Subway Sect (The Sexual Objects)

More hook-friendly indie-pop, as the chirpy Edinburgh quintet bring smiles to faces once more.

Old Skool

Wild Combination

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Different Strokes

Classic-styled rock from the Edinburgh mainstays, reforming after some 20 years.

Glasgow-based psych-rock trio comprising of JJ McGowan (aka solo artist Baldego), James Whyte and Michael Murray.

Student superclub offering up a slice of everything from hip-hop to dance, funk to chart, and everything inbetween.

Killer Kitsch

Alternative bands showcase night, with all profits going to Myeloma UK.

Studio 24, 19:00–22:00, £12

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–23:00, £3

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new Tuesday nighter manned

by DJ Mythic, who’ll be playing the best in rock, metal, punk and ska.

Eras

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Seeing Red (Moving Pictures)

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Mod, soul, ska and groovy freakbeat 45’s, with DJs Jamo, Paul Molloy and Gareth McCallum.

MassFest 2.0 (Jakil, Six Storeys High, People Places Maps, Hold The Suspect)

Punk legend Vic Godard returns with the latest incarnation of the Subway Sect, including ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums.

Pulse

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Anchorsong (aka Tokyo experimentalist Masaaki Yoshida) provides the hooks with his multiple layers of live instrumentation and electronic production.

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–23:00, £10

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Killer Kitsch

Subversion

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £5

Stuff since 1986, Miles Hunt takes to the road with fellow band member Erica Nockalls.

The Milk

Fri 30 Mar

Cancel The Astronauts (The Bad Books, Fuzzystar)

Edinburgh mainstays, with a doublewhammy of local indie support.

G l a s g o w CL U B S

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Rake’s Progress

Mon 05 Mar Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Space Invader

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays chart hits and requests, past and present.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Fri 09 Mar Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Damnation

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

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).

Glasgow • Edinburgh | 17 -31 March scottishopera.org.uk March 2012 THE SKINNY

65

Glasgow CLUBS Old Skool

Cathouse Saturdays

Space Invader

Black Tent

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Andy R plays chart hits and requests, past and present.

Cathouse Fridays

Voodoo

Indie, electro and anything inbetween with Pauly (My Latest Novel), and Simin and Steev (Errors).

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

Reprisal

Booty Call

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics over four rooms.

Student superclub offering up a slice of everything from hip-hop to dance, funk to chart, and everything inbetween.

Brand new Tuesday nighter manned

by DJ Mythic, who’ll be playing the best in rock, metal, punk and ska.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Tue 13 Mar Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Hotch-potch night of chart anthems, a live video feed, dress-up chests and karaoke in the wee room.

I Am (Nightwave)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa joined by a variety of local talent, playing the usual mix of electronica and bass.

Wed 14 Mar Subversion

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

Tribute

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £8

Myriad nights (including Stay Plastic, Scrabble and Jelly Roll Soul) combine for an underground mix of techno, house and electro, with guests Basic Soul Unit and ALLCAPS’ Alex Coulten joining the rammy this month.

Colours: Dirty Dutch Records (Chuckie, Gregori Klosman, Glowinthedark) The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £22.50

Record label showcase from Dirty Dutch, featuring label head honcho Chuckie and some of his favourite label mates.

Bad News (Benji B, Coki, Pangaea)

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £10

New night aiming to up the soundsystem culture in Glasgow, for which they’ve got their mitts on the Electrikal Sound System’s 26KW wall of sound, and a selection of rather fine live guests.

Jamming Fridays

Different Strokes

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

House-party styled night, with a group of rotating DJs alongside regular guests DJs. Plus free toast for all.

New midweeker in the capable hands of Duncan Harvey and a rotating selection of guests, playing a distinctly vintage collection of sounds.

System

Garage Wednesdays

Brand new night manned by Simon Stokes and Unique.

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R, plus weekly live movie showings.

The Rock Shop

Octopussy

La Cheetah, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 11)

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

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Subculture

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£5)

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic taking to the booth all night long.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

New weekly student night for Subbie, with residents Ray Vose and Desoto joined by various live guests.

TDC

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Italo disco with the boys from Thunder Disco Club.

Rectify (Arctic Moon, Sneijder) Audio, 22:00–03:00, £10 adv.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

The Rev Up

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

A night of pure vinyl grooving, of the heel-stomping 50s and 60s garage type.

Chart and indie classics with yer man Gerry Lyons, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log your tune requests (#Garagelive).

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Badseed

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro.

Hail Destroyer

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

Osmium

Blackfriars Basement, 23:00–03:00, £3

DJs Blair and Gary play Italo, disco, synthpop, funk and a whole bunch of other stuff all with the sole intention of making you throw yourself about with abandon.

Absolution

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Wrong Island

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics for your aural pleasure.

Nu Skool

2manydjs

The Arches, 22:00–03:00, £19.50

Notorious mash-up party starters, using their agile cut-and-paste mixing to chop up classic party and dance hits.

Jamming Fridays

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

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

Bigfoot’s Tea Party

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

The Nomadic techno and tech-house night settles into its new home at Sub Club for their second night of 2012, with live guests to be revealed.

Badseed

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro.

O///D

Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Emo, pop-punk and rock, plus extreme death metal in the back bar, for your pleasure.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Subculture Vs Animal Farm (Skudge) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10

Special edition of the long-running house night, as they go head-tohead with Animal Farm.

Rip This Joint

Cathouse Fridays

Slide It In (Nicola Walker)

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Cult rock hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Different Strokes

TDC

New midweeker in the capable hands of Duncan Harvey and a rotating selection of guests, playing a distinctly vintage collection of sounds.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Italo disco with the boys from Thunder Disco Club.

Balkanarama (Tako Lako) Chambre 69, 22:00–03:00, £8

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, with belly dancing, live visuals and free brandy. As in, we’re sold

Sun 18 Mar Quids In

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

Hail Destroyer

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Pick’n’mix of rock, metal, punk and old school hip-hop with DJs Quarterback and Muppet, plus a hip-hop bar on the side.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Garage Wednesdays

Afrobeat, funk and house with the evercapable residents and guests Auntie Flo and Esa Williams playing a live jam session.

Da Dungeon

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

A carry on from the mental flat parties of a certain street in the West End.

Sat 17 Mar

Mon 19 Mar

Love Music

Burn

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

New weekly student night for Subbie, with residents Ray Vose and Desoto joined by various live guests.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

The Danse Macabre regulars unite those two happiest of bedfellows, goth rock and, er, classic disco.

Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Emo, pop-punk and rock, plus extreme death metal in the back bar, for your pleasure.

Luska

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Deep house and techno selections for your Thursday night pleasure.

Blackfriars Basement, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Vintage 50s and 60s dancefloor sounds handpicked from genres of R’n’B, rock’n’roll and soul.

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Space Invader

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays chart hits and requests, past and present.

Tue 27 Mar Reprisal

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new Tuesday nighter manned

by DJ Mythic, who’ll be playing the best in rock, metal, punk and ska.

Wild Combination

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

O2 ABC, 23:00–02:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

Absolution

Classic Grand, 22:30–02:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–02:00, £3

Nu Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–02:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Cathouse Saturdays

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Killer Kitsch

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Junk Disco

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Hotch-potch night of chart anthems, a live video feed, dress-up chests and karaoke in the wee room.

I Am

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa joined by a variety of local talent, playing the usual mix of electronica and bass.

Wed 28 Mar Subversion

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

Rock,metalandindienightfortheunder18s.

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Different Strokes

Student superclub offering up a slice of everything from hip-hop to dance, funk to chart, and everything inbetween.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R, plus weekly live movie showings.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Vitamins (EL-B & West Norwood Cassette Library)

Cathouse Saturdays

La Cheetah, 23:00–02:00, £10

The Vitamins crew stage a La Cheetah Takeover, with live guests including a very rare chance to catch UK garage hero EL-B in Scotland.

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Voodoo

The Rock Shop

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

Rock,metalandindienightfortheunder18s.

Propaganda

Thunder Disco Club

The CODE crew return to La Cheetah, this time with Monoloc in tow, playing some of the finest techno your ears are likely to hear.

Wild Combination

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

The Thunder Disco Club residents churn out the 90s house, techno and disco hits.

Argonaut Sounds Reggae Soundsystem (Bass Warrior Sound)

Jack Beats (Toddla T, Jaymo and Andy George, Japanese Popstars, Delta Heavy, Don Diablo)

Killer Kitsch

66 THE SKINNY March 2012

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Nu Skool

Code

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £5

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £10

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 adv.

Roots reggae, dancehall and rocksteady in original soundsystem stylee, joined by Glasgow’s heavy reggae crew, Bass Warrior Sound.

The Jack Beats duo bring their new live show Glasgow-way, adorned with a selection of guest talent spanning the electro spectrum.

Damnation

The Rock Shop: St Patrick’s Day Special

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

Mon 26 Mar Burn

Sat 24 Mar

Flying Duck, 23:00–02:00, £5

Fri 16 Mar

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £7

The Optimo boys curate another evening of shenanigans, live guests kept tightly under wraps for now.

Andy Divine and Chris Geddes’ gem of a night deciated to 7-inch singles from every genre imaginable.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Optimo Presents

Singles Night

Indie dancing club, playing anything and everything danceable.

Reprisal

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Resident Wee Cheesy throws in mash-ups, chart-attacks and more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Bottle Rocket

House-party styled night, with a group of rotating DJs alongside regular guests DJs. Plus free toast for all.

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Sunday Roaster

New midweeker in the capable hands of Duncan Harvey and a rotating selection of guests, playing a distinctly vintage collection of sounds.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 23:00–01:00, £4/£2 entry

Love Music

The Garage, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

Feel My Bicep

Burn

Chambre 69, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Voodoo

Tue 20 Mar

Mon 12 Mar

Free-for-all flat party with The Dirty Noise Crew, Monopunk and the Homebass DJs.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Back Tae Mine

Blackfriars Basement, 23:00–03:00, £3

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Cathouse, 22:30–02:00, £6 (£5)

Shout Bamalama

Feel My Bicep

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Empty!

Clubber’s delight playing 50s and 60s R’n’B, soul, club jazz and boogaloo.

DJ Paddy plays the newest in indie, rock, disco and pop. You do the dancing.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro.

Chart and indie classics with yer man Gerry Lyons, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log your tune requests (#Garagelive).

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

DJ Paddy plays the newest in indie, rock, disco and pop. You do the dancing.

Resident Wee Cheesy throws in mash-ups, chart-attacks and more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Boom Thursdays

Andy R plays chart hits and requests, past and present.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Badseed

The Rhythm and Soul Revue

Student superclub offering up a slice of everything from hip-hop to dance, funk to chart, and everything inbetween.

Sunday Roaster

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

More heavyweight selections from Mungo’s Soundsystem and their chosen guests.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

Jellybaby

Up The Racket

Pick’n’mix of rock, metal, punk and old school hip-hop with DJs Quarterback and Muppet, plus a hip-hop bar on the side.

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

Mungo’s Hi Fi

Space Invader

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Jamming Fridays

Thu 22 Mar

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Up The Racket

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hiphop and chart classics over four rooms.

Octopussy

Danse Macabre

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sensu return after last month’s secret party with another secretive line-up still to be revealed.

Resident Wee Cheesy throws in mash-ups, chart-attacks and more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

Highlife

Booty Call

Sensu

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R, plus weekly live movie showings.

Sunday Roaster

Free techno offerings with Orderly Disorder.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Wed 21 Mar Subversion

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Quids In

Love Music

The guys at Mixed Bizness and Vitamins deliver again, hosting sets from a double whammy of live guests: Doc Daneeka and Benjamin Damage.

Jellybaby

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Boom Thursdays

Sat 10 Mar

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £8

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Sun 11 Mar

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

Mixed Bizness Vs Vitamins

Absolution

Return To Mono (Pan Pot, Slam)

Mobilee Records’ Pan Pot join Soma’s Slam for one night only.

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hiphop and chart classics over four rooms.

Thu 15 Mar

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rip This Joint

Rectify relocate to Audio for their underground trance party, this time featuring a double-headliner set from a duo of up-and-coming producers; Arctic Moon and Sneijder.

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

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Booty Call

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Junk Disco

Celebration of the 90s, with hits a-plenty and a special set from The Bluetones’ Mark Morriss in celebration of the club’s second birthday.

Cathouse Fridays

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £5

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Back Tae Mine

Old Skool

Wild Combination

Killer Kitsch

Common People: 2nd Birthday (Mark Morriss)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

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

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new Tuesday nighter manned

by DJ Mythic, who’ll be playing the best in rock, metal, punk and ska.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Junk Disco

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Hotch-potch night of chart anthems, a live video feed, dress-up chests and karaoke in the wee room.

I Am (Chungo Bungo)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa joined by a variety of local talent, playing the usual mix of electronica and bass.

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fri 23 Mar Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Damnation

Maggie May’s, 23:00–02:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

New weekly student night for Subbie, with residents Ray Vose and Desoto joined by various live guests.

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic taking to the booth all night long.

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Sub Club, 23:00–02:00, £10 (£5)

Rip This Joint

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Taking Back Thursdays Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Slouch, 23:00–02:00, Free

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

Emo, pop-punk and rock, plus extreme death metal in the back bar, for your pleasure.

TDC

Counterfeit: 3rd Birthday

Italo disco with the boys from Thunder Disco Club.

Full-on mix of nu-metal and hard rockin’ tunes, with yer man DJ Muppet, celebrating three years of parties with the promise of cake and prizes.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–02:00, Free

Sun 25 Mar

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Sub Rosa

Thu 29 Mar

Quids In

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Jellybaby

The Hot Club

Old Skool

Octopussy

Subculture (Harri & Domenic)

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Tearin’ it up with 60s psych-outs and modern sleaze, provided by Rafla and Andy (of The Phantom Band).

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Garage Wednesdays

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Boom Thursdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

Chart and indie classics with yer man Gerry Lyons, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log your tune requests (#Garagelive).

Hail Destroyer

Up The Racket

Pick’n’mix of rock, metal, punk and old school hip-hop with DJs Quarterback and Muppet, plus a hip-hop bar on the side.

DJ Paddy plays the newest in indie, rock, disco and pop. You do the dancing.

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

EDINBURGH CLUBS Feel My Bicep

Windrush

Tue 28 Feb

Sat 03 Mar

Witness

Sat 10 Mar

Wed 14 Mar

This Is Music

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Reggae happening bringing the finest in dub, reggae and ska.

Antics

Propaganda

Propaganda

Mansion

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Fri 30 Mar

Back To The Future: Easter Party (Noise Controllers, Tommyknocker, Kodex, The Rebelz)

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house with the Attic Kings and Blackwax DJs.

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

I Love Hip-Hop

The Egg

J-Dub

The Egg

The favourited student midweeker makes the move to The Liquid Room, playing house and electro (upstairs) and hippity-hop (downstairs).

Easter-themed clubber’s party playing the usual ear-splitting selection of hard dance.

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Dub, dubstep and jungle from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Absolution

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £7 adv.

Musika (John Digweed, Guy J)

Thu 08 Mar

Musika welcome the mighty John Digweed into their fold once again for a tech-house heavy set, alongside an Edinburgh debut for Israel’s Guy J.

Octopussy

Jason Cortez (Scot Project, Anne Savage, Phil York, Simon Mcleod, Gareth Binks)

The Go-Go

The Postal Collective

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Friday Street

Blackfriars Basement, 22:00–23:30, £5

Classic mod sounds, northern soul and 60s-styled R’n’B.

Damnation

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Alternative rock, metal, punk and ska.

Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–03:00, £6

O2 Academy, 20:00–03:00, £10

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

LuckyMe

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Cast Of Cheers, Theme Park Co-headline tour with Dublin robo-rockers The Cast of Cheers going head-to-head with alternative London quartet Theme Park.

Soul Jam Hot

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Chiptune Night

Globetrotting music, art and all-round party crew, now in their second year of great party-throwing.

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

Live chiptune night from 8-Bit Nights.

Nu Skool

Devine

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Old Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Cathouse Fridays

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Booty Call

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hiphop and chart classics over four rooms.

Pin Up Nights: Game Over Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £tbc

The Pin Up crew bring the fun with their final show, like, ever, with guests including new Chemikal Underground signing Miaoux Miaoux. Y’all can also get behind their campaign to get Jarvis Cocker on the decks (via their ‘Get Cocker’ Facebook page).

Banjax

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Wonky techno, acid and rave playlists, with Mark Archer from Altern-8 fame making an appearance, upping the old-school rave quoto.

Pressure

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Mighty deep house and techno monthly, coming together for an epic celebration of electronic sound with resident DJs Slam (and some likely live guests to be revealed).

Jamming Fridays

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

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

HYP? (Eats Everything) (Eats Everything) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

The Glasgow electronic favourite returns with fresh Bristol producer Eats Everything in tow.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Cathouse Saturdays

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Brand new Tuesday nighter with the Six Shot DJs playing a mixture of hip-hop, R’n’B, dancehall, grime and UK garage.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

Wed 29 Feb

Voodoo

J-Dub

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

Dub, dubstep and jungle from DJs across the Scottish scene.

I Heart Garage Saturdays

Witness

Student superclub offering up a slice of everything from hip-hop to dance, funk to chart, and everything inbetween.

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house with the Attic Kings and Blackwax DJs.

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £4 (£2 members)

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Back Tae Mine

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £5

House-party styled night, with a group of rotating DJs alongside regular guests DJs. Plus free toast for all.

La Cheetah Club: Mike Dehnert La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Techno heavyweight and don of the warehouse sound Mike Dehnert capably takes charge of the turntables.

The Rock Shop

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

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Subculture (Harri & Domenic) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£5)

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic taking to the booth all night long.

Rip This Joint

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Jopez plays a choice selection of indie, rock, blues and funk.

TDC

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Italo disco with the boys from Thunder Disco Club.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Thu 01 Mar Octopussy

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Dapper Dan’s

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The usual mix of disco, house and party classics from Picassio and D-Fault, with Decks FX and OSX.

The Hoodoo

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

New monthly electro-swing night from Sheffield party-starters Swank ‘n’ Jams.

Fri 02 Mar Go-Go

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new mix of anything you ears want to hear, from resident DJ Gentleman Jonny.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 11)

Brand new Friday nighter, with seasoned Edinburgh DJs Mastercaird and Stevie C playing anything danceable.

This Is Music

Anything-goes residents night with Crocky, Monopunk, Peter Collins and Homebass.

The favourited Glasgow rock’n’roll night takes a trip to Scotland, with a selection of live bands warming up for indie-rock royalty The Coral gracing the decks.

Xplicit (Netsky)

Sat 31 Mar

Crimes Of The Future

Love Music

Scott Fraser and Timothy J Fairplay host a new Thursday music club playing a decidedly left-field selection of Krautrock, electronic, dub and a’thing inbetween.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

The Berkeley Suite, 22:00–03:00, £5

City Café, 20:00–01:00, £4

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £12 adv.

Heavy jungle and bass-styled beats from the inimitable Xplicit crew, who welcome Hospital Records’ DJ Netsky into the fold for the evening.

Robigan’s Reggae

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Dub, reggae and dancehall.

Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Animal Hospital

Hammer-horror themed night of electro.

Minimal and techno for cool kids, with Gabriel Kemp and pals.

Speaker Bite Me

Suffragette City

New night from the Evol DJs that values all kinds of pop music, as long as it’s got bite.

All-female singer dance party, playing everything from The Slits to Beyonce, with Twist & Shout’s DJ team Simon & Laura. All profits to Women for Women International.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Mumbo Jumbo

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Zzzap (D/R/U/G/S)

The Big Cheese

The inimitable future electronic and bass party launch their new weekly in Liquid Room’s new space, The Annexe, with an underground selection of live guests each Thusrday.

Party soundtrack of funk, soul, disco and house from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, Free (£3-£6 after 10)

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £4

Space Invader DJs take over the upstairs level of the Bongo Club, hosting a selection of local DJ talent playign the finest in bass, beats and breaks.

Sun 04 Mar Rise

Opal Lounge, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Johnny Frenetic spins his usual mash-up mix of funky house, electro, indie and urban.

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.

Mon 05 Mar Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Moonshine

Electric Circus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

New student Monday nighter, spreading its eclectic musical wares over nine rooms.

The Latin Quarter

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Regular DJs Freddy Ramirez and James Combe spin a mighty mix of salsa, merengue and bachata.

Tue 06 Mar

New club night getting down and dirty on the dancefloor, this month featuring Portugese synth slingers, Plaza.

Wee Red Bar, 22:00–03:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Funk, pop and disco collection on vinyl only (i.e. no computers allowed).

Fake (Bus Daddy, Zombie Lover)

Antics

This Feeling (Draymin, The Janice Graham Band, Selective Service, Sulk, The Coral DJs)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Rock, metal and alternative playlists, offering up a fair few surprises along the way.

Retro Catz

Strip Club (Plaza)

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a distinctly danceable beat, taking in everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

New night with a cast of all-female DJs working their way through some sexy retro, complete with disco balls.

Chambre 69, 20:00–02:00, £8 adv. (£10 door)

Studio 24 Rawks

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Long-running retro night with veteran DJs Tall Paul and Big Gus.

Space Invader Radio

Hideout

Dirt Box

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a distinctly danceable beat, taking in everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Live gig-in-a-club, with a trio of live bands kicking off the night, followed by an alternative indie DJ soundtrack.

Slouch, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £15 adv.

Selection of party tunes down’t Potterrow Union.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–03:00, £7 (£4 after 10.30 for club-only)

Badass mix of indie, rock and electro.

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Indigo

Frame (Tiresias Archive, The Wintergreens, Birdhead)

Badseed

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked 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.

I Love Hip-Hop

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Fri 09 Mar

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Blues and soul from the 50s and 60s, handpicked by Tony ‘Two-Eyes’ and The Go-Go DJs.

Studio 24 Rawks

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Rock, metal and alternative playlists, offering up a fair few surprises along the way.

Bass Syndicate

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The regular Edinburgh breaks and bassline Manga crew takeover.

Beep Beep, Yeah!

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Electrosexual: 3rd Birthday (Lucky Luciano, James Deans, Kenwai, KRN) CC Blooms, 23:00–03:00, Free

Cheeky party night of electro bootleg mash-ups and remixes, plus CD giveaways, bubble machines and, er, that 90s favourite: glowsticks!

Betamax

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

New wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your host Chris and pals.

Cosmic (Discoordination, PsyUbik, Aurora, Rown Elf)

Studio 24, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£6 after 12)

Monthly club bringing the spirit of the psychedelic trance dance ritual to the floor.

This Is Music

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Retro Catz

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

New night with a cast of all-female DJs working their way through some sexy retro, complete with disco balls.

Four Corners

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Soulful party fodder, from deep funk to reggae beats with your regular DJ hosts Simon Hodge, Johnny Cashback, Astroboy and Wee-G.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5

Dole

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £5

South Asian-inspired tunes, taking in Bhangra and beyond.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house with the Attic Kings and Blackwax DJs.

J-Dub

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

New night with a cast of all-female DJs working their way through some sexy retro, complete with disco balls.

Confusion is Sex

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Glam techno and electro night, with the usual themed shenanigans this time of the ‘naughty nautical’ variety.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Rude

Thu 15 Mar

The legendary 90s night is revived, offering up its inimitable mix of reggae, ska, dub and early ragga.

Octopussy

Telefunken (Moodyman)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

One of the definitive purveyours of Detroit techno brings his fusion of styles Edinburgh-way. In Liquid Rooms new space, The Annexe.

Dub, dubstep and jungle from DJs across the Scottish scene.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Stomp The Yard (Nasty P, Jackin’ The Box, Psycho Stylez, Activate, The Symmetrix) The Caves, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 11.30)

Fourth installment of the charity hiphop showcase, raising funds for UNICEF, WaterAid and First Aid Africa.

Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a distinctly danceable beat, taking in everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £tbc

Soul Kitchen

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Collection of soul classics from DJs Dale Lush and Isla Blige.

Sat 17 Mar Propaganda

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle.

Dr No’s

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Selection of party tunes down’t Potterrow Union.

Brand new Friday nighter, with seasoned Edinburgh DJs Mastercaird and Stevie C playing anything danceable.

Witness

Retro Catz

Big ‘N’ Bashy

Hideout

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 11)

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s.

The Big Cheese

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Hardstyle breakcore night, for your dancing pleasure.

The favourited student midweeker makes the move to The Liquid Room, playing house and electro (upstairs) and hippity-hop (downstairs).

Land of a Thousand Dances

Brand new mix of anything you ears want to hear, from resident DJ Gentleman Jonny.

Wed 07 Mar The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £12

An evening of tech-trance and harddance featuring legendary DJs of the genre, with Jason Cortex headering and launching his new album on the night.

Go-Go

Audacious (Dr Bastardo, Annoying Ringtone, Phetamean, Chovie Blends )

Mansion

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and reggae.

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, Free (£3-£6 after 10)

Bixon (Ethyl, Johnny Cade) The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £8

New house night with slick barty collective Bixon, joined by house wunderkind Ethyl.

Sun 11 Mar Rise

Opal Lounge, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Johnny Frenetic spins his usual mash-up mix of funky house, electro, indie and urban.

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.

Mon 12 Mar Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Moonshine

Electric Circus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

New student Monday nighter, spreading its eclectic musical wares over nine rooms.

The Latin Quarter

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Regular DJs Freddy Ramirez and James Combe spin a mighty mix of salsa, merengue and bachata.

Tue 13 Mar 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.

I Love Hip-Hop

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

The Egg

Spare

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Danco and Kami play some hench beats. Nuff said.

Zzzap (Sega Bodega)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

The inimitable future electronic and bass party launch their new weekly in Liquid Room’s new space, The Annexe, with an underground selection of live guests each Thusrday.

No Globe

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

World beats from the eponymous Edinburgh University-based party collective.

Fri 16 Mar

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Jackhammer (DJ Rolando, Stephen Brown)

The Third Door, 22:30–03:00, £10 (£8)

The Jackhammer crew provide our dose of all things techno, joined by genre legend Roland Rocha (aka DJ Rolando).

Xplicit Vs Wax:On (Fake Blood, Clouds, Ado)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £12

Xplicit & Wax:On join forces once again to bring notorious electro perpetrators Fake Blood back to the capital.

The Green Door

Go-Go

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 after 11)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new mix of anything you ears want to hear, from resident DJ Gentleman Jonny.

Dancehall (Earl 16)

The Caves, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£8 after 12)

Riddim Tuffa and Big Toe’s HiFi unite once again to nice-up the dance with some heavyweight dubplates and a massive selection of digital reggae, raggamaffin and some serious 90s dancehall.

Hideout

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 11)

Brand new Friday nighter, with seasoned Edinburgh DJs Mastercaird and Stevie C playing anything danceable.

Balkanarama (Tako Lako)

Studio 24, 21:00–03:00, £8 (£9 after 10)

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, with belly dancing, live visuals and free brandy. As in, we’re sold

Surf, blues and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake!

Nuff said.

Studio 24 Rawks

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Rock, metal and alternative playlists, offering up a fair few surprises along the way.

Wasabi Disco

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

A heady bout of cosmic house, punk and upside-down disco with yer man Kris ‘Wasabi’ Walker.

Pop Rocks

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Pop and rock gems, taking in motown, 80s classics and plenty of danceable fare (well, the Beep Beep, Yeah! crew are on decks after all).

March 2012 THE SKINNY

67

EDINBURGH CLUBS

DUNDEE MUSIC

Soulsville

Fri 23 Mar

Coalition

Swinging soul spanning a whole century with DJs Tsatsu and Red-6, plus live dancers a-go-go.

Go-Go

Dubstep, breaks and bassline house from AF Meldrum and a cast of Edinburgh’s best underground DJs.

The finest cuts of soul, funk, motown and good ol’ rock’n’roll.

Mon 26 Mar

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 11)

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Basics

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5

Retro mix of 50s and 60s R’n’B and northern soul.

The Big Cheese

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, Free (£3-£6 after 10)

Selection of party tunes down’t Potterrow Union.

Sun 18 Mar Rise

Opal Lounge, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Johnny Frenetic spins his usual mash-up mix of funky house, electro, indie and urban.

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.

Mon 19 Mar The Sound Of C (Rusko, Jigsaw) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £10

The Sound of C welcome the Edinburgh return of the kingpin of dubstep, Rusko, back for his second performance in the capital, post his US tour.

Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Moonshine

Electric Circus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

New student Monday nighter, spreading its eclectic musical wares over nine rooms.

The Latin Quarter

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Regular DJs Freddy Ramirez and James Combe spin a mighty mix of salsa, merengue and bachata.

Tue 20 Mar Pariah

The Caves, 23:00–03:00, £4 adv. (£8 door)

The London-based, future garage producer performs a set of bassheavy electronic, supported bt DJs G-MAC, Soest and Kutenai.

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.

I Love Hip-Hop

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Brand new mix of anything you ears want to hear, from resident DJ Gentleman Jonny.

Robigan’s Reggae

Wee Red Bar, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Nu Fire

Hideout

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Dub, reggae and dancehall.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 11)

Brand new Friday nighter, with seasoned Edinburgh DJs Mastercaird and Stevie C playing anything danceable.

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Retro Catz

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

New night with a cast of all-female DJs working their way through some sexy retro, complete with disco balls.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

J-Dub

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Shake Some Action

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £2

The Evol crew banish the Wednesday blues with their chirpy selection of indie grooves.

Thu 22 Mar Octopussy

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a distinctly danceable beat, taking in everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Superclub

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Brand new club offering from the rather ace gallery of the same name.

Zzzap (Cur$es)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

The inimitable future electronic and bass party launch their new weekly in Liquid Room’s new space, The Annexe, with an underground selection of live guests each Thusrday.

The Latin Quarter Regular DJs Freddy Ramirez and James Combe spin a mighty mix of salsa, merengue and bachata.

Tue 27 Mar

Stacks Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £3

Hideout Brand new Friday nighter, with seasoned Edinburgh DJs Mastercaird and Stevie C playing anything danceable.

Riot Control Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Genre-hopping mix of hip-hop, disco, hardcore, jungle and rave, plus visuals and live art from Edinburgh’s crew of doodlers, Too Much Fun Club

LuckyMe Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5 (members free)

Globetrotting music, art and all-round party crew, now in their second year of great party-throwing.

Retro Catz Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Wonky Vs No Globe (No Globe)

Soul Jam Hot

Wonky residents Wolfjazz and Hobbes in a soundclash with up-andcoming Edinburgh University-based collective No Globes squad of resident DJs, raising awareness for the ‘Save The Bongo’ campaign.

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

New night with a cast of all-female DJs working their way through some sexy retro, complete with disco balls.

I Love Hip-Hop

Soundburger

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

ETC03: Acid23 (Alias23, 4UTONOM3, Damaged Electronics, Morphamish)

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3 in fancy dress)

New electronic night from Edinburgh Tekno Cartel, covering techno, acid house, bassline, jungle, dubstep, metal, breakcore and gabber.

Discount in psychedelic costume.

Sounds of Soul

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £tbc

Soulful house tunes with yer man Sean McCabe.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Rack and Ruin The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3

Studio 24 Rawks

Studio 24, 22:30–02:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Rock, metal and alternative playlists, offering up a fair few surprises along the way.

Definition

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–02:00, £3 (members free)

Returning after their extended winter hiatus, Mark Balneaves and Martin Lightbody play some of the finest undergorund dance across four decks, FX units and laptops.

Pop Tarts

Electric Circus, 22:30–02:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Studio 24, 22:00–03:00, £6

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

J-Dub Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Thu 29 Mar Octopussy HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a distinctly danceable beat, taking in everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings.

Ride Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Ride girl’s Checkie and Lauren play hip-hop and dance, all night long.

Zzzap (M.O.T.O) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

The inimitable future electronic and bass party launch their new weekly in Liquid Room’s new space, The Annexe, with an underground selection of live guests each Thusrday.

Fri 30 Mar

Voodoo Rooms, 20:30–01:00, £5

50s-themed party fun night, with Frankie Sumatra, Bugsy Seagull, Dino Martini, Sam Jose and Nikki Nevada.

Plus Vegas showgirls a-go-go, natch.

The Go-Go: 12th Birthday (Them Beatles) Studio 24, 22:00–03:00, £8 (£7)

Long-running retro night with veteran DJs Tall Paul and Big Gus. celebrating their 12th birthday with a two-set show from Them Beatles.

Studio 24 Rawks Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Party soundtrack of funk, soul, disco and house from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, £1 (£6 after 11)

Retro selection from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Go-Go HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £3

Selection of party tunes down’t Potterrow Union.

Brand new mix of anything you ears want to hear, from resident DJ Gentleman Jonny.

Sun 25 Mar

Outlook Festival: Launch Party (Mungo’s Hi-Fi)

Rise

Opal Lounge, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Johnny Frenetic spins his usual mash-up mix of funky house, electro, indie and urban.

68 THE SKINNY March 2012

The Caves, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£8 after 12)

Special launch bash for the bassorientated music festival, with Mungo’s Hi-Fi playing a mix of dancehall, dub and dubstep to get you in the mood.

Ad Hoc Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4

The Big Cheese Selection of party tunes down’t Potterrow Union.

Heavy Gossip: 2nd Birthday The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£8 after 12)

Harry Bennett and Laurence Nolan join residents Nick Yuill and Gareth Sommerville to cut the cake with fellow ressie Craig Smith, playing the usual deep house and disco mix. In The Liquid Room’s new space, The Annexe.

Beat Control The Third Door, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Evol crew launch their latest indie-pop adventure.

Dexter’s Bar, 19:30–22:00, £13

Thu 15 Mar InMe Dexter’s Bar, 19:00–22:00, £10

Fri 09 Mar

Metal Rabies, Hookers For Jesus, Box

Chimaira (Excellent Cadaver)

Drouthy’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Decidedly experimental and noisy band showcase, much as one would expect from Metal Rabies et al.

Fri 16 Mar Fridge Magnets Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5 adv. (£6 door)

New electro-rockers on the block, headered by the sing-shouty tones of Steven Winton.

Stiff Little Fingers (Spear Of Destiny) Fat Sam’s, 19:30–22:00, £17

Original punk-pop four-piece, par excellence.

Sat 17 Mar Fatherson Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £6 adv. (£7 door)

The Kilmarnock trio do their alternative rock-meets-powerpop thing, you do the moshing.

Sun 25 Mar Ego’s At The Door Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5 adv. (£6 door)

DIY-styled foursome hailing from the north-west of England.

Vic Godard and the Subway Sect (Vladimir, Edinburgh School For The Deaf, The Creeping Ivies) Beat Generator Live!, 19:30–22:00, £8 adv. (£10 door)

Punk legend Vic Godard returns with the latest incarnation of the Subway Sect, including ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums.

Sat 31 Mar The Milk Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5

Essex rock’n’rollers led by Rick Nunn, throwing some soul, pop, dance and R’n’B into their mighty mix.

Charlie Simpson Fat Sam’s, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

The chap from Busted, then Fightstar, braves it acoustically alone for your pleasure.

DUNDEE CLUBS Fri 02 Mar

Sat 10 Mar

Fri 23 Mar

Spektrum: 1st Birthday (Dave Seaman)

Harri & Domenic

Reading Rooms, 23:30–02:30, £12

Sub Club’s Saturday night house specialists Harri & Domenic make the trip Dundee-way for one night only.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £8 adv.

The Optimo boys take to Dundee, fusing all the musical genres they can think of – as is their merry way.

Beartrap Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Eclectic mix of art-rock, indie and punk.

Sat 03 Mar

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Totally Wired Beat Generator Live!, 21:00–03:00, Free

Classic-styled mix of punk, new wave, ska, reggae and dub selections.

Wed 07 Mar Rhythmic Foundations Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 after 12)

The showcase night for electronic DJs and producers from across the globe celebrates its first birthday, with somewhat of a legend of a guest, dance maestro Dave Seaman.

Club Noir Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £15.50

Glasgow’s burlesque star teasers host the Dundee edition of their favourited raunchy cabaret club.

Asylum Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Carbon The Hideout, 22:30–03:00, £4

Zazou Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Celebrating the sounds of the futures of yesterday (aka forgotten retro classics and decadent Euro-pop).

Felt Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Indie dancing tunes, from retro-pop to eclectic rock.

Fri 09 Mar

The Book Club (Is Kill, Diabetic)

Sat 17 Mar Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£6 after 11.30)

Rockabilly, doo-wop, soul and all things golden age and danceable with the Locarno regulars.

Kage, 23:00–02:00, £5

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

The Hideout, 22:30–02:00, £4

Alternative-styled club night, handpicking from genres of metal, industrial, rock, indie and anything else they damn well fancy.

Fri 30 Mar Ctrl.Alt.Defeat Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Electro musings with a danceable beat, with Clouds, Ado and Ken Swift sharing deck duty.

Sat 31 Mar Autodisco: 5th Birthday Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £8

Selection of DJs on rotation all night, covering genres of electro, disco, techno and anything else they damn well fancy.

Electro-funk, house and disco with Greg Wilson special guesting alongside your regular hosts Dave Autodisco and Dicky Trisco.

Transmission

Asylum

Asylum

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Indie, pop and hardcore with DJs Wolfie and The Girl.

Citizens Theatre Betrayal various dates between 2 Mar and 24 Mar, times vary, From £12

New take on Harold Pinter’s semi-autobiographical work about a woman caught in a love triangle between her husband and his best friend.

Paisley Arts Centre Grid Iron: Barflies 6 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £10 (£8)

Visceral look at the pains and glories of drunkenness, drawn from the short stories and poems of cult American writer Charles Bukowski.

The Arches The Love Club: International Unemployment Day 6 Mar, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £4 (donation)

Celebrating our dirty financial state in style with an evening of tea, cake, spoken word, knitting and live music from Julia and The Doogans. Hosted

by New York performance artist Markus Makavellian.

The Man Who Lived Twice 7–10 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, prices vary

Dramatised version of what took place between actor John Gielgud and playwright Edward Sheran when they met in a penthouse suite in New York back in 1936, days before Gielgud gave what was to be the performance of his life.

Buzzcut Festival: Closing Party 18–19 Mar, 1:00pm – 3:00am, £donations

Brand new performance festival showcasing contemporary work from across Scotland and the UK, taking in theatre, dance and performance art.

Full programme at glasgowbuzzcut. wordpress.com.

The King’s Theatre All The Fun Of The Fair 28 Feb – 3 Mar, times vary, From £15

Save The Last Dance For Me

Reading Rooms, 22:30–01:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Crack house specialist DJ Zinc makes his Reading Rooms debut. You do the dancing.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

In celebration of International Women’s Day burlesque dancer Tom DeLish hosts a cabaret night of song and dance to celebrate the wonder of women, joined by Miss Molly Teaser and Lola Croix.

Locarno

Carbon

Full-on electro, D’n’B and dub orgy, complete with a massive soundsystem and live visuals over eight screens.

8 Mar, 8:00pm – 11:00pm, £6

Hit West End musical starring David Essex, inspired by his album of the same name.

Fri 16 Mar Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £6 (£8 after 12)

Cafe Cossachok Por Les Femmes Cabaret

Sat 24 Mar

Asylum

Mighty mix of Detriot house, techno and leftfield electro-funk from ALLCAPS, Lewis Fraser and Cro-Welt.

DJ Zinc (MC Script, Boom Monk Ben)

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Alternative-styled club night, handpicking from genres of metal, industrial, rock, indie and anything else they damn well fancy.

Bassorgy Soundsystem (Hedflux)

G L ASGO W

The Glue Factory

Optimo

Asylum

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Tue 13 Mar

Essex rock quartet chock with the emo drum syncopation and Bullet For My Valentine guitars that we’ve come to expect.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 adv.

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Mumbo Jumbo

Beat Generator Live!, 20:00–22:30, £8

Blues-punk red necks from, er, Wild West Yorkshire.

Magic Nostalgic

Planet Earth: Do You Remember The First Time?

Potterrow, 21:00–02:00, Free (£3-£6 after 10)

Wet Nuns (Vladimir)

Yer man Boom Monk Ben mashes up all the good stuff over a four-hour set, taking in dubstep, hip-hop, dancehall, reggae, garage and anything else he damn well fancies.

Potterrow, 21:00–03:00, Free (£3-£6 after 10)

The Big Cheese

Swedish rockers channeling a distinctly 60s and 70s sound.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 (£4)

Mighty mix of indie, alternative rock, punk, grunge, new wave and more besides.

Henry’s Cellar, 22:00–02:00, £3

Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5 adv. (£6 door)

Playdate

Hotch-potch of tracks chosen by a spinning wheel. Expect anything from 90s rave to power ballads, and a lot of one-hit wonders.

Bad Name

Dunfermline legends Nazareth pull out all the proto-metal stops. Expect no mercy.

Mixed Bizness: Boom Monk Ben

House specialists Stewart and Steven play, er, some special house.

2-tone ska revival band formed in Coventry back in 1979, back on the live circuit.

The Brimstone Days (The Trade, Ghosts in the Arcade)

Rock, metal and alternative playlists, offering up a fair few surprises along the way.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Reading Rooms, 19:30–22:30, £12.50

Nazareth

Beat Generator Live!, 20:00–22:30, £15

VEGAS!

The Selecter

Sun 04 Mar

Cleveland-based metallic hardcore crew led by the sing-bark of Mark Hunter.

Rewind take a journey back through the ages, digging out anthemic gems from the last 40 years.

Liverpudlian alternative rock scamps, likely battle-scarred from touring with The View back at the end of 2011.

Bon Jovi tribute act.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 before midnight, £5 after

Eclectic fun night transporting latenight party people to an imaginary jungle voodoo den-cum-lost township shebeen.

Sci-fi pop, outsider folk, soulful R’n’B, machine funk and a whole lot more from DJs from bETAMAX, The Gentle Invasion and FOUND, amongst others.

Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5 adv. (£6 door)

Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £6 adv. (£7 door)

Hard-hitting rockers formed from the ashes of The Levee Breakers.

Rewind

Messenger

Papi Falso

Stoned Pony Band (Foxbeef, Estrella)

Alternative indie-rock quartet born and bred on the means streets of Dundee.

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Samedia

Bongo Club, 23:00–02:00, £6 (£7 after 12)

Sat 03 Mar

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The favourited student midweeker makes the move to The Liquid Room, playing house and electro (upstairs) and hippity-hop (downstairs).

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Making the most of the five weekend month, all the Electric Circus club nights unite for one massive party.

Sweet reggae rockin’ from the original sound system.

Guns N’ Roses tribute act.

Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £5

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house with the Attic Kings and Blackwax DJs.

Studio 24, 22:00–02:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11)

Beat Generator Live!, 20:00–22:30, £8

The Egg

The Egg

The Kapital crew finally secure the services of a man who epitomises all that’s great about German electronic music, with a three-hour set from a certain Mr Michael Mayer.

The Guns N’ Roses Experience

Mansion

Witness

The Liquid Room, 22:30–02:00, £12 adv. (£15 door)

Doghouse, 20:00–23:00, £8 adv. (£10 door)

Johnny Cash tribute act.

The Mirror Trap (Vukovi, Seams, Captain)

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Kapital (Michael Mayer, Barry O’Connell, Brad Charters)

Sound Of Guns (Lost City Soul)

Student-orientated indie night with guest DJs dropping by.

Rock’n’roll, swing, blues and reggae night, making Edinburgh jive for years.

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–02:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Sat 31 Mar

Cash Back

Wed 28 Mar

Propaganda

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

New night specialising in rare funk, rock, psych and jazz on vintage 45s.

Sat 10 Mar

Propaganda

Itchy Feet

HMV Picture House, 23:00–02:00, £5 (£4)

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Fri 02 Mar

New monthly offering up electronic dance music of all types and stripes, be it underground or otherwise

Sat 24 Mar

Ska, 2-Tone and early reggae from the Go Go’s Tall Paul and Tony ‘2-Eyes’.

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house with the Attic Kings and Blackwax DJs.

Electric Circus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Mansion

Witness

Moonshine

This Is Music

Lucky 7

The Liquid Room, 22:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

New student Monday nighter, spreading its eclectic musical wares over nine rooms.

Wed 21 Mar The favourited student midweeker makes the move to The Liquid Room, playing house and electro (upstairs) and hippity-hop (downstairs).

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

5–10 Mar, times vary, From £12

Coming-of-age musical tale, riding along on the rock’n’roll classics of the early 60s.

Circus Of Horrors: The Ventriloquist 11 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £11

Whirlwind of contortionists, flying aerialists, demon dwarfs, sword swallowers, and any other weird thing you can think of.

Monty Python’s Spamalot 12–17 Mar, times vary, From £20.50

Classic Monty Python tale telling the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Cue beautiful showgirls, cows and killer rabbits.

The Old Hairdressers Buzzcut Festival 14–17 Mar, times vary, £donations

Brand new performance festival showcasing contemporary work from across Scotland and the UK, taking in theatre, dance and performance art.

Full programme at glasgowbuzzcut. wordpress.com.

Thinking Inside the Box 5 Mar, 6:00pm – 8:00pm, £tbc

Intimate art performances featuring a variety of food stuffs, from a group of students studying on the Contemporary Performance Practice course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Theatre Royal Over The Rainbow 4 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £11

Award-winning musical charting the life story of songbird Eva Cassidy.

T H E AT R E Scottish Opera: The Rake’s Progress 17 Mar, 21 Mar, 23 Mar, 25 Mar, 7:15pm – 10:00pm, From £8.50

Scottish Opera’s retelling of WH Auden’s colourful tale of debauchery, in the capable hands of renowned Scottish director David McVicar.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night 26–31 Mar, 7:00pm – 10:00pm, From £6

Character-driven tale following the Tyrone family through a mesmerizing day and night, with Davet Suchet at the helm (yes, aka Poirot!).

Tramway Anoesis 8–10 Mar, times vary, prices vary

Tramway’s youth theatre group in residence, Junction 25, present a brand new piece investigating systems that affect us and the ultimate pursuit of happiness.

I Not I

COMEDY

Edinburgh Playhouse

Antigone

Russian State Ballet: Swan Lake

15–17 Mar, times vary, prices vary

7–9 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £17.50

Russian State Ballet’s retelling of the classic love story.

Russian State Ballet: The Nutcracker 10 Mar, times vary, From £17.50

Russian Stae Ballet’s reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s dance classic.

Carnival Du Vampires Rock 12 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £26

Classic rock anthem-styled musical set in New York in 2030, where the undead walk amongst the living.

Good Mourning Mrs Brown 13–17 Mar, times vary, From £21.50

Part two of the Mrs Brown trilogy of plays finds the Brown family now trying to tackle the wake and funeral of Grandad Brown.

Spamalot 19–24 Mar, times vary, From £15.50

New interpretation of the timeless, war-torn classic, in which a young woman takes a bold stand against her city.

Victim Sidekick Boyfriend Me 15–17 Mar, times vary, £15 (£11/£6 unemployed)

22–24 Mar, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £10 (£6)

The final year Directing students from QMU present an all-original series of six new works over three consecutive nights.

Talent Night In The Fly Room 29 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £6

Festival Theatre

2401 Objects

Arika12: Notes On The Emptying Of A City

27 Feb – 3 Mar, times vary, prices vary

23 Mar, 8:00pm – 11:00pm, Free

Ashley Hunt’s dismantled, performed film, which pieces together images and storytelling of a documentary about Hurricane Katrina before a live audience.

Arika12: Combatent Staus Review Tribynal 24 Mar, 7:00pm – 11:00pm, Free

Experimental reading somewhere between performance, stripped down theatre and an intense kind of public learning.

Arika12: The Russian Woods 25 Mar, 6:30pm – 9:00pm, Free

Musical show discussing the representation of a nation state, its characters and history.

iam 2–3 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, prices vary

Dancers from Errol White Company take their audience on a journey through a world of fractured timelines, using the vocabulary of the body as an abstract language.

Tron Theatre Plume 1–17 Mar, not 4, 5, 11, 12, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, From £7

Northern Ballet’s retelling of the classic love-can-conquer-all tale, with added singing teapots.

Funny Peculiar

PUSH

Comedy tale of Trevor Tinsley the grocer and his misadventures. Laugh at the man’s misfortune we will.

Scottish Dance Theatre: Triple Bill 21 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £13

The favourited dance company perform a series of comtemporary dance over a trio of pieces, including Lay Me Down Safe by Kate Weare.

Nederlands Dans Theater 2

Tron Young Company present their brand new devised piece.

Ana 22–24 Mar, times vary, prices vary

Bilingual play boldly flitting between Scots-English and Canadian-French, taking audiences on a journey of creativity and madness with immortal being Ana.

ED I NBUR G H Bedlam Theatre Vatnsdal 29 Feb, 2:30pm – 4:30pm, £5 (£4.50)

Poetry is combined with some good ol’ epic Viking battles in Ian Culleton’s mighty new drama of family honour.

27 Mar, 29 Mar, 31 Mar, 7:15pm – 10:00pm, From £16.50

22 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, prices vary

Scottish Opera’s retelling of WH Auden’s colourful tale of debauchery, in the capable hands of renowned Scottish director David McVicar.

Royal Lyceum Theatre Of Mice and Men various dates between 17 Feb and 17 Mar, times vary, From £14.50

various dates between 23 Mar and 14 Apr, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, From £14.50

Scottish playwright DC Jackson relocates Pierre Beaumarchais’s famous tale to the world of contemporary finance, set against a dodgy backdrop of expense scandals and big bonus payouts.

The Pleasance The Sugar Revue 10 Mar, 9:00pm – 11:00pm, £15 (£14)

A burlesque and variety show featuring a selection of Scottish performers.

Snail and the Whale 11 Mar, times vary, £7 (£5)

Physical storytelling, live music and lots of laughs for little ‘uns aged 4+.

Traverse Barflies various dates between 6 Feb and 1 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £15 (£11/£6 unemployed)

Bongo Club

Visceral look at the pains and glories of drunkenness, drawn from the short stories and poems of cult American writer Charles Bukowski.

The Threepenny Opera

Chow Mein / Hex

1 Mar, 7:30pm – 9:45pm, £10 (£5)

Napier University Academy of Music present their take on the favourited musical theatre piece by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.

various dates between 1 Mar and 14 Mar, times vary, prices vary

iam

The Marriage Of Figaro

29–31 Mar, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £7

Ana

The Rake’s Progress

Grid Iron’s Barflies

I Was Always Behind You

Experimental performance exploring what pushes you to move, speak and push back, conceived by Christine Devaney – known for her unique marrying of expressive choreography, live music, text and video.

Youthful contemporary dance company using their bodies to express feelings and emotions, full of the energy and athleticism of yoof.

JC Marshall’s beautifully written story of one man’s grief and anger following the death fo his son in a terrorist attack on an aeroplane

Visceral look at the pains and glories of drunkenness, drawn from the short stories and poems of cult American writer Charles Bukowski.

24 Mar, times vary, prices vary

Bilingual play boldly flitting between Scots-English and Canadian-French, taking audiences on a journey of creativity and madness with immortal being Ana.

23–24 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £12.50

Re-telling of John Steinbeck’s sun-washed tale of two migrant field workers traveling through California in search of their very own piece of the American Dream.

14–17 Mar, 9:00pm – 10:30pm, £15 (£11)

30–31 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £17 (£13)

Remarkable story of a man who could no longer remember, inspired by the neuroscientific case-study of the same name.

15–17 Mar, times vary, From £12

8 Mar, 10 Mar, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £15 (£11/£6 unemployed)

Double bill of skewed black comedy from the creative masterminds at Strangetown.

Thu 01 Mar

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Arika12: Criminal Case 40/61

Beauty and the Beast

Top comics from the contemporary Irish circuit. Hosted by Michael Redmond.

Bated Breath

Classic Monty Python tale telling the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Cue beautiful showgirls, cows and killer rabbits.

Performed installation by one of Germany’s most interesting visual artists, based on edited transcripts of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem and the writings of Hannah Arendt.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 members)

The Thursday Show (Jake O’Kane, Sandy Nelson, Ryan McDonnell)

Unique dance piece that pushes the performers into the experience of being outside one’s body, of living it as a foreign entity.

23 Mar, 7:30pm – 9:15pm, Free

Wed 29 Feb Best Of Irish

Lyceum Youth Theatre present the Scottish premier of Hilary Bell’s play about guilt, retribution and forgiveness.

Genomics-inspired revue set somewhere in a genetically-engineered future, taking in sketches, poems, songs and stories as it goes.

9–10 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £12 (£8)

GLASGOW

Dancers from Errol White Company take their audience on a journey through a world of fractured timelines, using the vocabulary of the body as an abstract language.

DUNDEE Dexter’s Bar Art From The Heart 23 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £6 adv. (£8 door)

Burlesque variety show from new collective Burlesque Cares, with 13 acts joining forces to raise profits for selection of local charities.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Bright Club

The Admiral, 19:30–22:00, £4 (£3.50)

Brand new night for Glasgow, with a selection of comedic academics from Glasgow’s universities standing-up for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Fri 02 Mar The Friday Show (Jake O’Kane, Sandy Nelson, Ryan McDonnell) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 03 Mar The Saturday Show (Jake O’Kane, Sandy Nelson, Ryan McDonnell)

Singalong Abba fluff, all the hits at the ready.

Reasons To Be Cheerful 20–24 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £13

Musical singalong, featuring Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ greatest hits.

The Man Who Lived Twice 28 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, prices vary

Dramatised version of what took place between actor John Gielgud and playwright Edward Sheran when they met in a penthouse suite in New York back in 1936, days before Gielgud gave what was to be the performance of his life.

Thu 15 Mar Carl Donnelly 3: Carl Donnelier The Stand, 20:00–21:30, £8 (£7)

More humourous tales and unbridled silliness as Carl Donnelly returns with his third solo offering. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Fri 16 Mar Terry Alderton The Stand, 19:45–21:15, £10 (£9)

Sat 24 Mar Phil Nichol: The Simple Hour The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £10 (£9)

Classic stand-up and ridiculous songs, as is Nichol’s jolly way. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £10 (£9)

More acerbic comedy rants from the award-winning Zoe Lyons. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £5

Sat 17 Mar

Mon 26 Mar Brand new night for Glasgow, with a selection of comedic academics from Glasgow’s universities standing-up for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Sun 04 Mar Chilled comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Jolly stand-up German comic, who pretty much seems to have selfappointed himself German Comedy Ambassador to the UK, mores the joy.

Mon 05 Mar

Sun 18 Mar

Frankie Boyle: Work In Progress

The Boy Who Played With Fire

The inimitable Mr Boyle presents a series of rather special warm-up shows for his up-coming tour, which he says will also be his last. Like, ever.

Big beardy northern Irishman Martin Mor returns to Glasgow with his new show. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Wed 07 Mar

Mon 19 Mar

Wicked Wenches (Danielle Ward, Viv Gee, Sarah Hendrix)

Mrs Barbara Nice: Housewife Superstar

All-female stand-up, with a suitably varied mix of headliners and newcomers. Hosted by resident funnywoman Susan Calman.

Comic insights into the human condition with the motherly Barbara Nice. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Frankie Boyle: Work In Progress The Stand, 18:00–20:00, £10

The inimitable Mr Boyle presents a series of rather special warm-up shows for his up-coming tour, which he says will also be his last. Like, ever.

Thu 08 Mar The Thursday Show (Roger Monkhouse, Jason Rouse, Ed Patrick, Darren Connell)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 10 Mar The Saturday Show (Roger Monkhouse, Jason Rouse, Ed Patrick, Darren Connell) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Sun 11 Mar Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

Stand Up For Palestine (Frankie Boyle, Gary Tank Commander) The King’s Theatre, 19:30–22:00, From £21

Martin Mor hosts an evening in aid of the Palestine Legal Aid Fund, featuring Frankie Boyle, Gary Tank Commander and a host of others.

Tue 20 Mar Simon Munnery: Hats Off To The 101ers The Stand, 17:00–18:30, £10 (£8)

The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £10 (£9)

Wed 28 Mar Tony Law: Go Mr Tony Go! The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £9 (£8)

Standup-y, skecthy, improv-y beast of a show from the mighty Tony Law. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place The Stand, 21:30–23:00, £9 (£8)

Fifth solo show from the intelligently-funny and manically silly comic genius. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Thu 29 Mar Susan Calman: Revenge Of The Cat Lady The Stand, 20:00–21:30, £10 (£9)

The favourited funnywoman takes a look at triumphs, the tribulations and the romantic meetings that made her. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Fri 30 Mar Greg Proops The Stand, 19:45–21:15, £15

Unpredictable San Franciscoan comic, aka The Proopdog. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

David Cameron Hates Mumford and Sons: The Secrets of Comedy Revealed (Andrew Learmonth) The Old Hairdressers, 20:00–22:00, £5

An obscure but brilliant hit at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Munnery presents his ambitious one-man punk musical about the R101 airship of the 1930s, amongst other comic oddities.

Andrew Learmonth delivers some of his self-described ‘self-indulgent pish’. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Wed 21 Mar

America Stands Up

Phill Jupitus: Stand Down

The Stand, 19:45–21:15, £12 (£11)

The Stand, 19:00–20:30, £15

The inimitable Mr Jupitus returns to the live stand-up stage, his quick remarks and cheeky sarcasm as prevalent as ever.

Steve Hughes: Big Issues The Stand, 21:30–23:00, £12 (£10)

The Australian comic and ex-heavy metal drummer does his beautiful live rant of a thing.

Thu 22 Mar Bratchpiece Family Album The Arches, 20:00–22:00, £8 (£6)

Sat 31 Mar Showcase of new American talent.

Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

David Kay Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £13.50

The one-man comedy troupe that is David Kay, as manic as ever.

ED I NBUR G H Tue 28 Feb Simon Munnery: Hats Off To The 101ers The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£8)

The Bratchpiece family of comics, aka dad Mark and his sons Bratchy and Wee Man, make stand-up a family affair for their final collective performance. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

An obscure but brilliant hit at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Munnery presents his ambitious one-man punk musical about the R101 airship of the 1930s, amongst other comic oddities.

Frankie Boyle: Work In Progress

Fri 23 Mar

Wed 29 Feb

The inimitable Mr Boyle presents a series of rather special warm-up shows for his up-coming tour, which he says will also be his last. Like, ever.

Craig Hill

Best Of Scottish

Oran Mor, 19:30–22:00, £14.50

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 members)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Chilled comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond.

Mon 12 Mar The Stand, 18:00–20:00, £10

The kilted cheeky chappie brings his new show to Glasgow, post his world tour.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Saturday Live (Graeme Mackie)

Tue 27 Mar

The Stand, 21:30–23:00, £10

Sat 10 Mar The Saturday Show (Stewart Francis, Danielle Ward, Joe Wells)

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK.

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK.

Glasgow Comedy Festival Showcase

The Stand, 19:30–21:00, £8 (£7)

The Improverts

Friday Live (Graeme Mackie)

The Stand, 21:45–23:15, £8 (£7)

Longstanding comic, writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

The Stand, 18:00–20:00, £10

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

Friday Live (Janey Godley)

Henning Wehn

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 members)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

The Improverts

Billy Kirkwood: Show Me Your Tattoo Rockin’ funnyman Billy Kirkwood takes a wander into the world of body art. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £14.50 (£12.50)

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £3 (£2)

A selection of up-and-coming comedic talent compete against the clock for stage time, gong show stylee.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

The Stand, 19:45–21:15, £12 (£11)

In honour of St Partick’s Day, The Stand play host to four of the best Celtic comics on the scene.

The Comedy Academy

Fri 02 Mar

Mitch Benn

St Partick’s Day Comedy Special

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Friday Show (Kevin Gildea, Stu & Garry, Phil Differ, Gordon Smith)

Bright Club

Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £14.50 (£12.50)

Fri 09 Mar The Friday Show (Stewart Francis, Danielle Ward, Neil McFarlane, Joe Wells)

Sun 25 Mar

Off-beat performer big on the physical comedy daftness. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Musician-cum-comic Mith Benn sings some humourous songs, you do the laughing.

Thu 01 Mar The Thursday Show (Kevin Gildea, Stu & Garry, Phil Differ)

Zoe Lyons: Some Random

Bruce Morton

The Friday Show (Roger Monkhouse, Jason Rouse, Ed Patrick, Darren Connell)

13–17 Mar, times vary, From £14

The Stand, 18:00–20:00, £10

The inimitable Mr Boyle presents a series of rather special warm-up shows for his up-coming tour, which he says will also be his last. Like, ever.

The Stand, 19:45–21:15, £10 (£9)

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:00, £5

Steel Magnolias

Dancing Queen

Musical sketches done at lightning speed, with no two sets ever being the same. Part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

Live comedy showcase hosted by Charlie Ross.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Fri 09 Mar

Account of the lives of six close-knit, gutsy Southern women living in small-town 80s America, based on the film of the same name.

Abandonman

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Dundee Rep 22 Feb – 5 Mar, not 26 Feb, 27 Feb, 4 Mar, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £15

Wed 14 Mar Frankie Boyle: Work In Progress

Top comics from the contemporary Scottish circuit, aye.

The Invisible Dot Tour 2012 (Jonny Sweet, Nick Mohammed, Sheeps) Bedlam Theatre, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

The Invisible Dot gand return with another comedy showcase of the most interetsing and experimental acts they could find.

Sat 03 Mar The Saturday Show (Kevin Gildea, Stu & Garry, Phil Differ, Gordon Smith)

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK, plus a few surprise guests dropping by.

Sun 11 Mar 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.

Mon 12 Mar Fit O’ The Giggles City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Keara Murphy showcases a selection of new material from a host of acts taking in sketches, stand-up, mime, musical comedy, poetry, magic, and, well, pretty much anything else they damn well fancy.

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK, plus a few surprise guests dropping by.

Electric Tales

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Saturday Live (Janey Godley)

Sun 04 Mar 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.

Mon 05 Mar

Tue 13 Mar The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

Comedy meets storytelling, with the tease of a promise of robot badges.

We’re sold.

Spaghetti Western Orchestra Festival Theatre, 19:30–22:00, From £19.50

A selection of comedians perform classic Ennio Morricone soundtracks, every punch and gunshot brought to comedic life.

Fit O’ The Giggles

Wed 14 Mar

City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

The Melting Pot

Keara Murphy showcases a selection of new material from a host of acts taking in sketches, stand-up, mime, musical comedy, poetry, magic, and, well, pretty much anything else they damn well fancy.

Tue 06 Mar Wicked Wenches (Danielle Ward, Elaine Malcolmson, Sarah Hendrix) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 members)

All-female stand-up, with a suitably varied mix of headliners and newcomers. Hosted by resident funnywoman Susan Calman.

Wed 07 Mar Broken Windows Policy The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Fast-paced and anarchic skits and character comedy, just how we like it.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4/£2.50 members)

Comedy sketches picked by the audience and performed by a troupe of actors and musicians.

Thu 15 Mar The Thursday Show (Michael Smiley, Mike Wozniak) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Comedy Academy The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £3 (£2)

A selection of up-and-coming comedic talent compete against the clock for stage time, gong show stylee.

Punchline (Andrew Lawrence, Seann Walsh, Idiots of Ants) Usher Hall, 20:00–22:30, £20 (£18)

Brand new comedy night of the rather ace variety, headered by Andrew Lawrence’s darkly funny brand of stand-up.

Thu 08 Mar

Fri 16 Mar

The Thursday Show (Stewart Francis, Danielle Ward, Neil McFarlane)

The Friday Show (Michael Smiley, Mike Wozniak)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Comedy Academy The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £3 (£2)

A selection of up-and-coming comedic talent compete against the clock for stage time, gong show stylee.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

The Improverts Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

March 2012 THE SKINNY

69

COMEDY

Art

Friday Live (Stu Who)

Rock and Roll Ping Pong

The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Bongo Club, 19:30–23:00, Free

GLASGOW

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK.

The It’s Funtime jokers present a free, fun, table tennis evening, with dancing discs from DJ Ding Dong.

Cossachok’s Arts and Craft Sale

Sat 17 Mar

Steve Hughes: Big Issues

The Saturday Show (Michael Smiley, Mike Wozniak)

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Saturday Live (Stu Who) The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK, plus a few surprise guests dropping by.

Sun 18 Mar St Partick’s Day Comedy Special (Martin Mor, Elaine Malcolmson, Gar Murran, Michael Redmond) The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £10

In honour of St Partick’s Day, The Stand play host to four of the best Celtic comics on the scene.

Mon 19 Mar Fit O’ The Giggles City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

The Australian comic and ex-heavy metal drummer does his beautiful live rant of a thing.

Prize Comedy The Constitution, 20:15–22:00, Free

Launch of a brand new comedy night for Edinburgh, headered by Irish funnyman Michael Redmond. Plus the chance to win prizes on the night.

Mon 26 Mar Fit O’ The Giggles City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

Keara Murphy showcases a selection of new material from a host of acts taking in sketches, stand-up, mime, musical comedy, poetry, magic, and, well, pretty much anything else they damn well fancy.

Tue 27 Mar

Keara Murphy showcases a selection of new material from a host of acts taking in sketches, stand-up, mime, musical comedy, poetry, magic, and, well, pretty much anything else they damn well fancy.

Stewart Francis

Tue 20 Mar

Doug Stanhope

Phill Jupitus: Stand Down

Edinburgh Playhouse, 20:00–22:00, £21

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £15

The inimitable Mr Jupitus returns to the live stand-up stage, his quick remarks and cheeky sarcasm as prevalent as ever.

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10)

The Mock the Week star does his jolly thing, apparently consisting of 87% new material and a couple of classics thrown in for good measure (so says he).

Expect brutal comedy rants about the stupidity of our social and political systems, courtesy of Mr Stanhope.

Wed 28 Mar

Wed 21 Mar

Best Of Scottish (Mark Nelson)

Richard Herring: What Is Love, Anyway?

The Stand, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 members)

The Stand, 20:00–22:00, £15

Having previously covered such heavyweight topics as yoghurt and fascism, Herring’s latest opus finds him attempting to destroy love in all its guises. Amen to that.

Thu 22 Mar The Thursday Show (Gary Little, Howard Read, Luke Benson) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Comedy Academy The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £3 (£2)

A selection of up-and-coming comedic talent compete against the clock for stage time, gong show stylee.

Fri 23 Mar The Friday Show (Gary Little, Howard Read, Luke Benson) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

The Improverts Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

Friday Live (John Gordillo) The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK.

Sat 24 Mar The Saturday Show (Gary Little, Howard Read, Luke Benson) The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

Saturday Live (John Gordillo) The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK, plus a few surprise guests dropping by.

Sun 25 Mar 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.

Top comics from the contemporary Scottish circuit, aye.

Thu 29 Mar The Thursday Show The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4 members)

Handpicked selection of headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The Comedy Academy The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £3 (£2)

A selection of up-and-coming comedic talent compete against the clock for stage time, gong show stylee.

Fri 30 Mar The Friday Show The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5 members)

Prime stand-up from the best on the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

The Improverts Bedlam Theatre, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

Friday Live (Michael Redmond) The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK.

Sat 31 Mar The Saturday Show The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes.

It’s Funtime Bongo Club, 19:30–21:45, £7

Comedy quiz-cum-game show extravaganza, with fun games and prizes galore.

Saturday Live (Michael Redmond) The Shack, 20:00–22:00, £8

Resident host Jojo Sutherland introduces some of the finest stand-up talent from across the UK, plus a few surprise guests dropping by.

70 THE SKINNY March 2012

Cafe Cossachok Until 25 MAR (not mondays), times vary, free

The delightful Cafe Cossachok host an exhibition of handmade jewllery

by Oksana Mavrodii-Peterson, alongside oils, pastels, watercolours, paintings, prints, ceramics and crafts by artists from around the world.

Compass Gallery Angela Steel: Knots

Until 17 MAR, times vary, free

The fine art glass artist showcases a new series of stained glass panels, accompanied by a selection of drawings and paintings.

Gallery of Modern Art Alasdair Gray: City Recorder 1 Dec – 10 Jun, times vary, Free

Showcase of work from the celebrated Glasgow artist and playwright, focusing on his City Recorder series – a large body of work that Gray created as an ‘artist recorder’ for the City of Glasgow in 1977.

You, Me, Something Else

1 Dec – 18 Mar, times vary, Free

Examples of current sculptural practice in Glasgow, focusing on ten artists who are all at different stages of their international careers. Includes work from Karla Black, Claire Barclay, and collaborative duo Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan.

Glasgow Print Studio Jacki Parry: Resonance Until 4 MAR, times vary, free

Marking the opening of Glasgow Print Studios 40th birthday celebrations, former Head of Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art, Jacki Parry, showcases a selection of work.

Observations: Jim Pattison and Murray Robertson 10 Mar - 8 Apr, times vary, free

Double-header exhibition offering a unique insight into the nature of art and science collaboration over recent years, contributing to the ongoing debate about the relationship between both areas of knowledge.

Glasgow School of Art To Have a Voice

Until 31 MAR (not Sunday), times vary, free

Group show exploring contemporary figurative painting, including works

by Kaye Donachie, Moyna Flannigan, Bruno Pacheco, Gideon Rubin and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. In the Mackintosh Museum.

Mary Mary Construct

Until 24 MAR, times vary, free

Collaborative exhibition from Barbara Kasten, Alan Michael, Ricky Swallow and Daniel Sinsel.

Pollok House New Perspectives

17 Mar - 31 Mar, times vary, free

Using the collections at Pollok House as inspiration, twelve artists present a series of new works taking in sculpture, illustration, textile, ceramic, audio, film collage, illustration and origami.

Project Ability Transportation

2 mar - 14 mar, times vary, free

Group exhibition on the theme of transportation, which includes works from Project Ability’s Friday group as well as three Canadian organisations: Garth Homer, Indefinite Arts and Nina Haggerty Center.

Recoat Gallery Mark Lyken: The Loneliness Machines

Until 4 MAR, times vary, free

For his first solo show Mark Lyken has created a series of original paintings, a mural and a piece of music that explore his own and other’s feelings on our growing reliance and usage of social media websites.

SWG3

Tramway

Alec Finlay

Rhubaba

Superclub

The Glasgow School of Art Fashion Show 2012

T Rooms

The talented artist, poet and publisher showcases his style-hopping work, which crosses a range of media and forms, from sculpture and collage, to audio-visual, neon and new technologies.

A Chance Encounter Between an Umbrella and a Sewing Machine

Dead Guys

13–14 Mar, times vary, £7 (£5)

The second and third year GSA Fashion and Textile students showcase their capsule collections, raising funds for a New Designers exhibition to be hosted in London in 2013.

Craig Mulholland: Dust Never Settles

3-24 Mar, times vary, free

New exhibition of work from the Glasgow-based artist, known for his mixed-media, genre-hopping artwork.

Street Level Photoworks Wang Fu Chun

3 Mar - 14 Apr (not Mondays), times vary, free

Selection of work from the famed Chinese photographer, best know for his body of work Chinese on the Train – a project for which he produced nearly 10 thousand rolls of film tracing people’s lives on their journeys.

Chi Pen

3 Mar - 14 Apr (not Mondays), times vary, free

Young Chinese artist who playfully uses the medium of photography to create poetic narrative compositions that focus on the question of the individual and identity amidst the hyper development of 21st century China.

The Common Guild How To Look At Everything

until 11 Mar, times vary, free

Matthew Darbyshire continues with his exploration into design as a barometer of social change, transforming Tramway’s main gallery space with an ambitious and thought-provoking response to the building’s own physical and social context.

London

9 Mar - 8 apr (not mondays), times vary, free

Rhianna Turnbull uses painting, drawing and collage to create unique works which focus on themes of lifestyle, attitude and identity, combining images from a vast array of archived magazine material to form her own fantasised narratives.

EDINB U R G H Cameo Bar Eddscape at the Cameo

6 mar - 10 apr, times vary, free

Edd Davies presents an exhibition of his fictional movies posters based on iconic landmarks from Edinburgh and beyond.

City Art Centre Recent Acquisitions

21 Jan – 4 Mar, times vary, £tbc

Showcase of items recently acquired by the City Art Centre, illustrating how their collection has developed over the last few years.

3-31 Mar, times vary, free

Collaborative exhibition bringing together a selection of outstanding film and video works by four international artists; Zbynek Baladran, Simon Martin, Nick Relph and Falke Pisano.

The Duchy You Aren’t Anything, You Are Everything

Collective Gallery Sun Xun: Undefined Revolution

3 mar - 8 apr, times vary, free

The Hangzhou-based printmaking graduate showcases a brand new wall-based work, alongside three animations, for his first solo exhibition in Scotland.

10-24 mar, times vary, free

Range of rare footage and screenings from twentieth century artists working on the cusp of cinematic technological development, contrasted with artists from the present age.

The Hidden Noise Objections to an Empty Mind until 17 mar, times vary, free

The Hidden Noise bring together a small yet potent selection of works from London artist Austin Osman Spare – highlighting his interest in occult traditions, psychical phenomena and Eastern philosophy.

The Lighthouse High Street

various dates between 9 Dec and 17 Apr, times vary, Free

Though-provoking exhibition, created by Architecture and Design Scotland, charting the evolution of our High Streets, our changing shops and shopping habits and the impact this has had on us today.

The Modern Institute Padraig Timoney

1 mar - 11 apr, times vary, free

New exhibition of work from Derry-born artist Padraig Timoney, known for his use of differing media and materials.

The Old Hairdressers 28 Drawings Later

5-10 mar, times vary, free

The culmination of Victoria Evans’ month-long picture-a-day project, completed throughout February.

I Dream Therefore I am

25 Mar, 6:00pm – 11:30pm, Free

One-day exhibition-cum-party where GSA students Jeanie Allport-Bryson and Amalie Silvani-Jones showcase a selection of paintings and mixed media pieces, accompanied by a short play, live music and free drinks!

The Virginia Gallery From The Ground Up

until 17 Mar, times vary, free

Contemporary artists Simon Robinson, Sinclair Neeson, Chay Nicholson and Jenny Rose explore our relationship with the rural and urban environment through print, painting and photography.

Edinburgh College of Art 49

2 mar - 8 mar, times vary, free

Exhibition of new work by Edinburgh College of Art’s third year Painting students.

Edinburgh Printmakers Kirsty Whiten: Breeder Badlands

until 10 mar, times vary, free

Unique solo exhibition from Kirsty Whiten, dealing with the complexities of the new familial unit in both large works on canvas and a new series of stone lithographs.

New Print Generation

24 mar - 19 may, times vary, free

Emerging talent showcase of graduate work from across the four Scottish Art College Degree Shows, spanning a wide variety of printmaking techniques, and including work from Skinny favourite Rachel MacLean.

Filmhouse Café Bar Wild at Heart and Weird on Top

until 20 Mar, times vary, free

An exhibition of hand-printed, re-imagined film posters. Each one will be limited edition and available to purchase for £25.

Fruitmarket Gallery Anna Barriball

20 Jan – 1 Apr, times vary, Free

Selection of works from the Londonbased artist known for moving between the parallel languages of drawing and sculpture, showcasing a collection of new commissions alongside existing works.

Ingleby Gallery

17 mar - 21 apr, times vary, free

Inverleith House Thomas Houseago: The Beat Of The Show

until 21 Jun, 10:00am – 5:30pm, Free

The first major outdoor exhibition of sculptures by British artist Thomas Houseago, comprising of new and recent large-scale works, mostly in bronze. Sculpture map available from Inverleith House reception.

Luke Fowler

until 29 apr, times vary, free

Luke Fowler presents over 50 photographs from the Two Frame series, accompanied by the installation Ridges on a Horizontal Plane and the UK premier of All Divided Selves.

National Museum of Scotland

until 4 mar, times vary, free

New exhibition of works from James Clarkson’s using Comte de Lautreamont’s poem of the same name as inspiration, exploring a series of art historical references made when disparate objects and images are combined.

Muse

Collection of RSA works concerned with portraying the female character and figure.

RSA New Contemporaries 2012

17 mar - 11 apr, times vary, free

Now in its fourth year, New Contemporaries offers up the pick of last year’s degree shows, with works from the most promising graduates in fine art and architecture jostling for attention in the grand neoclassical gallery.

Gallery of Modern Art

Fascinating Mummies

Marking the first major exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland’s new purpose-built space, Fascinating Mummies will feature ancient Egyptian treasures dating back as far as 4000BC.

The National Galleries of Scotland present the first of their Scottish Colourists Series with a retrospective of the work of F C B Cadell.

Old Ambulance Depot Inaugural Pursuit

24 mar - 25 mar, times vary, free

ECA-based collective Floss present an exhibition of work by young artists based in Edinburgh, taking in painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance pieces.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall Out of the Blue Arts Market 24 Mar, 11:00am – 3:00pm, 80p

A chance to buy unique art and crafts directly from the artist with over 50 artists and makers selling their wares, including a selection of fashion, textiles, jewellery, art and more.

Patriothall Gallery Paper Page Proocess

25 Feb – 6 Mar, not 27 Feb, 5 Mar, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

Group of exhibiting artists, known collectively as The Artist Book Group, who work in a variety of mediums, coming together to explore the book format within the context of their wider practice.

Pulp Fiction Hardcore Doodling Meets Art Nouveau

16 Mar, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Free

Artist Fiorella Modolo presents her Art Nouveau series, inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, with prints and framed work for sale, plus a chance to meet the artist.

Enchanted Edinburgh At 720nm 30 Mar, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Free

Photographer Mark Gould presents his otherworldly Enchanted Edinburgh series.

Red Door Gallery The March Hare Heir

until 25 mar, times vary, free

Red Door Gallery’s March exhibition inherits the House of Cards from their February exhibition, but with the addition of Rachel Elliot’s beautiful screen printed and kiln-fired Leverets.

Talbot Rice Gallery Alison Turnbull

10 mar - 5 may, times vary, free

until 5 mar, times vary, free

The Scottish Colourist Series

until 27 mar, times vary, free

until 25 mar, times vary, free

Slightly odd-themed collection of drawings of dudes bereft of consciousness and self awareness (yes, dead).

1 Dec – 18 Mar, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

The Sculpture Show

17 Dec – 24 Jun, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Giving themselves over to sculpture in all it’s many forms, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art host a sculptural showcase of works moving from the 1900s to present day.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery Romantic Camera

30 Nov – 3 Jun, times vary, Free

Presenting their first exhibition since the grand re-opening, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery explore the highly charged relationship between romanticism and photography in Scotland.

Hot Scots

Collection of Alison Turnbull’s paintings and drawings, plus an interactive installation for which she has recently been exploring the mineral collection at the National Museums of Scotland and Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours.

Whitespace Blue Grass

30 Mar – 5 Apr, not 1 Apr, times vary, Free

Photography exhibition from Edinburgh Collecge of Art collective, Fotocol, showcasing images from 21 artists on the theme of elemental investigation.

D U NDEE Cooper Gallery Drawing Breath

2 mar - 30 mar, times vary, free

Unique exhibition forging a discourse around materiality and metaphysics by juxtaposing drawings from influential Scottish painter Lys Hansen and photographic and video works from up-and-coming artist Kraig Wilson.

DCA Jane and Louise Wilson until 25 mar, times vary, free

Sibling duo who studied respectively at Newcastle Polytechnic and Dundee’s DJCAD, joining together to showcase two varied bodies of recent work.

Duncan of Jordanstone RECORD>AGAIN!: Part 2 until 4 mar, times vary, free

1 Dec – 1 Apr, times vary, Free

Second phase of the project initiated by the German Federal Cultural Foundation in 2006, with five leading German museums working collaboratively to preserve, restore and disseminate video art.

Sofi’s Bar

Hannah Maclure Centre

Selection of photographic portraits of some of Scotland’s most famous faces, taken by celebrated photographers including Eva Vermandel and Albert Watson.

Bill Murray Exhibition

2 mar - 1 may, times vary, free

A collection of coloured pencil drawings of Bill Murray by Megan Lindsay, served up with some cult classic movies in the projection room throughout the exhibition.

St John’s Church Edinburgh Homelessness Project

4 mar - 22 mar, times vary, free

Collection of artwork curated by the Edinburgh Homelessness Project.

Stills Allan Sekula: Ship Of Fools

21 Jan – 18 Mar, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

For the second installment of his Stills’ programme, Allan Sekula presents his most recent series of photographs which examine the sea as a space of trade, work, exploitation, activism and the sublime.

Richard Williams: United States

until 18 mar, times vary, free

Charming Snakes

until 27 apr (not weekends), times vary, free

Photographer Ross Fraser Mclean shows some of his photographs taken while stranded in a tiny village in India, where he was a virtual captive of the Sapera Caste.

Lindeen Gallery Art Crawl

10–11 Mar, 5:00pm – 12:30am, Free

Art-cum-pub crawl taking participants around temporary art spaces in Dundee, featuring over 30 artists, site-specific performances, games and a raffle along the way. Starts from Lindeen Gallery (5pm).

The McManus A Painted World: Alan Robb 27 Jan – 18 Mar, times vary, Free

Showcase exhibition from figurative painter, and former Head of the School of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Alan Robb.

First public exhibition from Richard Williams, in which he exhibits a series of photographs and artifacts that examine the past, present and future of the once glamorous ship, the SS United States.

Roger Ackling

until 21 apr (not sundays), times vary, free

Having graduated from St Martins School of Art back in the 60s, Roger Ackling has made all of his work by the same method: focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass to burn lines of tiny dots onto found and rescued materials.

Andrew Miller

until 10 mar (not sundays), times vary, free

Selection of work from the Glasgow based artist working across a variety of media, taking in drawing, sculpture, photography and site-specific installations. In Gallery II.

For full listings go to www.theskinny.co.uk/listings or scan left

MUSIC

A MUSO’S TOP 10:

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS

CRYSTAL BAWS WITH MYSTIC MARK

BENJAMIN CURTIS, one half of New York dream pop duo SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS, recommends a handful of his all-time favourite records

Has pop music ever been more epic or dark than Disintegration?

BENJAMIN CURTIS

ARIES 21 MAR – 20 APR Saturn’s adverse ring angle means you find yourself still inhabiting a rat-infested basement with a broken toilet and no lights in March. Try not to weep as you attempt to exit the flat one fine morning only to step on a plastic bag filled with your own excrement, its soft contents erupting through the gaps between your toes as it pops.

TAURUS 21 APR – 21 MAY Kid yourself you’ve got a family tree if you like, but it’s all just roots.

1. Joy Division – Closer (1980) Chances are if I have to explain this to you at all, we probably don’t have a lot to talk about.

2. Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein (2001) The Sgt. Pepper’s of hip hop? Maybe the Loveless of hip hop? It’s all melted and brainy and banging at the same time.

3. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (2009) This one has been in heavy rotation since the second it came out, and it’s not stopping soon. Her voice in the bridge of Dry and Dusty gives me chills every time.

5. Gas – Nah Und Fern (2008) Is picking a box set cheating? Too late. Picked it. It’s amazing to listen to in bed. Whatever it is you choose to do in there.

6. Joni Mitchell – Blue (1971) This record feels like a friend. If I’m ever far from home and missing somebody, Joni’s perspective always makes me feel a little bit better.

7. Neu! – Neu! (1972) What a classic. I wish Hallogallo was twice as long. Some of my proudest moments as a guitarist have been sharing the stage with Michael Rother. I love that guy.

9. Kraftwerk – Computer World (1981) So hard to choose which one, but there’s no question Kraftwerk gets a spot on the list. So groovy and not at all groovy at the same time. The sound of this record blows my mind every time I hear it.

10. Brian Eno & Harold Budd – Ambient II: The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) OK, so this record is peacefulness encapsulated. We all need a little of that in our lives, right? I’ve found the perfect moment for this record is as the plane is taking off. Put your ear buds behind your ear so they can’t see that you’re wearing them, and drift away.

GHOSTORY BY SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS IS RELEASED VIA FULL TIME HOBBY ON 5 MAR WWW.SVIIB.COM

4. The Cure – Disintegration (1989) This one’s been on the list for a while. Has pop music ever been more epic or dark? I actually have to keep this off of my iPhone because it’s hard for me to listen to other things when it’s on there.

8. Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies (1992) This one goes way back too. It’s hard to explain why I chose this over his other records, but it’s probably certain memories I have made while listening to it. It’s so grand and romantic and pathetic all at the same time.

Perfect.

GEMINI 22 MAY – 21 JUN This month you ring my £1.53 per minute astrology hotline where I’ll explain to you in intricate detail and impossibly slowly why and how the universe will soon siphon all your money away.

CANCER 22 JUN – 23 JUL As a pole dancer, your life is filled with glamour, intrigue and countless mouth-breathing, pot-bellied men covered in wispy tobacco-like hair.

LEO 24 JUL – 23 AUG This month you die and go to Heaven. Sadly, because it transpires every sperm that died in all of mankind’s history also had a soul, it’s now an undersea world up there. God’s up to His beard in slime. Enjoy eternity.

VIRGO 24 AUG – 23 SEP Your life amounts to an icicle of frozen piss spinning silently through space.

SCORPIO 24 OCT – 22 NOV Stop taking so many Class As. Having a conversation with you these days is like trying to talk to a dog whilst firing a powerful garden hose at its face.

SAGITTARIUS 23 NOV – 21 DEC

Pull your fingers out of your eyes, that’s not your girlfriend, it’s a breezeblock with a wig.

You need help.

CAPRICORN 22 DEC – 20 JAN

This month you die and your last wish is fulfilled: being posthumously turned into mince and canned in a factory, a can to each person attending your funeral, the epitaph on the side reading: ‘Feed me to your dog, make me into a lasagne or simply throw me in the sea. The choice is yours.’

AQUARIUS 21 JAN – 19 FEB It’s only after you’ve made passionate love to the chimpanzee you begin to ponder how close its DNA is to that of a human. Your attempts to feed it a morning after pill hidden in a banana prove fruitless. Halfway through March you finally give it a pregnancy test and to your horror two lines appear.

Before the year is out your hairy spouse will have given birth to an abomination which will shake religion to its core.

PISCES 20 FEB – 20 MAR Nope, nothing. I’m getting nothing. The energy pipes must be blocked again.

LIBRA 24 SEP – 23 OCT Good things are going to happen this month, just not to you.

MARCH 2012 THE SKINNY

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