The Skinny Scotland May 2013 by The Skinny

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C U LT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

Scotland Issue 92 May 2013

Music Savages John Grant Colin Stetson The Pastels Melvins vs Mudhoney Big Daddy Kane Art Peles Empire Arika 13 Film Sarah Gavron Jeff Nichols on Mud Hal Hartley Neil Jordan on Byzantium Comedy Adam Buxton Clubs Koreless Sean Johnston Bongo returns Books William McIlvanney Jenni Fagan A Salute to Iain Banks Theatre Mayfesto

20 OUTSTANDING SCOTTISH ALBUMS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS GET THE SAY AWARD APP FOR FREE Available on: iOS / Android / Windows

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the Waterboys

IN ASSOCIATION WITH WME

present

FISHERMAN’S BLUES REVISITED UK & Ireland 2013 with Full Band

Scott

MON 9TH DECEMBER

GLASGOW CONCERT HALL

Thistlethwaite TUES 10TH DECEMBER

GLASGOW BARROWLAND

0141 353 8000 0844 844 0444 WWW.TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

THURS 29 AUG GLASGOW CONCERT HALL

Lloyd Cole

P.18 Village at the End of the World

P.25 Koreless

P.28 Arika: Episode 5

P.51 Savages

IN CONCERT

plus special guest

Mon 21st Oct Wed 23rd Oct

SUN 23RD JUNE

02 ABC Glasgow

thursday 13 th june

O2 ABC GLASGOW

Friday 8th November Saturday 9th November

Glasgow Oran Mor

Sunday 10th November

Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Plus Special Guests

Glasgow

Oran Mor

MON 3 JUNE

EDINBURGH QUEEN’S HALL 0131 668 2019

WED 27 NOVEMBER

GLASGOW CONCERT HALL 0141 353 8000

DAVID LYNCH presents

May 2013

Tues 18 June

Edinburgh

WED 22ND MAY

Voodoo Rooms

EDINBURGH

Voodoo Rooms

Sunday 12 May

GLASGOW STEREO THURSDAY 27TH JUNE O2 ABC GLASGOW

THE AMAZING

SNAKEHEADS SUN 23 JUNE Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms

THE BARR BROTHERS WED 4 SEPT GLASGOW

Nice n Sleazy

Issue 92, May 2013 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 3 Coates Place, Edinburgh, EH3 7AA The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more.

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

MONDAY 5 AUGUST EDINBURGH VOODOO ROOMS Thursday 16th May

EDINBURGH Voodoo Rooms

Friday 9 August

Glasgow Nice N Sleazy Mon 12 & Mon 19 August

Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms

Friday 17th May

GLASGOW Broadcast

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

Contents

Printed by Mortons Print Limited, Horncastle ABC verified Jan – Dec 2012: 32,090

printed on 100% recycled paper

Editorial Editor-in-Chief Music & Deputy Editor Art Editor Books Editor Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Deviance Editor DVD Editor Events Editor Fashion Editor Film Editor Food Editor Performance Editor Tech Editor Travel Editor Staff Writer / Sub Editor

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

Production Production Manager Lead Designer

Peter Marsden Maeve Redmond

Intern

Katie Armstrong

Sales/Accounts Sales Director Sales Executive Accounts Administrator

Lara Moloney George Sully Tom McCarthy Solen Collet

Head of Digital

Andy Thomson

Publisher

Sophie Kyle

THE SKINNY

Photo: Richard Dumas

Wickman

Contents Front

Chat: Hero Worship sees Take One Action film festival’s Simon Bateson salute Ken Loach; Stop the Presses; Online Only; Skinny on Tour; Shot of the Month; Crystal Baws becomes so gruesome even Mystic Mark is finding it a bit harrowing.

Lifestyle 34

Travel: The Hot List 2013 guides you through the off-the-beaten-track mustvisit locations for this summer.

Deviance: A provocative piece challenging cultural assumptions about rape, and a piece on the joy of feminist boyfriends.

08 Heads Up: Your daily guide to fun things to do across the nation.

Features 10

Mount Kimbie’s Kai Campos looks beyond ‘post-dubstep’ and tells us how the London duo’s diverse new LP came together.

Former Czars frontman John Grant explains that his bold new record Pale Green Ghost is all about forgiveness.

We take a trip down the Mississippi with Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols as he tells about his new coming-of-ager Mud.

Prolific saxophone ninja Colin Stetson discusses completing his epic New History Warfare trilogy.

Sarah Gavron talks to us about her extraordinary doc Village at the End of the World.

As Canongate prepare to republish the works of William McIlvanney, we ask him about Laidlaw, the original ‘tartan noir’.

An interview with Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels – the seminal Glasgow band’s first album ‘proper’ in 16 years is imminent, just don’t call it a comeback.

The only Scot on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists 4 list, Jenni Fagan, shares her experience of the accolade.

Hal Hartley on DIY filmmaking in the 21st century, and why he was never worried about making it on somebody else’s terms. As Neil Jordan returns to vampire lore, we ask some key questions about bloodletting and inspiration.

Koreless journey into previously unexplored sonic realms – we asked them for a route-map.

26 A tribute to author Iain Banks, from

personal friend and fellow scribe Andrew Wilson.

36 Showcase: Introducing Alexander

Millar, a GSA graduate with a fascination for aubergines.

Fashion: New talent showcase.

Food and Drink: The most expensive rum in the world. Plus Food News for May, Round the World in 20 Drinks, and Phagomania stares at some pizza.

Review 45

Music: Titans return as our review squad survey new releases from The National, Mike Patton, Deerhunter, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Alice in Chains and many more. Plus, we meet London post-punkers Savages to discuss their no-nonsense manifesto.

Clubs: Sean Johnston on DJing with Sir Andrew of Weatherall; Magic Nostalgic sets up in Glasgow; we reiterate our love for The Bongo Club.

56 Films: We’ve got a vampire movie

(Byzantium), a hostage crisis thriller ( A Hijacking ), a blissed out coming-of-age film (Something in the Air) and a camp romp (I’m So Excited!). Classic.

DVD: He’s back! The Governator dusts off his girdle for his film comeback The Last Stand. Also on DVD: some Bruno Dumont, early Hal Hartley and a Quartet of national treasures. Competitions: Your chance to win festival tickets to T in the Park and Knockengorroch!

58 Art: Nicholas Party, Cough em if

they can’t take a choke and RSA New Contemporaries.

59 Books: McIlvanney’s Laidlaw, Granta’s

Best of Young British Novelists 4, The Humans by Matt Haig, and Mike Power’s Drugs 2.0.

60 Theatre: Looking forward to some political drama at Mayfesto, plus Chekhov’s The Seagull and Invisible Empire from In the Company of Wolves.

Ahead of their show at GSS, we quiz Peles Empire about a work that disappears even as it expands.

For their second outing of 2013, Arika take on the world of voguing, drag, clubbing and gender.

62 Listings: Your cultural entertainment for

29 Radio jester and pop culture polymath Adam Buxton (aka Dr Buckles) talks to us about being “a pig in shit”.

30 As Melvins and Mudhoney tour the land

Tech: What are these bitcoin things anyway? A highly speculative account of how you could invest your hard earned cash. the month of May – sorted.

70 Under the Influence: Ahead of his O2 ABC

appearance, rap legend Big Daddy Kane shares classic cuts from the Juice Crew’s Cold Chillin’ era.

in the year of their respective pearl and silver anniversaries, King Buzz(o) Osborne (to give him his full title) and Mark Arm lock horns to talk odd golf foursomes, the virtues of theft, and the real origin of grunge.

May 2013

Contents

Editorial

Have Your SAY Scottish Album of the Year longlist announced

plus a fitting tribute to Iain Banks by a longtime associate. In Comedy, Adam Buxton talks BUGs, Radiohead and his tragically increasingly distant relationship with Joe Cornish. Why Adam and Joe? Why break up the dream team? Art talks to Peles Empire about recreating Romanian castles, and looks forward to Arika’s second programme of the year, which brings an examination of voguing and drag culture to Glasgow. Film takes a closer look at new releases Mud, Byzantium and The Village at the End of the World by talking to their respective directors, namely Jeff Nichols, Neil Jordan and Sarah Gavron. Look out for the astonishing photo of a dog-filled village beside an iceberg on the Gavron piece. Travel fully embraces the off-the-beatentrack-undiscovered-gem concept with its Hot List 2013, recommending visits to such delights as the Lost City of Chernobyl and that big pile of plastic in the Pacific. Also playing it for the LOLs this month is the Food section, where our Food editor Peter is allowed into a fancy hotel to try some criminally expensive rum and attempts to make off with the silverware. As usual (well for the second time at least) this is just one of the Skinny editions – there’s another one down in the Northwest of England with yet more quality content if you happen to be in the area. You can of course also read all about it online. And that is about all the excitement I can handle right now. If you need me I shall be across the continent in the warmth. [Rosamund West] This Month's Cover Gemma Burke is a freelance photographer from Glasgow, currently living in London. She specialises in live music photography alongside fashion and portraiture work.

he longlist for the 2013 Scottish Album of the Year Award (SAY) was announced last week (25 April) . The second in the initiative's history, the inaugural prize was awarded in 2012 to Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat for their collaborative album Everything's Getting Older. In contrast to last year's longlist, the 2013 selection contains two albums which have had major mainstream success, making stars out of the artists concerned. Calvin Harris, nominated for his album 18 Months, featuring vocals from Rihanna, Kelis and Example among others, was a worldwide hit, while Emeli Sandé's Our Version of Events was embraced by daytime radio, and has sold over a million copies in the UK alone. The range of genres addressed by this year's longlist is also heartening, with nods to hip-hop, pop music, electronica, punk and jazz included among the guitar-slinging indie mob who tend to dominate many awards ceremonies – although the SAY Award already has a track record of embracing experimental and dance music artists, with recognition for Conquering Animal Sound and Rustie in last year's list. The 2013 longlist was aggregated from the suggestions of a list of industry nominators including broadcasters, musicians, record label owners and journalists (including our own Music editor). This year's judging panel includes author Christopher Brookmyre, author and journalist Tom Doyle, visual artist Douglas Gordon, musician and label owner Tjinder Singh (of Cornershop and Ample Play Records), and DJ/producer Rebecca Vasmant. Right now you can download an app and stream a new nominee from the longlist every day to school yourself in those you might have missed. Then on Monday 27 May, there will be a 24-hour public vote, which will be taken into consideration alongside the judges' views. We'll keep you posted with details of how to make sure your voice is heard. The shortlist will be announced on 30 May, with the final announcement of the

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat collecting The SAY Award 2012

winner being made on 20 June in a ceremony at the Barrowlands in Glasgow. Of the final ten shortlisted, nine will win a prize of £1000, with a grand prize of £20,000 awarded to the lucky winner. The full longlist is as follows: Admiral Fallow – Tree Bursts In Snow Auntie Flo – Future Rhythm Machine Calvin Harris – 18 Months Dam Mantle – Brothers Fowl Django Django – Django Django Duncan Chisholm – Affric Emeli Sandé – Our Version of Events Errors – Have Some Faith In Magic Human Don't Be Angry – Human Don't Be Angry Karine Polwart – Traces Konrad Wiszniewski & Euan Stevenson – New Focus Lau – Race The Loser Meursault – Something For The Weakened Miaoux Miaoux – Light of the North Paul Buchanan – Mid Air PAWS – Cokefloat RM Hubbert – Thirteen Lost & Found Stanley Odd – Reject The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know The Unwinding Hours – Afterlives

Shot Of The Month

The Skinny On Tour

Pere Ubu by David P Scott at Mono on 17 Apr

This month The Skinny Scotland took a research trip to the home of its sister publication. If you think you know where that is, head along to theskinny.co.uk/competitions and enter your guess to be in with the chance of winning a copy of Things that Are by Amy Leach, one of the latest

Chat

releases from our pals at Canongate Books. Competition closes midnight Friday 31 May. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within one week or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Full details of terms and conditions can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

THE SKINNY

Photo: Dominic Cocozza

oodbye winter, hello monsoon season. This editorial is brought to you in the feverish anticipation of a holiday in the sunshine, away from the wind, the rain and the incessant drilling caused by the seemingly endless tram works outside the office window. The last two years have been spent watching a bunch of contractors loudly and repeatedly dig up and retarmac the same stretch of road, which is odd to say the least. In this here May issue, we lead with an interview with Mount Kimbie, one of whom looks unsettlingly like Ben Affleck. They engage in mind-bendingly specific banter about genre in their music (they’re against it, broadly speaking) and discuss the influences that have helped craft new album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. Also in Music, we’ve got some words with John Grant on grief, acceptance and working with Sinéad O’Connor. Colin Stetson, a man surely named for the country and western world, is in fact a virtuoso saxophonist releasing the third part of his New History Warfare album series this month. He leads us into a poignant meditation on beauty, sadness and the loneliest whales on p17. The Pastels are back after freakin' ages (not as long as MBV, longer than eh... Rihanna, basically) and gave us some insight on line-up changes and the importance of a work ethic. We’ve also had enlightening chats with band of the moment Savages, set the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne to interviewing Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, and vice versa (talk turns to the birth of grunge, finding wedded bliss and golf, natch), turned ...Trail of Dead onto the singles and extracted a ten strong guide to Cold Chillin Juice Crew’s catalogue from hip-hop progenitor Big Daddy Kane. Books also has a banner issue this month, having secured interviews with tartan noir godfather William McIlvanney and Granta best young British novelist (official title) Jenni Fagan,

RIP The Duchy This month is your last chance to visit Glasgow gallery The Duchy, sadly closing its doors after four acclaimed years fostering artistic careers on Duke St. The last show goes to Zara Idleson, displaying egg tempera paintings created on residency in London. The exhibition’s open until Saturday 11 May, and the gallery will be shutting up shop on Friday 17 May. They’ll still be curating shows in an off-site, possibly ninja style in the coming months, so keep an eye out. You can of course follow them on Twitter, @theduchygallery Scots Invade The Great Escape A strong Scottish contingent has been announced for this year’s pilgrimage to Brighton for The Great Escape from Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 May, with a bill including chameleonic Edinburgh rap veterans and recent Anticon signings Young Fathers and Glasgow’s electro-pop Aereogramme splinter

Online Only Eyes to the website

It’s another release heavy month in the Music world, with much more afoot than we have room for in these pages. Over on the website our critics weigh in on forthcoming releases from Daft Punk (such is the secrecy around the French duo’s return that, as of the time we’re going to print, we still haven’t actually heard it!), Primal Scream, Jaga Jazzist, KMFDM and Dinosaur PileUp, plus many more. www.theskinny.co.uk/music Over in Books, this month we talked with author William McIlvanney – his Laidlaw, credited

group CHVRCHES, joining forces with other young hopefuls on their ascent in the dangerous world of rock’n’roll such as Honey Blood, Fatherson, Jackmaster, Washington Irving, Alarm Bells and Holy Esque. 30 venues, 350 bands, you’ve nae excuse for building sandcastles. Take One Action: The World on Your Plate Take One Action are back for a weekend of foodbased film fun! Well, fun maybe isn’t the right word, but you’ll definitely leave informed – films on show include Canned Dreams, a tale of the 30,000-kilometer journey of a tin of pasta, and award-winning documentary A River Changes Course, about the effect of globalisation on Cambodia’s food supply. Oh, and a documentary about Bill Pullman – the president from Independence Day – setting up his own orchard. Couldn’t forget about that one. Thursday 30 May to Sunday 2 Jun, Filmhouse Edinburgh

with being the first ever ‘tartan noir’ novel, recently re-published by Canongate, is our Book of the Month. We have an extended interview with him online, talking about his legacy to Scottish crime fiction, and his thoughts on a career revitalised. www.theskinny.co.uk/books We also chatted to hip-hop legend Big Daddy Kane in advance of his UK tour – read an extended run-down of his ten crucial cuts from the Cold Chillin’ label on the website, with videos included! www.theskinny.co.uk/music Our online column NETVERK, focusing on some of the best new self-released downloadable music currently on offer, returns in podcast form this month. Stream it exclusively online at www. theskinny.co.uk/music Over in Film, we discuss to two films forgotten in the avalanche of American cinema from

1970s that are resurrected by Glasgow-based distributors Park Circus in May: Jerry Schatzberg’s Palme d'Or-winning road-movie Scarecrow, which stars Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, and The King of Marvin Gardens, which reunites Bob Rafelson with his Five Easy Pieces lead Jack Nicholson. We discuss both online and suggest some other lesser-spotted movies from the New Hollywood period that are prime for rediscovery. www.theskinny.co.uk/film You can read all the articles from our Northwest edition online – this month’s highlights include interviews with Jeffrey Lewis, Mount Eerie, Rob Newman and Dan Croll, plus an array of insights into events happening in Manchester and Liverpool over the course of May. The feature on weirdly sexual burger advertising comes particularly recommended.

Take One Action Film Festival director Simon Bateson remembers his first encounters with the work of EnglishScottish double act, Ken Loach and Paul Laverty

May 2013

With Mystic Mark

ARIES After fitting a new kitchen, the plumber accidentally connects your water pipes up to Europe’s largest Industrial Sperm Bank complex. Taking a shower after work, the boiler rumbles and the pipes gurgle and creak before a torrent of thick man sludge erupts from the shower head, covering you in an inadvertent bukkake. Blinded by muck, you stumble out to find the toilet filling to the brim with off-white ooze like something out of Ghostbusters II, then into the hall, warmed by radiators full of boiling jizz where you frantically turn off the stop cock.

TAURUS This month your career takes an interesting turn when you’re sold into the army as a stab bag.

Hero Worship: Ken Loach ne of the great annoyances of the pre-digital age was also its blessing: how the lack of choice about what to watch simultaneously immersed us in grand, shared storytelling, the kind that runaway capitalism has thrived on splintering over the decades. I was twelve or thirteen, staying up past my bedtime, and spending more and more time in that dark, shadowy corner of British cultural life (for a teenager at least) known as BBC2. Thatcher and Murdoch’s media legacies weren’t yet cemented. With only four channels to choose between – and desperate to see beyond the confines of a neighbourhood impoverished by slavery to the City of London and mainstream telly – I flicked over and became immersed for hours in worlds that were robustly, comprehensively alien and challenging. One particular film turned my sense of self and culture inside out more than any other. In my memory there’s a blur of foreign fields, poor farmers rich in dignity, war, and the film’s emotional crux – lovers tragically surrendering personal fulfillment to political necessity. (Staggering out of Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables last night as it tours the Scottish Islands, and with Thatcher’s funeral just over, I realise that this idea – the individual coming second – is still a million Cameron Mackintoshes from making any come back). Above all though, I recall a scene, in which men and women, young and old, scholar and peasant, Glaswegians, Liverpudlians, Catalan and Eastern Europeans passionately debated what they were living and dying for. Land, and freedom. It blew my mind. Maybe I knew then that this film (yes, Land and Freedom, about the Spanish Civil War) was directed by a man called Ken Loach. However, it took a second film at the cinema a year or so

Crystal Baws

later, Carla’s Song, the first written by Loach’s now long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty, to confirm an awareness of his work. Here, another Glaswegian, played by Robert Carlyle, has his world turned inside out when he travels to Nicaragua and comes face-to-face with the infamous Americanbacked attack on the Sandinista uprisings. Broken in all the right places, Carlyle’s character returns to Scotland: but bringing what back with him? As Desmond Tutu, a friend of Take One Action’s, says: “poverty, global injustice, and our separation from each other have causes which can be sung about, visualised and changed.” This idea has anchored Loach’s feature films and documentaries for nearly fifty years (on the docs, see Jamie Dunn’s interview with Loach last month). For me, though, the action is in the drama: where his characters repeatedly discover that the private security they’ve invested in is illusory, and that the true value of our lives is very often to be counted elsewhere, for good or ill: with people on the margins, near and far. These experiences and ideas (collective accountability, internationalism, social justice, underwritten by human stories you rarely glimpse in the Odeon) eventually led to my own learning journey to Sierra Leone in 2006, and the privilege of working for communities who are overturning centuries of turmoil and exploitation you can quickly trace back to British administrators and European high street diamond dealers. As the government once again explicitly links overseas aid with our trade interest, Sierra Leone’s peace seems a fragile one, but no less inspiring for that, and for the ongoing solidarity – the kind that Land and Freedom celebrates – between many westerners and their African counterparts. So inspired, I came home – to Scotland – to help set up a film festival aimed

at revealing more of these shared stories. We were chuffed to bits when Ken Loach and Paul Laverty agreed to become patrons of Take One Action in 2009, and ultimately thankful that they asked to be kept largely out of the picture so they could focus on what they do best. Loach is now 76, and still making an acclaimed new film about every 18 months with Paul Laverty and long-time producing partner Rebecca O’Brien. Their latest, a moving doc about the post-war generation, The Spirit of ‘45, has just landed on iTunes, epitomising the new landscape of choice over what to watch. Thankfully, this landscape owes as much to the increased democratisation of filmmaking as to its commercial exploitation. If we really want to recapture the spirit of ‘45, though, we must find ways to come together, face-to-face, to share and discuss the stories we’re choosing: men with women, old with young, scholar with apprentice, the banker with the activist. But back to The Skinny’s question about ‘hero worship.’ Paul Laverty inadvertently reminded me not long ago of a line by Brecht, who I first discovered in a public library in 2000. It comes back to me now as I think about Loach’s work, about the politics of our own decade, and the battle over Scotland’s future. “Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes,” which means simply this: that true freedom rests in our interdependence. Culture is what furthers our understanding of that. It should break you into pieces. Are you ready? Loach’s back-catalogue is a great place to start. The World On Your Plate, a weekend of films and workshops presented by Take One Action exploring the social impact of global food production and land rights, takes place in Edinburgh 30 May to 2 Jun. For details visit www.takeoneaction.org.uk

GEMINI Didn’t your parents ever tell you it’s rude to talk with your mouth full of drugs?

CANCER Tears roll down the 2ft mince-like tumour which hangs off your face like a leaking meat cauliflower while you watch the taped One Show Christmas Special you just got round to viewing.

LEO You have the mind of a worm and the body also of a worm.

VIRGO Like your sphincter, you tend to relax after a few drinks.

LIBRA After starting your own accountancy firm you decide to put 110% into the venture. Nobody can fault your commitment, but this really fucks up the figures.

SCORPIO You never noticed before the Job Centre employees’ stab vests or side arms, the searchlight tower in the car park, the snarling German shepherds barely held back by guards at the door or the wailing job seekers in cages hanging from lampposts in the street outside.

SAGITTARIUS Your ruling planet is Jupiter, the fattest planet in the solar system.

CAPRICORN You hope to one day have an ambition.

AQUARIUS For you, the grass is always greener on the other side. That’s because you live in a nightmarish dystopian future where grass has been banned by a merciless World Government.

PISCES Lately you’ve been working your way into the heart of a certain someone special, really getting to know what they’re like inside. In May however, a malfunction in the miniaturisation ray causes your microscopic vessel to expand without warning, exploding out of their body in a flash of meat and metal. With the engines powering down and the windscreen wipers moving guts back and forth across your cockpit window, you stumble out into a dripping red living room for a scream-filled meeting with the parents of the person you spent the last fortnight inside.

twitter.com/themysticmark

Chat

As spring gives way to summer (that's called wishful thinking), this month finds us actually braving the outdoors for both Brew at the Bog and Knockengorroch. Elsewhere, it's Degree Show time for DJCAD and ECA, Stag and Dagger bring the day-long musical marathon, and the inaugural Southside Fringe enters our world...

Thu 2 May

Following a series of mysterious videos uploaded via their YouTube channel, and a jaunt to SXSW, Californian heavy-hop trio Death Grips take to Glasgow's SWG3 as part of their current tour – delivering their usual full-frontal musical assault to pumped up fans, before heading off to party it up at Barcelona's Primavera festival, and then at the return of Washington's Sasquatch! SWG3, Glasgow, 7pm, £12.50

Due to the fact they'll have to vacate their premises during July and August (when they'll hand over to Underbelly), the Bongo host their own mini festival of all things Bongo – Bongo Lives! – from 1-6 May, taking in a selection of club nights, spoken word, film, theatre, dance, and live art. We're particulalry looking forward to the Too Much Fun Club's live decorating of the big main gate. Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Various times

Bigging up the female electronic contingent (and quite rightly so), Electric Circus host a special showcase evening – fittingly entitled Electric Wonderland – headed up by leftfield electronic songstress Plum (aka she with the innate ability to move from balearic-sweet acoustics to dubstep-infused heavier soundscapes in the skip of a beat), with support from Fiona Soe Paing, and Elbi. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 7pm, £6

Death Grips

Plum

The Bongo

Tue 7 May

Wed 8 May

Thu 9 May

Trans-Pacific nomad Alex Zhang Hungtai plays under his Dirty Beaches moniker, all drum loops and yearning melodies, oft meandering into psych-rock territory with squalls of tortured guitar and minimal synth. Suffice to say he's a treat to the ears in a live setting. Support comes from The Yawns, and, erm, some punks called the Supreme Dicks. We ain't Googling that. Nice 'n' Sleazy, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £7

Comic Gary Delaney takes to Edinburgh as part of his 2013 mini tour, continuing with his quest to tell as many jokes as possible in the space of an hour or so – because apparently most shows don't contain enough. We'll do our best not to envisage him having sex as a ghost watches (caveat: he once told us this happened to him, we've been weirded out ever since). The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £10 (£8)

Dirty Beaches

Gary Delaney

Electric and brooding country-tinged trio Sparrow and the Workshop – riding along resplendent on Chicagoan Jill O'Sullivan's drawling, ethereal tones – launch what will be their third album, Murderopolis, in full-on party stylee, joined by electronic popsters Magic Eye (up from Manchester launching their own album) and a selection of DJs from local bands. Advance album copies available on the night. The Caves, Edinburgh, 7pm, £6

Sparrow and the Workshop

Tue 14 May

Wed 15 May

Thu 16 May

Fri 17 May

Southside Fringe Festival throws up another dose of musical loveliness (see also eagleowl, 12 May), as acoustic composer Ryan Francesconi – musical director on Joanna Newsom’s triple album, Have One On Me – performs a special set with his partner and longtime musical collaborator, violinist Mirabai Peart, in celebration of their collaborative new release. The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 8pm, £12.50

Right Lines Productions return with a performance based on Roger Hunt's book, Be Silent or Be Killed, a true story telling of Hunt's experience trapped in a Mumbai hotel bedroom during a terrorist attack. With gunfire and grenade attacks coming ever closer, it explores how our survivial instinct comes into play when the focus is as basic as staying alive. Summerhall, Edinburgh, 8pm & 10pm, £14 (£10)

The Lighthouse hand over the Review Gallery space to Kyla McCallum – who runs multi-disciplinary London design studio Foldability, using origami techniques to create products, packaging and bespoke pieces – who'll exhibit a new lighting installation showcasing designs from her Sonobe Collection, each made from myriad hand-folded modules. The Lighthouse, Glasgow, until 30 Jun, Free

Tis officially the season for art school graduate offerings, with the graduating students at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art and Design taking to an exhibition setting for their annual showcase outing, featuring work from the Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Animation, Textile Design, Jewellery and Metal Design, and Product Design schools. DJCAD, Dundee, until 26 May, Free

Artwork: Kyla McCallum

Artwork: Calum Crotch

Ryan Francesconi

Be Silent or Be Killed

Wed 22 May

Thu 23 May

Always a favourite when he pitches up at Sub Club (usually as part of his Subculture residency), yer man Telford takes up a slot at Subbie's regular Tuesday nighter, i Am, ready to put resident young guns Beta & Kappa through their paces in advance of their boat party outing on The Waverley the following week (28 May, setting sail at 7pm). Sub Club, Glasgow, 11pm, £5 (or free via iamclub.co.uk)

The musical clubber's delight that is MILK pitch up at Flat 0/1 for their second birthday celebrations, bringing with 'em a 'best of' styled bunch of former guests in the form of Carnivores, Lady North, and a secret headliner whom they've sworn us to secrecy on. It'll all be jollied along by party food, milk cocktails, and free Mad Dog shots for the first folk down. Flat 0/1, Glasgow, 9pm, £4

Telford

Lady North

Well-loved for mixing music from the Celtic diaspora with myriad other genres, Knockengorroch bring the hippy-styled fun to Galloway once more – with acts including Asian Dub Foundation, Rebel MC, and Disraeli and the Small Gods jostling alongside a programme of workshops, live dance, and plenty more besides. And there's the option to go all out and rent a luxury yurt. Galloway, 23-26 May, £93 (£87) fourday pass

Photo: Pete Dunlop

Tue 21 May

Disraeli and the Small Gods

Thu 30 May

Fri 31 May

SWG3 throw up an ear-basher of a show, with New Jerseybased rough punk lot Titus Andronicus (lynchpinned on singer Patrick Stickles' larynx-stretching vocals) squaring up to Toronto-based crushers Fucked Up, who have the mangiant Damian Abraham at their helm – who does a rather good line in bellowing and bear hugs. Support comes from Toronto-based grunge trio Metz. SWG3, Glasgow, 7pm, £15

A selection of talented music-makers join forces for the next installment of Tune Into Autism, kicking off a new series of showcase gigs raising funds for Scottish Autism. On the bill this time around will be eclectic songwriter and producer Shona Maguire, playing under her Plum guise, joined by the well-constructed flows of Solareye, better known as the frontman of Stanley Odd. The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 7pm, £7

Curated by Edinburgh’s Take One Action Film Festival, The World On Your Plate looks at global food issues (i.e. why half the world don’t have enough to eat, while the rest have too much) through film, music, and workshops, with opportunities for audiences to eat, drink, cook together and ask questions of UK, Scottish, and European politicians. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 30 May-2 Jun, Various times

Glasgow minimal folk lot Quickbeam launch their debut album in Govanhill's beautiful, disused Victorian swimming baths, Govanhill Baths, in what will be a unique collaboration with local artists Annie Crabtree and Becca Thomas – who'll be charged with adorning the place with environmental artistry and projection, while the band do their ever-majestic and cinematic thing. Govanhill Baths, Glasgow, 8pm, £8

Moo Man

Quickbeam

Fucked Up

Chat

Stanley Odd's Solareye

Photo: Kenny McColl

Wed 29 May

Photo: Claire Taylor

Tue 28 May

THE SKINNY

Photo: Sonia Mallan

Compiled by: Anna Docherty

Wed 1 May

Photo: Chapman Baehler

Heads Up

Tue 30 Apr

Sat 4 May

Sun 5 May

Mon 6 May

DJ, producer and remixer extraordinaire Andrew Weatherall and regular cohort Sean Johnston (aka one half of disco editing duo The Hardway Brothers) don their A Love From Outer Space caps once more, taking to the slightly more intimate surrounds of the Liquid Room's Annexe space for their third Edinburgh edition of back-to-back deck-spinning goodness. The Annexe, Edinburgh, 10.30pm, £12.50

Outdoor festival season is nigh, with the first weekend of May throwing up the return of BrewDog and Bogbain Farm's musical all-dayer, Brew at the Bog. The line-up takes in the varied tones of Miaoux Miaoux, FOUND, Olympic Swimmers, United Fruit, Discopolis, Fatherson, Randolph's Leap, and an eclectic truck-load more. And, well, they make beer – so there'll be plenty of that too. Bogbain Farm, Inverness, £30 camping

Electric Circus turn mini festival for their first in-house all-dayer, Big Day In, playing home to a hefty selection of local and touring acts – amongst them Manc indie-popsters Dutch Uncles, digital Edinburgh trio Discopolis, Glasgow indie-rock combo Machines in Heaven, and the Errors chaps on deck duty leading you towards that [totally gonna happen] 3am booze haze. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 3pm, £10

Having started his musical career back in 1986 as part of the Cold Chillin' Juice Crew, Grammy award-winning US-of-A rapper Big Daddy Kane (no surprises he's big, and, er likes his chunky chains), takes in Glasgow as part of his current tour, joined on the night by Masta Ace, Wordsworth, and Bunty. That enough rhyme action for you? O2 ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £20

FOUND

Andrew Weatherall & Sean Johnston

Errors

Photo: Euan Robertson

Friday 3 May

Big Daddy Kane

Sun 12 May

Mon 13 May

Some 100 years on from Igor Stravinsky's premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris – which incited outrage amongst locals for deigning to do something different – Scottish playwright Rob Drummond works with a dancer and a musician to create a new fusion piece, The Riot of Spring, directly inspired by the riots the original work encited. Tramway, Glagsow, 10 & 11 May, 7pm, £10 (£8)

Fusing the worlds of experimental, rock, and orchestral music, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra stage the first Tectonics Glasgow festival, with the likes of Alvin Lucier, Iancu Dumitrescu, Aidan Moffat, and Stuart Braithwaite uniting to squash some music barriers. They'll also bring science-fiction anti-band Asparagus Piss Raindrop into our lives. Thank you. Various venues, Glasgow, 11 & 12 May, £20.

Fence signees and self-described 'lethargic pop' lot eagleowl add their musical wares to the inaugural Southside Fringe festival (running 10-26 May, see southsidefringe. org.uk for more), taking to The Glad Cafe to officially launch their long-awaited debut album, this silent year – which you can nab yersel' a preview copy of at the gig, ONE WHOLE DAY before it hits the streets. The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 8pm, £8

With their regular afternoon sessions brightening many a lunchtime, the A Play, A Pie and A Pint season continues with Stuart Hepburn's The Pirate (13-18 May), tracing Italian cyclist Marco Pantani's life from his poverty-stricken upbringing, to his hero status as a prestigous race winning athlete, before tragedy and ultimately death befell him at just 38. Plus pies and pints for all, as per. Oran Mor, Glasgow, noon, £10 (£8)

Rob Drummond

eagleowl

Hannah Tulikki

Sun 19 May

Mon 20 May

Now a firm fixture on Glasgow's music calendar, the oneticket, multi-venue export that is Stag and Dagger takes over Weegieland with a suitably eclectic line-up set across multiple venues – which is basically an invitation to make merry joining the dots between Kitty the Lion, United Fruit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Temples, Wolf People, and a head-befuddling array more. Various venues, Glasgow, £19

Having hopefully recovered from their mega Vintage Kilo Sale Weekender earlier in the month (4 & 5 May, Edinburgh's Out of the Blue), the Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair gang pitch up at the Picture House with another jumbo lot of stalls selling all manner of vintage goodies, at which – dare we say it – we might even think about picking up some summer-y threads. Picture House, Edinburgh, 10am-5pm, £2 (£1)

South London dream folksters Mt. Wolf bring their shimmering wares to the suitably ethereal setting of Edinburgh's The Caves. Built on a diet of hazy electronica, acoustic guitar, and whisper-quiet harmonies, they'll be touring in celeration of their new EP, Hypolight, which you can listen to in full on their Soudcloud page. The Caves, Edinburgh, 7pm, £6

Kitty the Lion

Photo: Marcus Thornsen

Sat 18 May

Photo: Jassy Earl

Sat 11 May

Photo: Niall Walker

Fri 10 May

Mt. Wolf

Vintage Kilo Sale

Fri 24 May

Sat 25 May

Sun 26 May

Mon 27 May

For part two of their 2013 mini fests, Arika host Episode 5: Hidden In Plain Sight , an exploration of the resistance of compulsory heterosexuality and the radical communities that make different performances of gender and sexuality visible – with much of the programme unfurling in freeform style (aka go with it). Tramway, Glasgow, 24-26 May, Various times and prices

Summerhall indulge our love of all things beer with a whole weekend of the stuff at their Summer(BEER)hall Festival, where on-site brewer Barney's Beer will be serving up a selection of guest beers, alongside a pop-up bottle shop, brewery tours, the obligatory bratwurst, and live music from a selection of local acts. Summerhall, 24 & 25 May, £8 evening (£5 day; Sat only)

The in-the-know gents behind Whisky Stramash return for a second year, making whisky accesible to both purists and novices alike with a series of samplings from across the globe, alongside a pop-up speakeasy, some molecular mixology, a Sweeney Todd-inspired on-site barber, and that bacon and HP sauce cocktail they whipped up at the launch... Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, 25 & 26 Apr, £26

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

Beer!

Wiskey Stramash’s Scott Martin and Darroch

Billy Kirkwood

Sat 1 Jun

Sun 2 Jun

Mon 3 Jun

Edinburgh College of Art opens its doors for the annual Degree Show round-up, showcasing the fruits of the graduating artists, filmmakers, designers, and architects over a reliably eclectic programme. The annual art school piss-up (aka The Revel) takes place on the Friday 17 May from 7pm, with the usual themed shenanigans, live bands, DJs, and cans o' Red Stripe. ECA, Edinburgh, 1-9 June, Free

Pitching up with a film seemingly made for a Sunday, Glasgow Film Theatre screen Chronicle of a Summer, a groundbreaking documentary from sociologist Edgar Morin and filmmaker/anthropoligist Jean Rouch shot during the summer of 1960, which sees them take to the streets of Paris to ask various residents 'Are you happy?' GFT, Glasgow, 8pm, £7.50

After his 2012 solo tour, Billy Bragg returns to a live setting to air his first new album in five years, Tooth & Nail – which takes a more personal bent, ala his Wilco-collaborating 1998 album Mermaid Avenue. And, well, Walk Away Renee never fails to make us feel woozy of heart, so here's hoping there's a few classics thrown in. The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 7pm, £18.50

Artwork: Cammo

May 2013

Chronicle of a Summer

Billy Bragg

Chat

Post-Everything I

f you dabble even casually in electronic music, you’ll be aware that the proliferation of new micro-genres has gotten pretty ridiculous. A quick check on any of the major music hosting platforms such as SoundCloud will provide you with everything from Illbient to Trillwave. Mount Kimbie, a London-based duo comprised of Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, are often credited with being the originators of their own micro-genre – their first EP, 2009’s Maybes was at that time something of a departure for Scuba’s Hotflush label, with a minute and a half of muted, washed-out synth echoing out of the speakers, before dropping into a beat that bears all the defining signatures of what would become the post-dubstep sound – above all, a sense of space and dynamics that appeals to the brain first, and the dancefloor second. Which isn’t to say that you can’t dance to Mount Kimbie – their early EPs helped push the boundaries of bass music, mutating it into something slicker, deeper and stranger, and they were embraced by DJs, clubbers and critics alike. Following the release of their debut album, 2010’s Crooks & Lovers, they became known for their live performances, incorporating a Maschine control interface, live guitars and percussion, and heavily improvised sections that digressed wildly from the recorded tracks. James Blake, another important figure to emerge from the dope smoke

Feature

Newly signed to Warp, and ready to release their staggeringly diverse second album, Mount Kimbie’s Kai Campos discusses the band’s influences, recording techniques, and life beyond post-dubstep

haze of post-dubstep, was a touring member for a while, helping flesh out their vision. Mount Kimbie and James Blake weren’t the only ones blazing a trail – Four Tet’s productions from that era, along with the more hip-hop oriented likes of Flying Lotus, were also hugely influential, as was the ‘ghost garage’ sound pioneered by Burial, embraced and imitated by many producers in the years since. But for Mount Kimbie, it seems the shine has come off postdubstep. Speaking to the band’s Kai Campos (who takes the lion’s share of vocal duties on their sophomore album Cold Spring Fault Less Youth, making him an ideal spokesman), he admits that he simply doesn’t listen to a lot of the music that falls under the banner these days. “I think in this scene, you listen to a lot of stuff that sounds like yourself, but I guess that the stuff that grabs you and shocks you is often the stuff that doesn’t come at you in the same way,” he says. Asked about dubstep’s other mutations, such as trap, US-style ‘brostep’ (they prefer ‘EDM’), and chillwave, he gives a guarded but positive response: “We’re interested in where all of that stuff is going, really.” One thing’s certain – on the evidence of their latest LP, there isn’t a lot that Mount Kimbie haven’t been listening to. It’s a work of arcane twists and sudden turns, taking in moments of pie-eyed shoegaze and emotive house on Home

Recording, punk-inflected hip-hop blues on You Took Your Time with King Krule, through to beatless classic synth patterns and indie surf pop on Break Well. That’s just the first three tracks. “The two records really are, for me, quite far apart, in that this one will be flawed in some ways, but it was a more ambitious endeavour for us,” says Kampos. “I feel like we’ve got a little bit more on the line creatively.” The album’s ambitions are so mercurial, the sheer diversity of styles and approaches could put off some listeners, particularly those looking for a definitive statement on post-dubstep from two of its originators and innovators. But the recording techniques, the sonic depth of each track, mark them out unmistakably as the work of Mount Kimbie. Once you’re over the shock of hearing Made To Stray, a techno-influenced, lo-fi jam with vulnerable lyrics sung by Campos, almost naked of effects, it all makes perfect sense – and it’s a perfect fit for their new home in the Warp Records stable. Asked if bringing his vocals to the fore was an intimidating step to take, Campos is philosophical: “It seemed natural, but at the same time it also felt very uncomfortable as well.” Starting to record vocals was a process of trial and error, “until I managed to find a voice of sorts, you know?” That voice is a fine one – and perhaps gives a

MUSIC

clue to the fact that Campos lists his recent influences as Tame Impala, Ariel Pink, White Denim, and Micachu and the Shapes. “There’s been so much since the first album came out that we’ve spent time listening to and got really excited about,” he enthuses. “These people are still really inspiring us, and making music today around us.” Prolific techno stalwart Actress is also cited as a big influence, along with a healthy diet of hip-hop and bass music. “It wasn’t really a decision to make a vocal album,” Campos admits, but that is what Cold Spring Fault Less Youth is – his vocals, with occasional contributions from Dominic Maker, and the bass-heavy counterpoint of King Krule, anchor the album, connecting it to their previous work with a purely emotional thread. They worked with producer and Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay – a little of Stereolab’s lo-fi pop aesthetic can be detected in CSFLY’s DNA. “We got to use all of his gear that he’s amassed over a much longer career than ours. He has a lot of old drum machines which we spent time recording, and kind of mangling in our own way,” says Campos. “We were doing stuff that he wouldn’t have thought of, and he was showing us stuff that we wouldn’t have thought of.” A big element of the Mount Kimbie aesthetic is rooted in musique concrète – the use of synthesised and sampled found sounds from

THE SKINNY

Interview: Bram E. Gieben Photography: Gemma Burke nature, and the ambient atmospherics created by recording in locations with different electroacoustic properties. This played a part on the new album too, but with a difference: “Instead of degrading the sound before we had even recorded it, we were recording stuff clean, and then doing stuff to it afterwards, which was different for us,” Campos explains. “It freed up a whole world of different options.” The collaborations with King Krule came about after Campos saw his video for Out Getting Ribs: “I just sent a note to Dom, saying, ‘You’ve gotta check this out, because it’s breathtakingly good,’” he recalls. “I instantly thought he had a similar songwriting style to ours, in a way, in that he was doing quite a lot with quite few elements, and leaving quite a lot of space. I don’t think either of us are too precious about what we’re doing so it was really, really enjoyable, and I learned a lot from watching him write lyrics. We both bounced ideas off each other quite a lot.” They plan to work with him again in future, and the possibility of live collaboration at a few festivals this year may well be in the offing: “If we try and put the effort in, I think we can do something really good,” Campos says. That is the band’s next move – prepping for a busy year and a half of live shows. This time round, is the record a little closer to what we’ll hear live? In rehearsals, says Campos, “the starting point has been the

May 2013

recorded version of the songs.” Thus far, “they’re fairly close” to the album tracks. “These songs seem to lend themselves a lot better to being played live as well: they’re easier to kind of get inside, whereas the last ones were such studio creations that it was like we really had to breathe new life into them.” The addition of drummer Tony Kus to their live setup “has really opened up what we can do.” But improvisation and evolution are still on the cards for these tracks: “It’s early days, so by the end of the summer they’ll probably be completely different,” Campos speculates. One topic that their friend and former colleague James Blake has not been shy of sharing his opinion on in recent months is the future of the music industry, which he deemed “a sinking ship.” Undoubtedly, scraping a living is hard for touring, album-releasing musicians on Blake’s level, and getting harder. Asked for his own personal views on the industry’s state, Campos says: “I’m not sure anyone knows what that term even means anymore; but I think that there will always be music and there will always be an audience for music, so you have to figure out a way to make a living out of that.” In some ways, he agrees with Blake, saying: “It’s not easy – but people have probably had it too easy in the past.” Mount Kimbie have had their fair share of problems with online leaks, and with the

“This album was a more ambitious endeavour for us. We’ve got a little bit more on the line creatively” Kai Campos

promotion of their music, but “it’s so hard to draw a line between the good that’s been done by the same kind of mechanisms,” Campos says, ever the pragmatist. “We wouldn’t be able to tour the world while being such a small band without half of this stuff… you just have to assess the environment that you’re in and do the best work that you can within it.” Returning to the subject of influence, a remark Campos once made about Mount Kimbie’s origins is repeated back to him – that they started out attempting to replicate forms of music they liked, such as dubstep, and their failure to

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replicate it accurately was how they found their style. Would he recommend this as an approach for artists who are just starting out? “I think that is the basis for all creative endeavours,” he says. “That’s how they begin. Even now, every song that we do is started from something happening when you’re listening to either music, or sound. I would say not to be too concerned about it, if that’s what you feel like doing, but it’s good to hold back on sharing and pushing your music until you feel like you’re saying something that you want to say.” It also helps to have a broad set of influences, unlike many emerging dance music producers, who focus narrowly on their own scene or sound. Campos, who grew up in “a rural area” with “no discernible music scene” listening to Gilles Peterson and John Peel on the radio, has never had a narrow set of influences. “It’s just not something I’ve ever considered. From the beginnings of making music it was always kind of an amalgamation of stuff that I was hearing on the radio. A lot of my favourite records come from all different places.” Mount Kimbie as a duo could never focus solely on one style: “I don’t think we’d be able to do it even if we wanted to,” says Campos. Cold Spring Fault Less Youth is released via Warp on 27 May www.mountkimbie.com

Feature

Sensitive New Age Guy Lauded singer-songwriter John Grant discusses fear, loathing and Pale Green Ghosts, his remarkable new album

hile performing with New York disco outfit Hercules and Love Affair at London’s Meltdown Festival last summer, John Grant announced to a shocked audience that he had been diagnosed as HIV positive. After the implosion of his band The Czars, Grant had descended into a self-destructive spiral of drink and drug abuse, flirting with suicide and rampant priapism only to clean up and return as a solo artist with 2010’s acclaimed Queen of Denmark. Grant’s lyrics spoke of dysfunction and self-loathing, stemming from a guilt-ridden relationship with his own homosexuality, whereas the music was firmly rooted in 70s FM rock courtesy of sympathetic production from Tim Smith and his Midlake cohorts. For a man who seemed to operate with the weight of the world on his shoulders, this new-found success ought to have ushered in a new era of comparative tranquility, only to be shattered by this staggering development. So, it may be natural to assume that Grant’s latest album, Pale Green Ghosts, would plough a familiar furrow of baroque, undeniably adult MOR amid his trademark lyrical waltz of self-analysis. But it doesn’t. For the most part, the album positively throbs and thoroughly bristles, drenched in neon synths and seared with Grant’s remarkably sonorous and empathetic vocals. “On this album, I’m mostly influenced by the things from the 80s I love,” he says. “Cabaret Voltaire, Yello. And in terms of modern things: Apparat, Jimmy Edgar, Kavinsky, Gus Gus [Biggi Veira from the band produced the album] – they’re all important.” The primal, new wave thrust of Sinéad O’Connor’s Mandinka was one of the songs Grant danced to in his mid-80s nightclubbing heyday. Twenty-four years later, O’Connor covered the title track from Grant’s last album and now appears on Pale Green Ghosts to add wonderfully spectral backing vocals to three of the album tracks. “We naturally became friends,” he admits. “I really love the human being and artist she is. Her backing vocals sound so natural; working with her is so easy, she has a great instinct about how to be, in a specific context, with her voice.” This layering of raw emotion on a foundation of retro electronica serves to beguile the listener into the travails of Grant’s private life, although private hardly seems apposite for a man whose lyrics are shot through with disarming candour. Pale Green Ghosts is equally in thrall to the power of language as to the electronic sounds of his teenage years. A polyglot, Grant frequently dips into a parlance unfamiliar with the tropes of pop; as the scolding lyrics of Black Belt testify: ‘You are callipygian but look at the state you’re in, you got really nice clothes, bet you didn’t pay for those.’ But he can never cloak his often frightening frankness in linguistic obscuritanism. “I do get asked if I’m worried about being too open but it’s always a resounding ‘no.’” he admits. “I really don’t feel like I’m dealing with issues that anyone else is not dealing with. Everybody has their shit to deal with. You too can be a black sheep in your family, have a total disconnect [from your family] and feel like you don’t fit it – you don’t have to be gay as well. I really can’t imagine how else I should go about it, I’m talking about my experience as a human being.” There’s a very clear and deliberate dichotomy at the dark heart of Pale Green Ghosts. Grant croons about suicide and the torment of heartbreak over a hi-NRG backing, a schism which is only disrupted by the presence of stately ballads It Doesn’t Matter To Him and Glacier. “I think this is my way of naturally reacting to things when I feel like I have a particularly difficult subject

Feature

Interview: Colm McAuliffe

to deal with. It’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing: an upbeat, positive sound delivers [unsettling] information. For example, Sensitive New Age Guy is about a dear friend’s horrible suicide. This was a difficult song for some people as they seemed to be irritated by its presence on the record and I felt like that was a triumph for me as that was how this person was perceived in everyday life, his drag persona was difficult for some to deal with so I feel like the song was a manifestation of who he was. Black Belt is a song about anger, a lot of anger, and saying horrible things to someone you really love deeply but to put it in this musical context seems to really work.”

“Everybody has their shit to deal with” John Grant

Grant’s propensity for self-laceration in song peaks with Ernest Borgnine, ostensibly a tribute to the one-time Airwolf actor but, conversely, peppered with sly references to Grant’s health issues: ‘Now what did you expect, you spent your lifetime on your knees.’ “I just really love that there is a song called Ernest Borgnine,” he says. “I just adore him and will continue to do so. And that song is my take on Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo because it’s about somebody who is escaping their everyday life; the harsh realities in the verse and then the escape is in the chorus. And the song is like my take on escaping the realities of my diagnosis and wondering: what would one of my movie heroes do? Which is completely absurd! But, as I say in the song, I did meet him and it was a highlight of my life.” Nevertheless, Grant’s existential and health burdens consistently threaten to overwhelm. Both Queen of Denmark and Pale Green Ghosts deal with grief, albeit in different stages. “I was angry when I wrote Pale Green Ghosts,” reflects Grant. “But now I feel like I’m in the stage of acceptance. Most of that is directed at myself, feeling sad and angry that I wasn’t able to have enough of a love for myself, to avoid getting into my current situation. I’ve thought a lot about how [the HIV diagnosis] came about. Two years ago, I was sober for the previous six years. And I had become sober in order to face myself and face life and have a chance to actually live my life and enjoy it. But when this happened, it was obvious that I was still indulging in other areas of my life, other behaviours were connected to the fact that I never felt like a human being because of the environment I grew up in. And it does make me angry, very angry. But in a very big way, this record is about acceptance. And that includes forgiving myself.” And has he reached that point of forgiveness? “Yes. It’s different everyday but, for the most part, I’ve accepted that I’m a very flawed human being who is trying to wake up and take part in his own life and not just let life happen to me but it’s also me saying ‘I would like to just feel like I deserve to be loved and have a great life. No more and no less than anybody else.’ That’s it. That’s a good start for me.” John Grant plays Edinburgh Queen’s Hall, 12 May. Pale Green Ghosts is out now via Bella Union www.johngrantmusic.com

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THE SKINNY

ONE MAN BECAME A ROCK STAR, WITHOUT PLAYING A SINGLE NOTE. While Jack Daniel loved music, he had no musical talent of his own. So it’s a bit ironic that his whiskey became a mainstay at stadiums, clubs, garages, back alleys and rehearsal spaces around the world. If there was music being played, a bottle of Jack wasn’t far away. Then again, with Mr. Jack’s independent spirit and rebellious ways, it shouldn’t have come as a shock to any of us. See how we mix Jack and music at jackdaniels.com/music. J A C K D A N I E L’ S

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THE MELVILLE

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THE MELVILLE

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THE SKINNY

Going South Jeff Nichols, director of Take Shelter and Shotgun Stories, is one of the most exciting young directors in America. He talks to The Skinny about his latest film, Mud Interview: Tom Seymour

ud is a coming of age story and an elegy for a dying way of life. Set in the Deep South along the banks of the Mississippi, it feels like an adaption of an American literary classic; a Mark Twain story for the millennial generation. Yet it was written and directed by a 34-year-old Arkansas native called Jeff Nichols. “I first read Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in this dingy classroom in seventh grade, when I was 13,” the director of Take Shelter and Shotgun Stories says of the classic American writer. “There’s a scene in which Tom swims out to this deserted island and takes a nap. Nothing really happens; he just takes a nap. I remember sitting in this classroom, bored as hell, thinking: God, I wish I could do that.” The seed was planted there, with Mud born as a screenplay when Nichols was still in college. With 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his devoted friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) as his vessels, Nichols’ eventual creation is imbued with the folklore of the American heartland, from Truman Capote to Laura Ingalls Wilder, from Badlands to Stand By Me. It’s a film about the struggle of childhood in a continent conquered but not connected, a remembrance of life defined by livelihood and possession and our small relationship with the vast unexplored. “There’s a purity about Tom Sawyer which just perfectly captures what it felt like to be a kid,” Nichols says. “I wanted to do something similar with Mud.” Taking his father’s boat, Ellis travels with Neckbone to a deserted island in a deep turn of the Mississippi; there a flood has surreally moored a boat high in the branches of a stately tree. They try to stake their claim, but the boat is already occupied by a strange hermit named Mud (Matthew McConaughey); a kind, storytelling ramshackle of a man, yet a wanted fugitive with bounty hunters on his trail – he murdered the man with whom his lover chose to stray.

“Going into it, I saw Mud as a getaway film, like something Sam Peckinpah would make,” Nichols says. “But I wanted to make the film personal and mean something to me and my life, so I gravitated quickly towards the boy Ellis’s story. Finding this man on an island is a grand adventure for him, but I began to think about heartbreak and first love as something I could hang on his shoulders as the force of the story.” The two children are recruited by Mud. After requests for food, they’re asked to courier letters to Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), Mud’s first love to whom he is still hopelessly committed. She’s stuck in town, locked down by guys who sense blood. Yet Mud hatches a plan to spirit her away to an Eden down river, and asks the boys to shelter and aid his getaway. Mud, like all Nichols’ films, seems to come from his own experience, his own upbringing. He grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and his maternal cousins lived on a houseboat by the delta. “I really wasn’t familiar with that part of my state, even though it was in my own backyard,” he says. “When I was back from college one year I found a photo-book of people in the region; mussel shell fishermen with homemade diving helmets. So I started asking around and realised I had a bunch of relatives who had grown up on houseboats and lived that life. “I remember them first taking me out on the White River, which flows into the Mississippi,” he says. “It was stunningly beautiful; teeming with wildlife. I saw bald eagles and panthers and snakes, and it felt like a mythical place. There was an island out there and I imagined a guy hiding out there, all alone; once I had that thought I held on to it. I knew it was a good idea, but when I heard that the houseboats were being demolished, I knew I had a movie.” Yet Nichols needed an actor good enough to play the title role, and he chose Matthew McConaughey, the 43-year-old Texan who, before

Jeff Nichols on the set of Mud

“There’s a purity about Tom Sawyer which perfectly captures what it felt like to be a kid. I wanted to do something similar with Mud” Jeff Nichols

Mud

May 2013

his turn in William Friedkin’s comeback film Killer Joe, spent a decade making modern classics like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Surfer, Dude. Yet McConaughey is a revelation as Nichols’ island-convict; loose and garrulous, deeply likable, yet distant, hurt and unknowable. When did Nichols first decide McConaughey was his main man? “I decided I wanted McConaughey to play Mud over a decade ago, before his onslaught of romantic comedies,” Nichols says. “I saw him in John Sayles’ Lone Star – he plays a myth, a legend, but he adds such complexity to it, he takes it further. I needed Mud to be a guy you wanted to go back to and hang out with, despite the fact that he is strange, and speaks in a strange way. You think about Paul Newman or Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, these are actors you just want to spend time with; if you have that as a director, all you do is confuse that a little bit.” Like its star actor, Mud is a gentle, sentimental movie filled with romance and belonging,

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filmed with a deep, resonant love of this wild, dangerous part of the world. But the black dogs of jealousy, devotion and betrayal lie crouched in the shadows; every relationship is in peril, every character on their own deserted island, suffering their own torment. Ellis’s parents are in the midst of a separation, his taciturn father too wedded to the river, his mother desperate to break free. Neckbone is a tough, searching orphan raised by a juvenile uncle (Michael Shannon). Ellis himself looks to Mud for a sense of value and meaning, an idea of masculinity as he tries in vain to navigate his own burgeoning attachments to the opposite sex. Can Mud respond? Can he carry the weight of the boys’ expectations? But beyond the dynamics, a greater meaning impresses itself; that Mud is Nichols’ love letter to the culture which raised him and has been left behind as the world turns. “The American South is a very particular way of life and it’s a celebrated way of life,” he says. “We’re known for our stories and our cultural richness, but it’s a place that’s getting a little deluded – not a little, a lot. “We’ve become about Home Depot and Walmart, and we have access to the same vast worldwide culture, so the distinct voice of the American South is becoming homogenised.” Stood on the bow of a boat, being taken downstream by his cousins, Nichols couldn’t help lament the growing tide of progress: “The houseboats that you see dotted along these rivers feel like they’re from an older time, another world. Even though the people living there have sneakers and cell-phones they’re still so attached to nature, to an older ethos. That way of life is fleeting, and it fell in line with my opinions on what’s happening with the American South in general. It’s disappearing, gone with the river.” Mud is released in cinemas on 10 May by eOne mud-themovie.com

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Sax Prodigy Having worked with everyone from Tom Waits to Bon Iver, virtuoso saxophonist Colin Stetson is forging a bold new path by himself. He talks to The Skinny about his latest album, unorthodox recording setups and the loneliest whale in the world

’ve been everything.” Colin Stetson is wrestling with the question of how he defines himself. “I’ve been a solo artist for many many years, I’ve led bands, I’ve been in rock bands, I’ve been in unconventional jazz groups, I’ve done session work...” He searches for the most straightforward self-definition. “I am a musician who plays saxophone and other instruments. I don’t tend to define much of anything in my life.” Stetson is no ordinary saxophonist. Negative connotations abound in such a job title; the 80s all but consigned the instrument, in the warped popular imagination at least, to the cheese of Gerry Rafferty and the sleaze of Kenny G; soundtracking lifts, discount warehouses and sex scenes. But Stetson is hardly wedded, as his instrument popularly is, to jazz, smooth or otherwise. His current guise, for fans of pigeonholes, is as solo artist. The third and final part of New History Warfare, his remarkable minimalist solo saxophone series, has just been released to wide acclaim. Each record is a unique exploration of the possibilities of the instrument, realising what Steve Lacy, a trailblazer of woodwind experimentation, meant when he declared that “the potential for the saxophone is unlimited.” Save for a smattering of guest stars, Stetson is solo in the most defiant sense, alone with his saxophone throughout. As with any avant-garde music, it is a sometimes demanding, sometimes exhilarating listen. But what makes it all the more impressive – and fascinating – is the technique through which this is achieved. Stetson is as much a virtuoso musician as he is prodigious technician, a magician of hidden sounds and unorthodox methods. He blends a miscellany of playing styles – circular breathing, multiphonics (producing sounds from the keys and valves), ‘singing’ through the reed – with a bespoke microphone setup, recording from every angle. There is, in all likelihood, no musician quite like him. The New York Times has called him a “one-man astonishment machine.” This singular approach did not come all at once. “There was definitely no eureka moment,” he says, speaking to The Skinny during a brief break from the road. “It’s something that built very organically, over almost twenty years.” And it continues to evolve. Most of the techniques Stetson employs in Vol. 3 could not have been achieved in Vol. 1. He records ‘as live’, in single takes, requiring tremendous lung capacity, and his stamina has improved greatly over time. “The more I do, the more I can push the endurance aspect, and take more time with things. That’s one of the things I try to explore in Vol. 3: focussing on the minutiae, stretching things out.” And in order to catch this process in full, there are microphones, everywhere. In creating multiplicitous, multiphonic sounds, it makes sense to capture as rich a recording as possible, rather than the conventional “just throw one microphone over its bell,” a practice Stetson dismisses as a “very limited snapshot” of the sound. So, working with producer Ben Frost (a groundbreaking musician in his own right), he expanded on certain conventions whilst spurning others. Overdubs – layering supplementary parts of the instrument in a later studio mix – are largely rid as unnecessary (“everything is already there”). Instead, a multitude of microphones surround the instrument and the room, carefully placed to chronicle and isolate the assortment of melodies and noises. “My goal,” he explains, “is not to recreate the three-dimensional space, verbatim.

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It’s always been to take that sound and exaggerate it, making something that was very specific to the medium.” So, save for a few additional vocal parts, it is as it was: a delicate, deliberate, embellished recreation of an acoustic space, in an effort to recreate the “physicality” that much overproduced studio music often neglects. The result is something quite striking, giving the impression of many musicians and instruments where there is only one, replacing the loops and overdubs of minimalist pioneers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley with the blunt simplicity of raw acoustics.

“Beauty and love and peacefulness don’t ever really hit home or resolve, unless there’s been fear and anger and sadness for it to be defined” Colin Stetson

It makes for an intense listening experience. We are plunged into swirling whirlpools of repeating motifs, colliding with one another in a way that may seem nebulous and indeterminate. But nothing is left to chance. “The songs are not in any way malleable,” Stetson asserts. “If you heard one played one night, it would be more or less the same song the next night. The forms and the melodies are all very structured and very composed.” Much of the album is brooding, emotional, bleak, but Stetson maintains it is “all part of singular scenes, characters and imagery, part of a grander structure and storyline,” rather than any sort of personal emotional purge. At live shows, Stetson likes to allude to the true story of a whale, whose song, at 52Hz, renders it unintelligible to all other whales. It is doomed to swim the ocean alone, forever. He finds this story rather poignant. “It is that feeling of isolation, boiled down to an essence, and then encapsulated in an actual real world physical story.” A profound sense of isolation resonates throughout the New History Warfare trilogy, and not just from his solitary playing style. But Stetson avows his thematic outlook is lighter than it might seem. “I’ve never really presented one side without the other. Things like beauty and love and peacefulness don’t ever really hit home or resolve, unless there’s been fear and anger and sadness for it to be defined. Any music I’ve written has always had juxtaposition of one of these types.” The plurality of moods on this latest LP is plain to see – a cover of Washington Phillips’ What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? has the air of a gospel-style requiem, whilst Hunted, with Stetson’s eerie, distant voice wailing through the reed, gives the impression of a redolent half-remembered dream. Brute, meanwhile, has

Photo: Scott Irvine

“I

Interview: John Nugent

Stetson pummel his keys with the ferocity of a prizefighter, as a vocalist in the background barks fiery apocalyptic war cries. It may be surprising to learn that this bellowing heavy-metal singer is none other than Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, a guest on four tracks of Vol. 3. It is something of a favour returned, following time Stetson has spent as part of the Bon Iver collective. In fact, he is a tirelessly prolific collaborator. How’s this for a CV: Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, Feist, Lou Reed, David Byrne, Jolie Holland, Sinéad O’Connor, LCD Soundsystem, The National, and many others have worked with Colin Stetson at some point over the years. Picking a favourite experience amongst that formidable list is “not necessarily hard to answer, more of an impossibility,” but he speaks of Waits most effusively. “It was a beautiful experience for me – really intense, and exactly how I imagined

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it would be,” he recalls. Stetson provided horns for three Waits albums, and gleaned much along the way. “With Tom, you’re leaving ego behind and you’re really working for the piece of music.” This ethos lingers. Having written, recorded and performed for over twenty years, sometimes in the background, other times to the fore, Colin Stetson has only ever worked on music he believed in. Whether introspective minimalist solo work, or “getting up on stage with Arcade Fire and playing for a hundred thousand people,” there is a distinct integrity and thoughtfulness in his approach. “I’ve been very lucky,” he reflects, modestly. “I’ve done so many different things, but I don’t do things ‘for a gig.’ I’m really just recording and performing with music that I feel strongly about.” History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light is released via Constellation on 29 Apr

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Encounters at the End of the World Over an 18 month period, director Sarah Gavron and cinematographer David Katznelson filmed a Greenlandic Inuit community on the cusp of disappearing. We speak to Gavron about her time at The Village at the End of the World

or several long months of the year, Niaqornat, in northwest Greenland, is a cold, dark and demanding place to live. In winter, night falls and stays fallen, with a muted twilight the closest thing to sunrise and sub-zero temperatures fixing the landscape into lunar-like permafrost. The only ways in and out are by sea or air, and the supply ship that brings the village vegetables, kitchen roll and anything else that can’t be fished from the sea or hunted across the polar ice is forced to pause its service till spring. When winter ends, thermometers climb above freezing and flora battles to make the most of its brief opportunity to flourish. Daylight returns but does not leave, the midnight sun shines around the clock. What’s more, the relative warmth carries dangers of its own, as unstable ice sheets make hunting risky. Whether frozen or thawing, it is a challenging environment to call home; a landscape of stark contrasts presenting its populace with a precarious future. Most troubling is the settlement’s declining population, exacerbated by the closure of the local fish factory a few years ago. With scarce employment options remaining, families increasingly seek work elsewhere, and Niaqornat inexorably shrinks. By spring 2009, only 59 people remained. It’s a fascinating subject for a documentary, though when director Sarah Gavron, along with her husband and cinematographer David Katznelson, first visited the community, it wasn’t with the express intention of prepping a project. “My husband is Danish, and he’d been to Greenland and made a documentary there some years ago,” explains Gavron, speaking by phone from her London home. “He was really keen for me to go with him, so we went on an adventure.” But while filmmaking may not have been front of mind at the outset, their “tiny idea” quickly grew and took shape. “We ended up visiting a few tiny hamlets, and I was immediately drawn to them – it was just a world apart from anything I’d ever encountered before,” says Gavron. “When we went to Niaqornat we were greeted by Illannguaq [the

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town’s affable sewage collector], who was the only one who spoke English. He was really our way in – he explained the whole mechanics of the village, and we spent time there and were made welcome.” The filmmakers quickly identified the denizens with the most vivid personalities and stories: in addition to Illannguaq, the ‘cast’ includes town mayor and hunter Karl; Annie, the village’s oldest resident; and hoodie-wearing teen Lars. “After that first trip we thought, ‘perhaps there is a story here,’” says Gavron. “One that tells of a traditional way of life fighting for survival, which will connect, perhaps, with a global narrative of small communities all over the world fighting for their existence.” But despite the alluded-to global context, Village at the End of the World avoids turning Niaqornat into a universalised emblem. Its inhabitants may be struggling first-hand with the effects of climate change, globalisation and other planet-wide concerns, but they are living, breathing individuals, not representational vessels – though that’s not to deny the village’s microcosmic potential. “I think part of what is interesting about these tiny communities,” notes Gavron, “is that everything, including relationships, is kind of heightened, because you’ve only got 59 people and you’re living in such close proximity to one another. Life is just more extreme in every way.” While largely comprised of slice-of-life vignettes matched to the seasons – whale butchery in the gloom of winter; visits from haughty Danish tourists in the lighter months – two key strands structure the narrative: the first follows attempts to reopen the factory as a co-operative and thereby save the village from extinction; and the second, hip-hop loving Lars’ dreams of moving to somewhere more cosmopolitan. When Gavron first started filming, did she have any pre-conceived expectations about where these threads would lead? “Well, that’s the big difference between documentary and fiction,” says Gavron, best known for dramatic work such as the Bafta-winning This Little Life and her

2009 adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. “You can’t control where the story’s going to go. At the beginning, we knew that the fish factory was closed and that it had caused people to leave in droves. And we knew that there was a young boy who had his eye on travelling the world. But we couldn’t predict the outcome of either, so our guiding principle was instead to follow the dramatic, extreme seasons, and to focus on those people who seemed to encapsulate some aspect of the themes and stories we were trying to tell.”

“Life is just more extreme in every way” Sarah Gavron

Over the following 18 months, Gavron and Katznelson returned to Niaqornat several more times. For three of the trips, the couple brought their young children with them, even celebrating their son’s first and second birthdays in the village – an indication of just how accepted the family were made to feel. “The Inuit communities are traditionally very welcoming of kids,” says Gavron. “Kids have a very free and nice existence in those villages, and I think that it helped break down barriers – because they welcomed us into their homes and the kids made connections with them.” In-between visits, Gavron set about imposing order on the reams of footage they’d amassed. “It took an enormous amount of time,” she recollects. “Something that I hadn’t really appreciated is that if you film in a foreign language, then you’ve got the added job of translating – and [it’s] a language that no one in England speaks, so it wasn’t like we could find a translator here! There were people in Copenhagen who came across and sat in the edit suite and went through [the footage with us], finding the little nuggets within the interviews.”

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Interview: Chris Buckle Also complicating the edit was the early decision to eschew formal narration. “As a fledgling documentary-maker, I now know that that’s a huge challenge,” Gavron laughs, “because it means you have to find ways of telling what’s going on without exposition. Initially we thought we might not even have interviews – in sort of the same way as Etre Et Avoir [Nicolas Philibert’s portrait of a rural French primary school], we thought we might just follow life. But when we showed really early cuts to friends, they’d say, ‘But how does it work and what do they eat and who are they and what do they feel?’ We realised that, to make it an interesting and engaging film, we needed to give people some insight into those things – it wasn’t enough to just observe.” The result is something semi-observational, with no attempt to deny the filmmakers’ presence and influence, but nothing as disruptive as a ‘voice of God’ voice-over to encroach upon the audience’s engrossment. Gavron’s next project – an ensemble biopic of the suffragette movement (“I’d like it to see the light of day sometime soon but we don’t yet know when production will start”) – will see the director move back to her comfort zone of scripted and acted drama. I ask whether her work in one mode of filmmaking influences her approach to the other. “It’s kind of a different muscle in lots of ways, but obviously one does feed into the other,” she replies. “I think as a fiction director I find it very important to constantly observe the real world and life around you, because in a way you’re trying to create truth – you know, what would someone do if they’re told that piece of news, how will they respond... And I suppose in documentaries you’ve got the truth laid before you, so you’re just capturing what’s there.” In the case of Village…, ‘what’s there’ is an absorbing snapshot of a community in flux; a rewarding glimpse into an increasingly rare way of life; and heartening proof that, often if not always, where there’s a will there’s a way. Village at the End of the World is released 10 May by Dogwoof dogwoof.com

THE SKINNY

Laying Down The Law As Canongate prepare to re-publish the complete works of William McIlvanney, starting with his detective novels featuring Jack Laidlaw, we talk to ‘the Clark Gable of Scottish crime fiction’ about inspiration, influence, and the importance of imagery Interview: Bram E. Gieben

peaking at the annual Aye Write! Book Festival in Glasgow, William McIlvanney reflects on the admiration of his peers in the Scottish crime fiction community, collectively known as purveyors of ‘tartan noir’ – a genre he kick-started almost single-handedly in 1977. The reverence with which other crime writers refer to McIlvanney, particularly here in Scotland, is both touching and completely justified. When he published the first Jack Laidlaw novel, simply titled Laidlaw, in 1977, it was a revelation, the first Scottish novel to fully employ the tropes common in detective fiction. His central character, Jack Laidlaw, became something of a model for the heroes of subsequent Scottish procedurals, with more than a trace of McIlvanney’s distinctive style visible in characters such as Jim Taggart and John Rebus. Asked if he sees the Laidlaw novels, of which there are currently three – Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983), and Strange Loyalties (1991) – in a different light to his non-genre work, McIlvanney answers with a firm ‘no.’ “They’re part of an overall framework. The books are all connected. I see Laidlaw as an explorer of the same society that I write about in the other books, but going to darker places.” How does he feel about the renewed interest in his work? “It’s just amazing to have it resurrected like that,” he says. “I thought all of my books might be dead in the water when Canongate turned up, so the first thing that I want to say is that they’re terrific publishers.” He describes them as “positively Pentecostal” about books: “They don’t just publish, they publish with passion.” What about Glasgow itself – in all good crime fiction, the city is as much of a character as the detectives and villains. Has the city he adopted as home (McIlvanney originally hails from Kilmarnock) changed a lot in 35 years? “The same essence of Glasgow survives that was there in the 70s when I wrote Laidlaw,” he says, “but the surfaces through which it operates are hugely different. Laidlaw would be lost, trying to function in the kind of context that we have today.” One thing that continues to impress in McIlvanney’s writing is his economy of style – he is the master of the pithy observation, and the intricately constructed, compact image. “I’ve always believed in images,” he says with firm conviction. “I write in an imagistic way because I think that an image is a very succinct way of putting across a meaning; and it’s also a very democratic way of doing it. We all understand images.” I put it to him that this is the essence of good

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writing, but he rebuffs my point with self-deprecating humour. “You would have to tell me what the essence of writing is – I just write the stuff, I don’t know.” He smiles again. “To me it feels like the essence is that it’s concrete. I love concretion, I love not getting airy fairy, and I think images keep you nailed to the earth. I don’t like describing things in vague ways, I like to concretise them. The main dynamic of my writing is imagery.”

“I don’t like describing things in vague ways, I like to concretise them. The main dynamic of my writing is imagery” William McIlvanney

I ask McIlvanney if he has any advice for the next generation of aspiring Scottish writers. “It would be ‘Take advice but don’t take it slavishly.’ Don’t lose the personal mania that makes you write. It’s great to be helped by others, but finally you have to help yourself. Take all the advice you can get, but don’t take it too seriously and obey your demon. Obey the bit of you that wants to say something, and knows what it wants to say.” In McIlvanney’s case, one can only hope the demon keeps whispering for as long as possible. It is a hugely exciting prospect to imagine a new generation of readers discovering his stark, imagistic prose, and his deeply-held belief in the importance of social history. As a chronicler of life in the west of Scotland, his work ranks alongside our best and most celebrated writers; as tough and bleak as Kelman, and as compulsively readable and relevant as Denise Mina. We’re lucky to have him, and Canongate’s resurrection of his work is both timely and exciting. In a world where, according to David Cameron at least, “we are all Thatcherites now,” Jack Laidlaw could be just the hero we need. Read an extended version of this interview online Laidlaw is published by Canongate, out 2 May, RRP £7.99 www.canongate.tv/laidlaw.html

BOOKS

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Summit Special Interview: Chris Buckle Photography: Blair Young

With a new album imminent, we chat to Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels about the record’s history, and the band’s future

n August 1999, two years after fourth album Illumination, The Pastels entered the BBC’s Maida Vale studios for their third – and final – John Peel session. Amongst the quartet of songs recorded for the beardy broadcaster was Secret Music – a then-recently penned track set to feature on the Glasgow band’s next album. Fourteen years later, it does, its graceful swoon opening Slow Summits and establishing the long-awaited record’s rich and idyllic aesthetic. As far as waiting games go, it pales next to, say, m b v’s lengthy genesis, but the gap between initial introductions and final, finished form is notable regardless. And yet, the caesura hardly tells the whole story. In the years since, The Pastels have applied their talents to a range of projects, including a soundtrack (The Last Great Wilderness) and a sublime collaboration with Japanese duo Tenniscoats (Two Sunsets) – all the while continuing to drip-feed further Slow Summits tasters at sporadic live shows. “If you don’t keep up with someone, it’s probably nice to say, ‘oh it’s their first record in 16 years,’ [but] it isn’t really like that,” says bandleader Stephen McRobbie, chatting ahead of the album’s release. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say this particular record’s been tantalising fans for an awfully long time, belated due to a combination of factors – most notably the departure, post-Illumination, of core member Annabel (Aggi) Wright. “We probably would have made a record around 1999/2000 if Annabel hadn’t left,” says Stephen. “That was a good group with her in it, and it took us a long time to decide how we would deal with that.” The uncertainty was partly resolved by the aforementioned soundtrack commission. “I think when you’re making a normal record you feel a certain amount of pressure to have some tracks that could maybe be played on the radio, but when we were doing Last Great Wilderness, it was just about making the film coherent. I think from working to quite a tight brief we found real freedom. And even before Illumination, I think we all thought we wanted to try to make some quieter music.” He pauses and smiles. “Not that we were ever Motörhead…” Were the current band (as well as Stephen: Katrina Mitchell, Gerard Love, Tom Crossley, Alison Mitchell and John Hogarty) working on ideas throughout that period? “Sort of – sometimes you can drift away from it for a little while, but I definitely feel happiest when I’m working on things. It’s just really magical. A lot of the time we kind of jam for 20 minutes, and sometimes the end of the song becomes the best thing, and you think ‘oh now I need to get the main part of the song to sound as good as that.’ In a way it raises the bar. It’s not prescribed – it’s a group with a bit of freedom.” In addition to the core line-up, Slow Summits features a range of collaborators, including reteams with Tenniscoats and a guest spot from Stefan Schneider and Ronald Lippok of German avant-gardists To Rococo Rot. “Generally speaking, you want to work with people you respect and admire,” says Stephen. “Over a record I think it’s quite nice to be able to introduce a couple of different colours.” Certainly, the resulting palette is emphatically complementary. While there is diversity amidst its nine tracks, there is a definite throughline – a flow that sweeps the listener along with it. Was it difficult to let go – to say categorically that the album was finished? “I think it’s human nature to feel you can improve things,” he replies. “Every time you do something it should be an improvement on the previous times, because you learn from mistakes – unless, you know, you

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lose your mind in-between. But we hadn’t lost our minds. So we just booked some time in Chicago [home of producer John McEntire’s Soma studio], and decided that whatever we did, that would be it. I think in some ways it’s too long” he adds. “I’d like to make a quicker record next time.” The album has a marked pensive quality, the lyrics teeming with wistful reminiscences and introspective turns of phrase. We ask whether Stephen’s self-reflection extends to past Pastels records. “It does, I think about things a lot,” he affirms. “I maybe overthink it sometimes, and get quite jealous of people who can just do stuff and move on. I always imagine how a record from 18 years ago could have been better. [But] I’m really happy with The Last Great Wilderness, Two Sunsets and Slow Summits. And I like lots of sporadic stuff from earlier…” Broadly speaking, ‘earlier’ can be split into

two phases, roughly matched to the decades. During the 80s, the band underwent several lineup shifts before finding temporary steadiness with drummer Bernice Simpson, guitarist Brian Taylor, bassist Martin Hayward and keyboardist Annabel. But after second album Sittin’ Pretty, more drastic changes were made, with Annabel and Steven parting company with the rest of the band for creative reasons. “I never thought we seemed like a group,” says Stephen of the initial line-up. “Like, the Jesus and Mary Chain looked like the Jesus and Mary Chain – they all had their Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-hairstyles and everything. We just looked like a bunch of neighbours, like if you formed a band with all the people in your close. But I’m really fond of that period still… I like that it was such a different group.” In 1990, Katrina joined and the trio found an instant musical rapport. “Me and Annabel and Katrina would just turn up in a rehearsal studio, just the three of us, and none of us could really play anything…” recalls Stephen. “A lot of work went into it, whereas in the first group there, er, well, there wasn’t…” Their efforts produced two albums (1995’s Mobile Safari and Illumination two years later), before Annabel quit to focus on art (that’s one of her paintings adorning Slow Summits’ sleeve). Nowadays, the group feels “quite focussed, quite single-minded about what our sound is,” though initially, for Stephen, that remit didn’t extend as far as lead single Check My Heart. “I was

surprised and pleased that we could do something like that,” he says, “Everyone liked it but I didn’t think it would necessarily be on the record… In a way it’s kind of simple – it’s a bit dumb, you know?” he smiles. “And it’s probably not how I naturally play now. I really like it [and] I’m glad we carried on with it [but] it’s hard to imagine that we’ll write many more songs like that.” It was Katrina who convinced Stephen that the song belonged. “When we were compiling the record, she surprised me with a couple of things that were very different from how I would have compiled it,” he explains. “I thought we could have a slightly more downbeat flow. But then I started to think of records that I really liked when I was just getting into music – things like Swell Maps and Faust, where the mood changes from one thing to the next. I started to think maybe it doesn’t have to be all the one thing. So we prob-

In the early 80s, Stephen co-headed influential label 53rd and 3rd (responsible for releases from Talulah Gosh and The Vaselines amongst others). How do the two labels compare? “53rd and 3rd was run in a very haphazard way,” Stephen replies, “and it ended quite ugly, with people not being returned their tapes and all these ownership issues. We didn’t have control over key things, so we were able to bring in incredible music, but long-term we weren’t able to look after the artists in the way that we would’ve wanted. So with Geographic I think we had more sense of what [the label] should be… Both were good in their own way, but with 53rd and 3rd, I wish we’d been able to document it better. We just lost control.” Right now, however, The Pastels is the locus of Stephen’s attentions, and Slow Summits is fully worth the wait. We ask whether the band’s lei-

“We all thought we wanted to try to make some quieter music. Not that we were ever Motörhead…”

surely pace and occasional line-up refreshments might explain, in part, their endurance – perhaps helping avoid the burnout that claims other acts? Stephen uses The Fall as a counterpoint example. “They existed before us and may well exist after us,” he says. “They’re much more volatile, but then there are lots of great records… It’s a quite inexplicable career in some respects. In a way I wish we’d as many records out as The Fall, but, you know, The Fall can be brilliantly slapdash, whereas when we’re slapdash it’s kind of… crappily slapdash,” he laughs. “That’s the difference. The Fall are quite work-ethicy, whereas we’ve probably been more… Well, I’d say in the first Stephen McRobbie phase of the group there wasn’t much of a work ethic at all, and I have to say I was the guiltiest. But there is a work ethic now, and there’s a good ably found more diversity in this record, in a way.” level of respect between everyone in the group. In addition to The Pastels, Katrina and Personally I think that when groups split up it’s Stephen run record label Geographic, a Domino usually a deep-rooted thing – of people no longer imprint focussed on smaller, often more leftliking each other or things just coming to a natural end. We’re slow moving, but we always wanted field artists. Much like The Pastels, the label’s to work together, and in the future I want to make approach to releasing music is slow and steady, more records with the same people. These are with no urgent rush to sign new acts: if they release one record a year, that’s enough. Stephen people that I like to work with.” cites records by Japanese alt-orchestra Maher Here’s hoping the band’s highest summits Shahal Hash Baz as among the label’s proudest are still to be scaled – however slowly they might achievements. “In a way they probably fulfilled a choose to get there. certain creative need, even though we weren’t Slow Summits is released via Domino on 27 May part of it,” he says. “There’s a real thrill to introThe Pastels play CCA, Glasgow, 1 Jun ducing something that you think’s fantastic to www.thepastels.org people.”

MUSIC

THE SKINNY

The Write Stuff Jenni Fagan is the sole Scottish writer included in Granta’s once-a-decade Best of Young British Novelists list. We catch up with her shortly after the announcement to discuss dancing celebrations, her new novel and the future Interview: Ryan Rushton

n the 15th of last month hordes of writers, journalists, publishers and agents squeezed into the British Council building in anticipation of an announcement. Once a decade, since 1983, Granta have revealed their list of the 20 best British novelists under the age of 40. The list is known for its prescience in identifying writers who will dominate the British literary landscape in years to come. As evidence see the past inclusion of Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguru, Iain Banks, Monica Ali... the list goes on. This year the list was immediately noteworthy for featuring a majority of women writers and for the international breadth of the selection, pushing against any sort of narrow definition of Britishness. From a Scottish perspective one may balk at a list featuring just one writer from north of the border, but probably concede the overall strength of the other 19 featured. Besides, the one Scot they did choose, author of last year’s superb The Panopticon, is Jenni Fagan. One of the most exciting and original new voices to have emerged from our shores, we caught up with her mere days after the announcement, although it turns out she has known for ages. “I found out I was part of the Granta Best of Young British in January! I danced around with my toddler (he promised to not tell anyone else). It was a great moment.” That is certainly the most appropriate response I could think of to receiving a major literary accolade. I asked Jenni about the level of hysteria that had ensued in the wake of the announcement: “It has been non-stop since the ceremony. It has come at the same time as the release of my paperback as well, so I am doing lots of signings, lots of interviews, press, and planning for events throughout the year. Also, I have been getting lovely messages from all the people who have been supporting my work, they are really pleased to see what’s happened.” Alongside the once-in-a-decade list Granta also produces an accompanying book. Best of Young British Novelists 4 features a short new piece of writing from all of the authors involved. In Jenni’s case the story entitled Zephyrs is an extract from an earlier draft of the novel she is currently working on. She tells me that “In this

May 2013

part of the story we meet Cael, who is one of four main protagonists. He leaves London during an evacuation of all the areas surrounding the river Thames. The river itself is rising and is expected to break its banks. I was drawn to what might happen if this event occurred, what impact it might have on individuals and society as a whole. It is set around ten years from now.”

“I just want to push myself to develop as a writer and not keep writing the same novel over and over again.”

he month of May kicks off at the O2 with a night of old-school hip hop. Former Juice Crew affiliates Big Daddy Kane and Masta Ace will be bringing their much-lauded MC skills to the ABC2 on 6 May. With Kane still considered one of the most influential rappers of all time, as well as being a sterling opponent in the beatdown arena of mic-to-mic battles, a quality night is already assured. Like the song says, Ain’t No Half-Steppin. Coupled with co-headliner Masta Ace, a veteran of equal skill and vocal dexterity, and this is simply an unmissable night for hip-hop fans. A new album from The Fall (ABC, 7 May) may be about as frequent as your own birthday, but that’s surely all the more reason to celebrate. However, us simple homo sapiens will no doubt be marking this as something a bit more special than usual with their upcoming effort Re-Mit being the veteran act’s thirtieth album in just over as many years. An incredible feat no doubt, and certainly not a back catalogue for the fainthearted. Ditto for their legendarily unpredictable live shows of which this will undoubtedly be one. London-based duo Public Service Broadcasting (ABC2, 8 May) are not ironically named. Firstly, they actually use snippets of archival public service broadcasts. Secondly, they are deadly serious about it, at least on paper, attempting to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future” according to their remit. If that sounds like heavy stuff then fear not as they skilfully balance muscular, post-rock takes on the perils of dangerous driving (Signal 30) with hopeful and rousing electro paeans to progress and technology (ROYGBIV). Buckle up and be safe. Jamaican vocal trio The Abyssinians (ABC2, 16 May) will be bringing an altogether more liberal vibe to Glesca. Best known for their 1976 debut album Satta Massagana, a part-Egyptian sung celebration of Rastafarianism, the fluid lineup has survived many incarnations, even doing a ‘Bucks Fizz’ in the 80s with official and unofficial touring groups. This long overdue tour will see the classic formation back together on stage; still timely enough to apply for Eurovision then.

Jenni Fagan

It certainly seems different from the unravelling of the care home system we found in The Panopticon and reminds me of something Fagan has said in the past, about a desire to write diversely with each work, taking on new types of characters and themes. “I hope so,” she says. “The four protagonists are all quite different, as is the wider framework and story. Whether I can achieve it or not, I don’t know. I just want to push myself to develop as a writer and not keep writing the same novel over and over again. Nevertheless – ideas of dislocation, identity, the individual and society, peripheral communities and non-conventional ways, or more autonomous ways of responding to the ‘centre,’ I guess they are things I return to – but in a way that just really underpins a good story, about believable characters.”

Big Daddy Kane

Stick a pin in any list of influential hip hop artists and chances are that R.A. The Rugged Man (ABC, 17 May) has been affiliated with them in some way. As if to highlight this fact, R.A.’s upcoming second album, Legends Never Die, has a contribution from the aforementioned Masta Ace. However, tonight the man known to his Mum as Richard Andrew Thorburn will be forging his own path as part of the Badmouth Battles series of nights. Expect proceedings to be suitably fierce. [Darren Carle] www.o2abcglasgow.co.uk

Jenni will be appearing at Neu Reekie! in Glasgow around 17 Jul and at Hendricks Carnival of Knowledge on 9 Aug in Edinburgh. www.granta.com/Events/UK

BOOKS

The Believable Truth

Hal Hartley, one of the most distinctive voices on the American indie film scene, talks to The Skinny ahead of the rerelease of three of his early films on DVD and Blu-ray

Interview: John Nugent

al Hartley, so the popular narrative goes, is the missing man of US indie cinema. In the independent filmmaking boom of the early 1990s, Hartley was among a prodigious pack of young upstarts hailed as the future of cinema, part of a confident, self-made generation. Yet unlike his peers, such as Steven Soderbergh or Gus Van Sant, Hartley’s transition into the mainstream never materialised. By the turn of the century he had practically fallen off the radar, and many assumed his was a potential unrealised. But this is perhaps a false history. Hartley never stopped working, yielding a prolific stream of movies, shorts, and TV films, not to mention stints in theatre, opera, and academia. And in any case, his work – dense, artful, measured, almost Brechtian in its approach – hardly implied a move towards the multiplex. “It is boring,” says Hartley of the frequent debate over what could have been. But he shrugs it off: “You just get on with your work and let this empty chatter help you when it can and ignore it when it doesn’t. I’ve never done anything but make the kind of work I’ve wanted to make, the way I wanted to make it.”

As was evident from the start: the auteur first exploded onto the scene, inasmuch as one can explode from quietly philosophical comic drama, with 1989’s The Unbelievable Truth. Shot in under a fortnight with “lack of sleep and very little food,” it is being rereleased this month, alongside two other notable entries in the Hartley canon: the mismatched sibling road trip Simple Men (1992), and the amnesia romance of Amateur (1994). The collection acts as a neat introduction for newcomers, bearing all his recognisable traits: slow-burning character studies; an arch, deadpan sense of humour; and articulate, dialogue-heavy scripts, imbued with sparkly wit and repartee throughout. Dialogue remains a predominant weapon in the 53-year-old filmmaker’s armoury: “For me, dialogue can be action. Say, when I’m creating a monologue, I try to create an image of the movement of thought. I like to show a character piecing together an understanding, or misunderstanding, of something.” Hartley’s films are often about piecing together an understanding of something, usually through a stylised, screwball prism. Even those

which appear to lean towards cliché or genre have gravity lurking under the bonnet: 2001’s No Such Thing, ostensibly a monster movie, for example, is as much a meditation on the human condition as it is about Icelandic abominable snowmen. A product of art school who fell into filmmaking almost by accident, his output always shared sensibilities with European filmmakers rather than those from his native US – Godard and Wenders were major influences. Hartley acknowledges, though, that he might not have had the “initial confidence” to make The Unbelievable Truth if Jim Jarmusch’s early films hadn’t enjoyed such success. And indeed, Hartley has reaped moderate success of his own, with a run of Sundance hits in the early 90s, from The Unbelievable Truth to Henry Fool (1997). But he brushes aside any allegiance to an indie community. “I’ve never known what the independent scene is. It always seemed like a false category made up by the sales people.” For him, indie and mainstream were two sides of the same coin: “Just different sizes of corporate grip. Big corporations. Little

corporations. In any case they’re bigger than one individual and the individual is forced to conform.” It follows, then, that he seems happy enough to work on the fringes. Hartley’s most recent film, Meanwhile, was distributed via Kickstarter, and he sells his films directly through his website, which he calls an “ongoing source of amusement and wonder. One day a week, at least, I feel like the owner of a super niche grocery store.” He once declared, “the budget is the aesthetic.” Having abandoned film for digital in 1999 (“it’s just a waste of time and money”), this perspective still applies. “What you can do excellently with the means at your disposal is a large part of the craft of filmmaking,” he observes. “That might be one of the reasons smaller films seem to be more artistic, even when they’re not necessarily. The confrontation of aims and means are more obvious. The grammar comes more to the foreground.” Three Hal Hartley titles are released on DVD and Blu-ray in May and Jun by Artificial Eye: Amateur (1994), 13 May, The Unbelievable Truth (1989), 27 May, Simple Men (1992), 10 Jun possiblefilms.com

Myth Making Neil Jordan returns to the vampire sub-genre with Byzantium, an adult fairy tale starring Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan. We spoke to the Irishman at Glasgow Film Festival, where Byzantium had its UK première Interview: Jamie Dunn

yzantium, the new movie from Neil Jordan, wasn’t written by the Irish filmmaker (the scribe is Moira Buffini, adapting her own play A Vampire Story), but you’d never know from the content. It plays like the 63-year-old’s greatest hits. “It was weird,” Jordan says to me when I ask about Byzantium’s similarities to his previous films ahead of its UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival. “It was set in a small, rundown holiday town – I’ve done about six movies that have been set in those environments – and it seemed to have a strong sense of Interview with the Vampire in a strange way. It moved through time, as Interview with the Vampire did, and it was about storytelling.” This isn’t to say Jordan is retreading the old ground of his biggest box-office success. There’s plenty of originality in Byzantium, particularly when it comes to its mythology. Jordan calls it “the first historically accurate vampire movie.” Instead of fangs, these bloodsuckers drain their victims using razor-sharp thumbnails that extend when they have a thirst on. And to join the vampire club you don’t require to be bitten by, or drink the blood of, another vampire. Instead you have to enter an ancient hut on a remote island and murder your doppelganger, turning a nearby waterfall blood red. “Anything else is a lie,” Jordan chuckles. One of Byzantium’s most appealing aspects is its collision of the archaic with the modern.

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Gemma Arterton in Byzantium

It concerns two young women, Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan), on the run from a shady brotherhood of vampires (Thure Lindhardt and Sam Riley play two of the members). Half the film is a gritty noir set in the present day, where Clara, the more practical of the pair, is setting up a brothel in a dilapidated guesthouse. Eleanor, who’s conflicted about the whole drinking human blood side of vampirism, meanwhile, is starting a tentative romance with Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), a terminally-ill young man to whom she reveals her and Clara’s secret. The rest of the movie takes the form of operatic flashbacks to two centuries earlier, where we see Clara steal the gift of immortality from an abusive, syphilitic aristocrat (Johnny Lee Miller). The result is a ravishing hotchpotch of styles and ideas. “I’ve always preferred metaphors and

allegories,” says Jordan when I ask about this lurid blend of fantasy and reality that characterises Byzantium, and his oeuvre in general, from cult 1984 fairy tale The Company of Wolves to his most recent film Ondine, the story of a fisherman who falls for a seal woman. “When I started making movies with Stephen Woolley we kept talking about Powell and Pressburger [the director/writer duo behind The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and A Matter of Life and Death]. Their movies are stand alone in terms of the British movie tradition. They’re colourful and they’re challenging and they’re very unrealistic. They were the kind of movies I was inclined to make.” Jordan puts this tendency towards the fantastic down to his upbringing. “I was born in Ireland in 1950, so I grew up in a not entirely civilised country,” he says, wryly, “and apart from the Catholic church there were all these rural legends and

FILM

myths to feast your imagination on.” As any horror-nut knows, these plasma quaffing creatures are always metaphors for something or other, be it AIDS (The Addiction), delinquency (The Lost Boys), family (Near Dark), homosexuality (Fright Night) or sex (all the others, basically). What’s the subtext in Byzantium? “If it’s a metaphor for anything, it’s a metaphor for survival,” explains Jordan. “Clara’s a prostitute, and she was a prostitute in the 18th century, and she was basically abused at the hands of a whole series of men. She robs this gift from a brotherhood of vampires – women aren’t meant to take this gift, they’re not allowed to be turned into vampires. So if there’s a parable here it’s a kind of feminist one about grabbing power and keeping it.” Byzantium is released 31 May by StudioCanal

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THE SKINNY

The End of the Beginning Interview: Jean-Xavier Boucherat

etting to grips with the concept of ‘Yugen’ is a profoundly futile task – profound in that the difficulty one might have in grasping it shines more light on its true nature than words really can. Rooted in Japanese aesthetics, it posits that there is much within our world that we cannot name; emotions experienced only in dreams, pleasures derived from the stale and mundane, heartache on the night-bus – these are the prompts that might drive us towards a meaningful understanding of the concept, if only for a few fleeting moments, before resuming our mad scrabbling in darker recesses. They are subtle beauties that can only be vaguely hinted at. Koreless (AKA Lewis Roberts) seems fully aware that Yugen, his new EP on Young Turks, might be asking a lot of its listeners. “It’s hard to say,” he responds when pushed for a definition. “It’ll all become clearer over time though. This is something I’ve wanted to do for ages.” Certainly he’s kept us waiting for a while. Having come up like so many through the internet’s de-centred channels, it’s now been over two years since the release of 4D/MTI on Pictures Music, a playful, two-step infused release which rode a wave that’s been throwing a genre-fixated press off tempo since day one (illustrated best by the release prompting The Independent to warn James Blake to ‘watch [his] back, there’s a new minimal dubstep star on the scene!’) Since then, we’ve seen a single on Jacques Greene’s Vase label, and some collaborative work with fellow producer Sampha under the moniker of Short Stories, but nothing in the way of a larger, cohesive effort. So why the wait? “I just wanted to get away from doing the same stuff,” explains Roberts. “I mean 4D/MTI and everything I’ve released so far has been pretty pigeonholed in that messy, house-butnot-quite-house sound. I really wanted to put some distance between myself and all of that, so I tried not to make any music for a while. I felt like this was very necessary. There was a period where I just felt nothing I was doing sounded very good. I took a break, played a load of shows, and

May 2013

eventually figured out the concepts behind the EP and the work that needed to be done around the end of last year – in fact it came together really quickly, less than a month maybe. It was just reaching that point that took so long. So this is something new – a different approach.”

“I was reading a lot of JG Ballard, all that weird sci-fi stuff. I can definitely see imagery from that having seeped into the sound.” Lewis Roberts aka Koreless

He’s not wrong. Yugen is a primarily beatless affair, and while its five tracks are littered with elements that have characterised previous releases, there is no ignoring the almost unsettling conclusions that Roberts’ minimalist tendencies have brought him to, logical though they may be. Somehow, Yugen is both a record of alarming sparseness and satisfying richness; of arresting stillness and weighted movement. The combination of chopped vocals and warm synthwork, weaving its way through the spaces intentionally left blank, paints for us a surface world onto which Roberts projects radiant structures that obscure the depth that lies beneath. Yugen feels part of a much larger, multi-disciplinary work, and one can only wonder what Roberts means when he claims that all will become clearer over time. That’s not to say it doesn’t work as a

Returning with a new EP that marks a dramatic departure from his earlier work, Lewis Roberts, aka Koreless explains how he has shed his skin and taken his sound forward

stand-alone record. It does. It’s a wonderfully coherent work – following in a comparable vein to fellow innovator Production Unit’s 2012 release There Are No Shortcuts in a Grid System, Roberts utilises similar, occasionally identical sounds and motifs throughout the record. “There’s a few tracks working around the same theme, Sun and No Sun share a theme for example, except one’s backwards. I wasn’t keen on putting out five completely different tracks. I enjoy the way a band comes together using the same instruments to put out four different tracks, so it’s an attempt to bring that out in electronic instrumentation – the same sound, used in different ways.” In an age where so much is available to producers, this kind of restraint is both provocative and refreshing. Yugen will definitely come as something of a relief to many. While the original explosion of forward-thinking bass music undoubtedly instilled UK and worldwide clubbing with a fresh sense of urgency, later efforts lost their charm, and were accompanied by a growing unease around the tools that made it all possible in the first place – could anyone with a cracked copy of Ableton and a couple of hundred Twitter followers really be a producer? Via Yugen, Koreless has emerged unscathed from this dangerous landscape. The record’s well-crafted ambience, inevitably imbued with hints of Tangerine Dream and early Kraftwerk, takes us to sullen rooms equipped with ancient oscillators, full synth set-ups and ten-tonne tape decks. Whether Roberts did the EP on a laptop or not is irrelevant – Yugen carries serious weight, the kind that requires isolation. Tellingly, when quizzed on what he was listening to when the EP was coming together, Roberts draws a blank. Visual influences get a better response – “I was reading a lot of JG Ballard, all that weird sci-fi stuff. I can definitely see imagery from that having seeped into the sound.” Originally from Bangor in North Wales, Koreless was up until very recently a denizen of Glasgow, involved with the likes of LuckyMe, Numbers, and All Caps. “The Glasgow club scene

CLUBS

is amazing; it’s a real special group of people. For better or worse, it’s the same bunch at every night, and the same crowds packing out the place, like a little family.” Roberts is by no means the first to speculate thus on what makes the Glasgow club scene the delightful little pressure cooker it is, but he speaks of it with an enthusiasm that suggests there are things happening in Glasgow that do not happen anywhere else – “They really know what they’re talking about, it’s a vibe I’ve never seen anywhere else, even being down in London, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. It’s in its own little world and for that reason it just doesn’t care.” This month Roberts will be returning to Chambre 69’s temporary home Make Do for the Vase Label Showcase, performing live alongside the analogue-heavy Jacques Greene. “Until now the live shows have been fairly simple,” he admits, “all based on re-working things in a live setting using MIDI controllers and so on. But now I’m in rehearsals for a full live show – full keys, full synths, maybe some modular stuff. We’ve got a live kalimba to play some of the riffs with, it sounds so poppy. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done up until now, and I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s cheating, but you definitely feel a bit detached from everyone when you’re playing stuff off a launch-pad, so it’s gonna be nice to try and share more of a connection with the audience. That emphasis on performance is something I’m keen to cultivate – I want vocals, and I’m toying with the idea of involving some other performers maybe. It’s a work in progress! It’s definitely going to be complicated. These things are always growing, always changing.” As befits the complexity of a record like Yugen, and perhaps Koreless’s whole approach, the label night promises a fully bespoke production and staging setup, taking its cue from a recognisable movement that’s forcing club-goers into more immersive, exploratory territory. Yugen EP is released through Young Turks on 20 May You can catch Koreless playing live as part of Jacques Greene’s Vase showcase, Make Do, Glasgow, 24 May

Feature

Til The Space Cows Come Home Following the tragic news that Iain Banks has terminal cancer, we asked Andrew Wilson, who has known Banks for over 20 years, to reflect on the life and work of one of Scotland’s greatest authors

Illustration: Kate Copeland

ain Banks knows how to grab a reader’s attention. His 1992 novel The Crow Road has one of the most memorable first lines in all literature, Scottish or otherwise: ‘It was the day my grandmother exploded.’ A personal statement posted on his official website last month begins equally tersely and just as dramatically: ‘I am officially Very Poorly.’ The author has revealed that he’s a latestage gall bladder cancer patient. “I’m expected to live for ‘several months,’” he states bluntly, “and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year.” This most recent and very probably final piece of writing has had an international impact. In his New York Times column, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman wrote: ‘Banks is dealing with his tragedy with awesome good humor – I find myself reminded of the last days of another great Scotsman, David Hume. But what a loss for the rest of us.’ What a loss indeed. Having known Banks for many years and interviewed him several times, I was painfully reminded of something he told me in 1999: “I think that one of the great things about being a writer is you can keep going more or less til you die. I think it must be a half-life sort of thing. You’d write a book every year then once every two years, then every four years, then every eight years... I’ll still write, but it’ll be far more seldom than I do at the moment. It won’t be a book every year, it might be a book every five years or whatever, or maybe just short stories, or who knows, reminiscences...” Now we have to accept that things will be very different. To quote from his statement again, “It looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.” Banks is personally facing what he describes in his science-fiction novel Excession as an Outside Context Problem. This is a crisis that arrives without warning and is impossible to foresee: “An Outside Context Problem was the sort of

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thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.” But as he later wrote in Look to Windward, “the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.” Iain Menzies Banks is a remarkable man. Over the past three decades, he has published nearly thirty books – The Quarry will be his twenty-ninth – and in doing so, redefined what Scottish writing is and can be. He was picked as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 1993, and 15 years later, The Times named Banks as one of ‘the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.’ A recent tweet by Stephen Fry underscores that one very good reason for this acclaim is that Banks refuses to limit himself: ‘So devastated by the sad sad news about Iain Banks - he and Iain M Banks, his sci-fi alter ego, two of my favourite living writers.’ The boundaries between works published with or without his middle initial have always been porous. Transition, his 2009 novel about parallel worlds, was published as mainstream in the UK and as SF, flagged up by the addition of his middle initial, in the US. On BBC Radio Scotland’s The Culture Studio, Scotland on Sunday literary editor Stuart Kelly told presenter Janice Forsyth that Banks’s works were in dialogue with each other. He argued that The Crow Road, and later works such as Stonemouth and The Steep Approach to Garbadale, play with the same themes in different ways. I think this discourse between books extends throughout his body of work. For example, a knife-missile, which is a piece of Culture [Bank's complex fictional utopian society] technology, appears in one of the hallucinatory scenes in The Bridge. Look to Windward reflects on the consequences of the events in Consider Phlebas. A

Song of Stone and Inversions, although published as by Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks, respectively, are very much companion pieces, tackling similar themes with comparable styles.

“The soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it” Iain Banks

We discussed the reasons for these variations on themes and different angles of attack in a 2008 interview, when I asked Banks if fiction could truly engage with the real world, and if so, whether science fiction had a part to play. “Yes, of course,” he told me, “SF can reflect upon the present, in some ways, more precisely than mainstream because in SF you can design a setting, set of circumstances, society, civilisation or even meta-civilisation to highlight whatever message or point you want to make, sweeping away all the clutter that normally comes with reality to focus on the kernel of the issue.” And if none of Banks’s books have made quite as much impact as his first, that’s because The Wasp Factory was so controversial. The Irish Times famously had a fit of the vapours about this blackest of comedies: ‘It’s a sick, sick world when the confidence and investment of an astute firm of publishers is justified by a work of unparalleled depravity.’ A recent piece by Patrick Freyne in the same paper ruefully quotes this condemnation while stating that: “His novels are built around a strong moral sense of how a society should conduct itself, balanced by a compassionate understanding of why it does not. They are humane to the core.”

BOOKS

Banks has managed to achieve both commercial success and critical acclaim, but I believe he is still underrated as a writer. This is because the smoothness and clarity of his prose make what he does look easy. In fact, the apparent simplicity of his books is as deceptive as his unreliable narrators – he is never afraid to experiment with form and structure. The radical V-shaped structure of Use of Weapons, which has two interwoven narrative threads moving forwards and backwards in time, serves to illuminate rather than confuse. The Bridge, of course, is built like the Forth Bridge, which is central to the book. There are many more reasons why Banks is amongst the best writers Scotland has ever produced, but the clear-headed frankness of his recent personal statement makes it one of the great testaments of literature. It may become his most widely read piece of writing because of its understated bravery and good humour. I only hope that those who read it go on to discover the rest of his work. But let’s be clear, Iain Banks is not dying, he’s living: “I’ve withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I’ve asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow... We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us.” In the interview I did with him in 1999, he remarked, “I could write Culture stories til the space cows come home...” Well, that cosmic herd is going to land sooner rather than later, as it will for all of us. Banksie has accepted the inevitable, but I hope this self-described “evangelical atheist” will forgive me if I remind him that futurist Hans Moravec argues that artificial intelligence will resurrect us all one day. I’ll see you again at the end of time, old friend. www.iain-banks.net

THE SKINNY

he opulent 19th Century Peles Castle is the ultimate work of stylistic pastiche, with every room decorated in a different architectural style. German collaborative duo Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff create installations based on a detail from one of their previous reproductions of the castle, in a perpetual fragmentation and distortion of the ‘original’ source. Your early incarnations of Peles were visually overwhelming, conveying the castle’s aesthetic richness and exuberance – A3 colour copies papered over every inch of the walls. More recently, you’ve moved into 3D, making sculptures based on objects found in the castle and on details of your previous reproductions. What are you planning for GSS? For GSS we are playing with the idea of wall-based sculpture and floor-based paper works. The wall pieces are made out of concrete, referencing the space’s floor, and a sort of papier mâché. This, in turn, is made from large floor pieces consisting of A3 sheets, folded paper pieces in the size of the area between the pillars. The image on the paper is a manipulated reproduction of a single sculpture which is not part of the show. This object was part of a previous exhibition and references another abstracted image element from the castle. What attracted you to Peles Castle originally? We were and are mostly interested in the castle’s method of reproduction, the non-hierarchical combination of different styles and epochs. Initially we simply ‘copied the copy,’ whereas now we try to explore how far this method can be pushed. You often exhibit a distorted, abstracted image that is a detail from a digital photo, alongside a sculpture that is also a copy of a detail, but lacks the low-res quality of the 2D image. How does the ‘poor image’ function in relation to the ‘high-definition’ of the sculptural copy? As mentioned, we see no hierarchical difference between the elements and materials we use. The emerging quality is a constant gain and loss,

Peles Empire, F X G (2013) Courtesy the artists

Dissolving the Past What happens when you copy a copy of a copy, until no trace of the original remains? Since 2005, Peles Empire have recreated rooms from Peles Castle in Romania. Ahead of their show at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, we quizzed them about a work that disappears even as it expands Interview: Jac Mantle

mostly highlighting the process rather than the finished ‘product.’ Also, even though the objects seem ‘HD,’ how they develop is through a lot of low-level processes; the shapes and patterns develop by chance, or rather ‘accidents,’ emphasising the copy or reproduction process. Some might say such devotion to one subject is madness! What made you decide to explore endless repetitions of the same subject, and what is to be gained by setting yourselves this narrow trajectory? Somehow, this narrow trajectory gives us a paradoxical form of freedom. By setting these boundaries we are forced to explore how far this process of reproduction can be pushed. And by this, we find new ways and materials through which this can be done. The imagery, for example, can become more and more abstract. In other cases, it can become more self-referential, for example by ‘tiling’ A3 papers of an image in a seemingly random order. You also run two mirroring spaces, where invited artists show their work. Does this introduce an aspect of democracy or randomness into how Peles Empire develops? The two exhibition spaces we run are part of our practice, which is also why we would not describe ourselves as curators. We see it as a constant exchange between our work – that is, a more abstract exploration of the castle and the simply copied exhibition spaces. There, the constant change comes from the invited artists. They are completely free in what and how they want to use the space. We rather see it as a moment of opening up the collaboration. In a sense, it is more than democratic, as we step back as soon as we invite someone. Your investigation into continual representation is potentially infinite – where will it end? We definitely see it as infinite. A painter would probably not be asked when he would stop painting. www.glasgowsculpturestudios.org

RSA ANNUAL EXHIBITION 25 May - 2 July 2013 Free Admission

Image: Alison Schulnik

Between the Late & Early: celebrating artists whose work inhabits the gap between perceived and imagined realities

www.royalscottishacademy.org May 2013

ART

Feature

Hidden In Plain Sight For their second outing of 2013, Arika take on the world of voguing, drag, clubbing and gender Words: Niall Connolly

Boychild by Daniel Bolliger Studio

nderground scenes don’t come more co-opted or exploited than New York’s voguing subculture, which went from the ballrooms of Harlem and the clubs of Manhattan to global ubiquity for one hot minute in the early 1990s. This was mostly thanks to Madonna’s mega-hit Vogue, and as with most things touched by the hand of Madge, its credibility and longevity came into question. But far from being a flash in the pan dance fad, or a clubbing moment frozen in time, vogue (and the ‘ballroom’ culture which spawned it) has become a way of life that encompasses art, music, dance, language, and style. It deals directly with the Black, Gay and Trans* experience in modern America, and raises pertinent questions about appearance, performance, sexuality and gender (much more than was ever achieved by Madonna’s faux-controversial Sex book). This May, Glasgow collective Arika are hosting a series of events in the city to celebrate voguing and ballroom culture. Although Arika are already well known for events that address queer notions of identity and politics (as well as organising the renowned Instal festival at the Arches) Glasgow doesn’t have much of a ballroom scene, so how did this mini-festival come about? Quite organically, it turns out. Having been the first non-Americans to curate at the Whitney Biennial, Arika had worked alongside the sound art collective Ultra-red, some of whose members are part of the ballroom community. It was Ultrared who suggested bringing some of this scene to Scotland, in keeping with Arika’s interest in ‘queer identities.’ The commitment to quality (as opposed to just hipster lip service) is evident in the bill Arika have assembled for the event, subtitled Hidden In Plain Sight, the fifth part in their ongoing, episodic series of mini-festivals. Music, dance and performance are all heavily featured, as you would expect, but there will also be a series of discussions involving the visitors from New York that will be pretty damn essential too. Voguing

is unique in that it’s a street dance form that can command serious academic appreciation, and Arika have done a great job in bridging these two disparate worlds. Clubbers will be excited by the Glasgow debut of DJ Vjuan Allure, the grandfather of the modern ballroom house sound, who comes fresh off a release on Diplo’s Jeffree’s label. Joining Allure will be DJ Sprinkles, aka Terre Thaemlitz, purveyor of deep house and Resident Advisor favourite, as well as one time DJ at New York’s legendary drag/ trans bar Sally’s. Thaemlitz also has a video/audio art installation project called Soulnessless at the Tramway on the Saturday, investigating ideas of gender and religion, and will be giving an introductory talk earlier that day. Performance artist boychild will also be appearing at Friday’s club night, and again on the Sunday, with two untitled lip sync pieces that question ‘the mutability of body and the mobility of gender.’ Dancer Trajal Harell will be giving a Saturday evening performance titled Twenty Looks, or Paris Is Burning At The Judson Church, an imagined meeting of the original ball queens and NY’s renowned improvisational dance group. Of most interest to hardcore voguing fans, however, will be two talks on the Saturday and Sunday by a group called Vogue’ology. Vogue’ology is described as “an investigative team consisting of members of the House/Ballroom scene and Ultra-red” featuring dancers, academics, and the legendary Pony Zion of Vogue Evolution. They are the dance troupe most responsible for bringing voguing back to mainstream attention through their appearances in videos and on American television. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Hidden In Plain Sight hosts an embarrassment of riches for the dedicated vogue fan, but also for those interested in queer politics, for historians and academics, and even for those simply in pursuit of a good time. Episode 5: Hidden in Plain Sight, Tramway, Glasgow, 24-26 May, festival pass £14, evening pass £6 www.arika.org.uk

JOHANNA BASFORD WONDERLANDS DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS S AT 4 M AY — S U N 7 J U LY 2 0 1 3

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ART

THE SKINNY

Plug In, Bug Out As he prepares to take his Best of BUG and BUG Radiohead shows on the road, broadcaster, comedian and writer Adam Buxton traces the development of his fascination with pop culture into a touring phenomenon

Illustration: Will Daw Interview: John Thorp

alling Adam Buxton by phone is not an intimidating experience, but it is a surreal and strangely hypnotic one. Along with his best friend and long time co-conspirator Joe Cornish, Buxton has been responsible for some of the funniest, warmest and strangest radio ever broadcast. Having benefitted from the advent of the podcast, Buxton and Cornish’s pop-culture obsessed BBC 6 Music and XFM shows – in turn savvy and silly, and perfect hungover Saturday morning radio – are archived for posterity and discovery, and remain incredibly popular. Since a short run of shows with Edith Bowman before Christmas, Adam’s tone has been absent from 6Music – so listening to him down the blower, as you could happily do for hours on end, it’s easy to imagine him about to introduce a record or feature at any moment, and a reminder of how much his presence is missed. To get it out the way, then: what are the chances of an Adam and Joe reunion? “I’d feel really sad if it never [happened], but Joe’s so busy,” he understates – Cornish is currently working with Edgar Wright on Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man adaptation, following on from his successful foray into feature film with Attack the Block and a writing credit on Steven Spielberg’s recent The Adventures of Tintin 3D spectacular. “I’m always telling him that I’ll do all the work, he can just turn up for three hours and pour scorn on me, but I don’t think he wants to be seen as a lazy git. “We haven’t really seen each other socially for a long time,” he continues. “We live completely different lives, I have kids, and I don’t live in London anymore. So we’d only really see each other in the studio. But no, we haven’t fallen out or anything; we’ll just wait for the planets to align.” While Cornish has been gadding about making films, Buxton has been slowly but surely building his BUG empire into a live phenomenon. Subtitled ‘The Evolution of Music Video,’ BUG aims to offer “big-screen exposure to the most awe-inspiring new work in music videos.” Each show is anchored by Buxton at his most charming and enthusiastic, sharing visually arresting work – as well as new discoveries from the DIY scene – on a canvas somewhat bigger than a YouTube window. Since debuting with a bimonthly residency at BFI Southbank in London in 2007, BUG has toured as far as the Sydney Festival and Los Angeles, and all over the UK, including to Latitude and Reading festivals. BUG is the outcome of Buxton’s lifelong love of DIY and obscure culture. From 1997 to 2001, Channel 4 broadcast The Adam and Joe Show, a hotchpotch comedy revue programme shot in a ‘bedroom’ featuring skits involving Buxton and Cornish’s collection of Star Wars toys, and ‘Vinyl Justice,’ which memorably featured the two riffing on an agitated Mark E. Smith’s record collection. Over on cable from 2000 to 2002, the pair would gently but relentlessly mock terrible European pornography on E4/Bravo’s Shock Video. Looking back, much of Buxton’s early work feels ‘viral’ before the word meant anything beyond the origins of a crippling disease. “I’m like a pig in shit, basically,” he says. “In the olden days, if you had cool friends they might have a VHS of some weird stuff they’d found. There was a film called Faces of Death, which was supposedly a snuff movie, a collection of deaths. Nowadays you could probably buy it on Amazon, but back then, nobody was even sure it existed.”

May 2013

Music video culture used to be similar, he feels. “You were never sure when things were going to be on TV; you sat with a finger on the record button. The choice we have now is great, but you still need that cool friend, you know? I’m not saying I am that cool friend, but it’s all about curators now, isn’t it? Rather than some fucking YouTube algorithm that’s noticed you’ve been watching David Bowie, so maybe you’d like to watch more David Bowie.” One of the mainstays of BUG is Buxton’s fascination with impotent online fury, and his amusing and endearing deconstruction of the raging and absurd YouTube comments he finds during his web trawls. However, he remains refreshingly optimistic about the fans behind their computer screens. “I think people want to feel engaged, and sometimes people are constructively critical, but the easiest thing is to be negatively critical, because it makes you feel powerful,” he observes. “I can relate to that, but I try and hold back, because I know how it feels to have work criticised. I started reading out YouTube comments [on] my own stuff partly as a form of therapy, and I don’t think I’m ever horrible. I don’t read out any nasty ones, just stuff that’s funny or a bit weird.” There’s a pleasant irony in the success of BUG – a celebration of the internet in the live forum, away from commissioning editors; or, as Buxton succinctly describes the event, “a group of people in the same room enjoying things that are generally consumed in a solitary setting.”

With Buxton and his video-hunting BUG team having curated special showcases for labels such as Warp and Ninja Tune, his choice of Radiohead as subject for another themed BUG show seems natural – especially as he codirected the video for In Rainbows’ Jigsaw Falling Into Place, where the band’s performance was captured using cameras attached to poles worn on their heads. On its release, this was a unique angle – in more ways than one – on the previously famously enigmatic band; particularly in the case of lead singer Thom Yorke, who Buxton, along with close friend and co-director Garth Jennings, managed to persuade to put his head in a box for a hilarious Se7en parody video.

“I’m like a pig in shit, basically” Adam Buxton

“It was actually Louis Theroux that got me into Radiohead,” Buxton recalls. “That was around Pablo Honey and I didn’t like big, sprawling rock songs. But I listened to it, and sure enough he was right. By the time OK Computer came out, it felt like they were speaking directly to my needs and anxieties.” Buxton had met the band’s producer and engineer Nigel Godrich at a gig, but Godrich was protective about introducing anyone to the group. Ultimately, through Jennings, Buxton

COMEDY

befriended Ed O’Brien, then Jonny Greenwood and Yorke, before eventually assisting with the band’s In Rainbows webcasts. From a fan’s perspective, he has “a soft spot for Amnesiac, but it’s OK Computer that I keep coming back to, rather predictably, and the No Surprises video by Grant Gee is unbeatable. I love a really simple concept executed well, and it also has a great performance from Thom.” In regards to the possibility of directing more music videos of his own, Buxton says he’d like to, “but needs an idea first.” The thoughtful, family-man Dr Buckles of today may seem far removed from the twentysomething late-night scamp that people may recall being thrown out of a brewery, in the second series of The Adam and Joe Show, for trying to a) film and b) host a piss up in it. But his passion for pop culture has clearly yet to falter – and despite his claims that throwing around concepts is not his forte, fans would suspect there’s plenty of comedic life left in long-running characters such as his pompous film producer, Ken Korda. While he claims to be “skirting around” the idea of writing something narrative-based, Buxton remains most enthusiastic about his current endeavour. “I’d be perfectly happy just doing BUG for another couple of years,” he tells me. Good news for us; bad news for trolls. Adam Buxton presents Best of BUG, Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 7 May, 9pm, £16.50 www.adam-buxton.co.uk www.bugvideos.co.uk

Feature

Death, Theft, and Four-Eyed Freaks: Mark Arm Interrogated As Melvins celebrate their pearl anniversary and Mudhoney see in their silver, neither legend really needs any introduction in these pages. To be honest, we’re sick of interviewing them (not really) and they’ve had it with journalists (there’s a fair chance), so they agreed to talk amongst themselves. Here, Buzz Osborne grills Mark Arm on his own demise, stealing from bands and how to use the internet Interview: Buzz Osborne Photography: Dave McCourt Buzz: Have you ever envisioned your own death? Mark: If I’m lucky enough to live as long as my parents, I will most likely die alone in a nursing home, stricken by dementia, surrounded by people I don’t know, with no one to advocate for me because I was too selfish to bother procreating. My hope is that I continue to have a great life ’til then. We’re off to a good start here. Buzz: Have you ever envisioned someone else’s death? Mark: Probably some bully in Junior High or High School, but 35 years later, I can’t even remember who it might have been. Time licks all wounds. Buzz: Have any of you ever thought about kicking yourself out of Mudhoney for the greater good? Mark: I haven’t, but Matt Lukin has and he followed through. Buzz: Has anyone in the band ever been too hungover to perform? Mark: We’ve never played that early in the day. If one of us has wrecked himself the night before, it’s up to him to right and repair his own ship in time for the evening’s performance. Buzz: Now that you guys have put out what I would consider a shit-load of records, has it ever occurred to you to switch instruments and start over? Mark on drums and Danny as stand up singer might be good! You could at least try it for a couple of years and see how it goes… Mark: I love playing drums, but I don’t think I could do it for more than 30 minutes, which is probably the longest The Thrown Ups have ever played. Dan has spent the last several years teaching himself guitar and he knows more odd chords than I do. We could switch, but Melvins have at least double the output as Mudhoney so, if you don’t mind, we’ll follow your lead on this one. Buzz: We all know that booze makes us smarter and better dancers, but is anything made better with weed? I only ask because they just legalised weed in your home state of Washington and I’d imagine you guys are hitting the bong pretty hard. Thoughts? Mark: No, it’s no fun now that it’s legal. I’ve seen frat boys on the ferry sucking on a vaporizer and mothers at the playground passing around a onehitter. I can’t relate to anything that’s embraced by the mainstream. Not even food. Just like musical movements are at their best before they become fully formed rule-laden genres (I’m looking at you, punk) drugs are at their purest and best when they’re so underground they’re not yet illegal, like LSD before 1966, MDA before 1985 and Bath Salts before that guy in Florida ate that homeless man’s face.

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Buzz: Rumour has it that yours and our ex-bass player is a born again Christian and we’ve even heard that all of you are now Bible thumpers. Is any of that true? Have all of the members of Mudhoney now turned into ‘Churchy LaFemmes?’ Mark: The only thing Matt has in common with Jesus is that they’re both carpenters. Jesus turned water into wine. Matt turns wine into piss. Who would you rather follow? You’ve seen those bumper stickers that say ‘My Boss Is A Jewish Carpenter’ right? Well, our boss is a Jewish record label executive. Buzz: People always ask about our band’s influences, like you can even start to answer that question. I say fuck influences; I want to know which bands you guys have just been ripping off. What bands have you simply ripped off over the years? Mark: The list of bands we have ripped off is huge. We have songs with riffs, melodies and more nebulous concepts that we grabbed directly from The Stooges, MC5, Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper, The Wipers, Wire, Black Sabbath, The Sonics, feedtime, Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Captain Beefheart, The Flesh Eaters, The Saints, Phil Ochs, Neil Young, Tales of Terror, Honor Role, Townes Van Zandt, Spacemen 3, DEVO, Hawkwind, Butthole Surfers, Motörhead, Roxy Music, Lee Hazlewood, 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Black Flag, The Seeds, The Scientists, Honor Role, Dr John, The Who, The Cramps, Pere Ubu, Jimi Hendrix, The Specials, The Yardbirds, The Stranglers, PIL. I could probably find more if I actually thought about this. I don’t trust anyone who claims to merely have influences instead of admitting they, like every other artist in any field, steal. Nothing comes from nothing. It all comes down to taste and how good of a thief you are. Buzz: Times have changed; now every little four-eyed freak with a computer can tell it like they think it is for all the world to see on the internet. I think it’s change for the better! What do you think? Have these ‘critics’ ever influenced what you do? Mark: I have a fragile ego and need validation just to walk out the front door and deal with the world. The web is a great tool for this. I’ve found that for every six or so posts that say Mudhoney is bullshit and should’ve hung it up 26 years ago, I can almost always find one that says it’s a pretty good thing that we’re still together. That really lifts my ego and gives me the fortitude to hold my head up high while I look down my nose at everyone else. I pity and disdain all those poor average Joes who no one will ever bother to tweet, blog about, or comment upon. Buzz: Aside from looking at porn, is there anything the internet is good for? If you say ‘social networking’ I’m going to move all you guys up the ladder to number one on the death list.

Mark: How do you feel about porn networking? Grinder comes in pretty handy when you’re near an airport toilet and you have a few minutes to kill. There’s also that Skype thing which allows you to talk and show your junk to someone in another country for free.

“I don’t trust anyone who claims to merely have influences instead of admitting they, like every other artist in any field, steal” Mark Arm

Buzz: Mark, have you ever considered putting out a new issue of Attack!? A lot’s happened since the last time you put one out in 1985 and it could be a big issue! I think you should do it! Mark: I just wish we completed the last issue. We interviewed Black Flag and Meat Puppets when they played The Eagle’s Nest in the Summer of ’83. This was between Damaged and My War and Black Flag played a bunch of new songs that would appear on My War and Slip It In. I remember asking Black Flag what they were listening to and Bill Stevenson said something that sounded like “Deeyo.” So I asked, “What’s Deeyo?” and Greg Ginn says, “It’s Italian for God.” With my punk rock blinders on I didn’t even conceive that they were talking about Dio. We also interviewed the Butthole Surfers in December of ’83. I remember laughing our asses off during that interview and them laughing their asses off when Alex asked them if they were Straight Edge. Unfortunately, we never got around to transcribing the cassettes. I wish I had those cassettes.

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Buzz: I trust Mudhoney have almost no interest in stopping at this point. What’s your work ethic band-wise these days? Mark: I think our work ethic is pretty strong, we just have to balance a bunch of competing interests like family and jobs. We generally tour without days off. We have yet to play 51 shows in 51 days, but we’re playing 21 shows in 21 days in May and June. Steve drives a six-hour round trip just so we can practise. As far as I can tell, every member has a deep commitment to the band. I’d rather play with my friends in Mudhoney than play with a group of random people who have nothing more in common other than their availability to play more shows. Buzz: Steve, what’s the most valuable record money-wise you ever found for nothing, or next to nothing, at a thrift store? Steve Turner: Hmmm. Recently it would be Winterhawk’s Electric Warriors LP, which sold for around $380, but there was some Hawaiian Folk Psych thing I sold for $600 a few years back but I can’t remember the name. I used to really score in the Dollar Bins at record stores before eBay. Obscure punk singles like Jackie Shark and The Beach Butchers or Opus would sell for $1000. Which is nuts, right? Buzz: I once saw a hilarious shirt that said “I went to Seattle to score and I ended up with a record deal.” For a long time that seemed about right, do you guys disagree? Mark: There’s this myth that a bunch of bands moved to Seattle in the early 90s and capitalised on the music scene. It may be true that people moved here, but I can’t think of a single band that moved here and became huge in the wake of Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Sir Mix-a-Lot in the early 90s. The next big thing out of here was The Presidents of the United States of America and those are all local boys. Does getting signed to CZ count as getting a record deal? Buzz: What does the ‘future’ hold for you guys? Mark: Let me refer you back to question number one. Vanishing Point is out now on Sub Pop Mudhoney play O2 ABC, Glasgow on 5 Jun mudhoneyonline.com

THE SKINNY

EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART

DEGREE SHOW

School of Art / School of Design / Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture / History of Art / The Reid School of Music

1 – 9 JUNE 10am – 5pm

Visit the largest gallery space in the capital as we showcase the work of hundreds of graduating artists, designers and architects at the Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show. Extended opening to 8pm on 5th & 6th June featuring live performances from graduating musicians. Admission free

May 2013

Golf, Grunge, and Wedded Bliss: Buzz Osborne comes clean Tables turned, Mark Arm asks Buzz Osborne about foursomes, finally sets him straight on the Seattle sound’s origin, and seeks the secret of a healthy marriage Interview: Mark Arm Mark: Buzz and Dale, the two of you have been together longer than any married couple in our generation that we can think of. How do you keep the flame alive? Buzz: We have been together longer than most people we know who have been married two or three times. I wish I could say it was as a result of heavy counselling or a clear business plan, but that just ain’t the case. For some reason we work well together. I’ve continued to write songs that seem to keep us progressing a little at a time and we are afraid of nothing. Nothing, that is, except cholesterol and the Teamsters Union. Mark: After all those years of trying to add a third person to your relationship, you invited a couple. Is it easier or more difficult with Coady and Jared? Buzz: When we got Coady and Jared we were already fans of Big Business and I’m by no means a traditionalist when it comes to music, so it seemed like a good choice. I mean, why not? Coady’s a great drummer and playing with two drummers is a blast. Jared’s a really great bass player and lead singer so we knew that would be good from the get-go. Mark: How does it work when it comes to making band decisions? Do they combine to get one vote or are you generous enough to give them three-fifths of a vote each? Buzz: Now three of us can gang up on the other one! Usually they just let me do my thing. It’s a good working relationship that none of us have to put too much time into when it comes to making decisions. Mark: The two of you are obviously committed to each other, but you are also open to experimentation. Have you ever considered becoming a two-piece, adding a different low-end instrument such as tuba, or a keyboard player in the vein of Ray Manzarek to round out the rhythm section and play frilly baroque runs all over your songs? Buzz: Sure we would. If I actually had Ray Manzarek’s number I’d call the motherfucker. We could do a whole album with him on bass keyboards, just like the Doors! Once Ray got comfortable around me and Crover he’d tell us all kinds of amusing stories about the Lizard King being a total drunken pain in the ass. I’d also get to ask him all sorts of ridiculous questions about Jim being alive and well and hiding in some shithole like Riverside for all these years. Turns out Mr. Mojo Rising now weighs 380 pounds and lives in a low-income apartment complex surviving on half-cold pizza and daily deliveries from a local liquor store. Is hiding out for over 40 years better than going to prison in Florida? I suppose it is. Mark: Do you have a favourite classical composer? Please elaborate in one sentence or less. Buzz: My favourite classical composer is Mozart because he was a drunken pain in the ass.

May 2013

Mark: Buzz, you’re an avid golfer, what’s the oddest foursome you ever found yourself in? Buzz: I love golf and I spend a lot of time on the course at a very early hour. Believe it or not, I can’t get a lot of my rock‘n’roll buddies up for a 5.45am tee time so I end up playing a shitload of golf alone. Golf is a good sport for that, because you don’t need anyone else. However, if you do show up alone, sometimes the course teams you up with people you don’t know and that can end up being a real treat. I’ve golfed a number of times with older Asian couples who never said a word to each other or me for 18 holes. I played a round one Saturday with three drunken hambones in their mid-twenties who showed up bright and early straight from a party. They waited until the second tee box before they started doing hits of blow to “wake up.” After about three more holes they told me to just go on ahead by myself because they thought I was playing too fast. I’ve played tons of times with guys in their 50s or 60s who openly dry bong weed at 6am only to tell me they have to “cut out early” to head to work. I once played with a single older Asian woman and after about four holes I asked her why she was there all by herself. She told me “I’m not by myself, my husband is playing in the group right ahead of us.” The best part is that her husband was playing with only two other guys and opted to still make his wife play with the weirdlooking round-eye behind them. I got teamed up once at a nine hole par three with a huge NFL linebacker from the Cincinnati Bengals who got really mad when I whipped his ass on every hole. I should write a book: My rock‘n’roll life on the municipal golf courses of Los Angeles…

“If I actually had Ray Manzarek’s number I’d call the motherfucker” Buzz Osborne

Mark: Many rock historians point to that fateful day in 1983 when you wrote Set Me Straight as the birth of grunge. When you wrote that song, did you have any idea so many people in the scene would die? Buzz: Many rock historians also think ‘musicians’ like Courtney Love are somehow valid when it comes to the history of ‘grunge.’ She’s not dead… Oh hell no… I’m not sure anything could kill her at this point. Set Me Straight was the birth of grunge? I always imagined the U-Men’s first EP as where it all started. The U-Men, or the Sonics, or the Kingsmen. And let’s not forget Jimi Hendrix! Yeah, Hendrix! Jimi! Jimi! Jimi! Jimi… Mark: If given the opportunity to go back in time, would you un-write Set Me Straight to prevent all those casualties? Buzz: Sure, why not? I’ll take the blame. I’m nothing if I’m not the grunge version of Mother Theresa. I’m just here to help. Is it possible to care too much?

Mark: Have you ever dabbled in the ‘Dark Arts,’ the Occult, Witchcraft, Blackface? Are your souls spoken for, or can we have them? Buzz: Of course! I sold my soul to the devil decades ago and look how well it’s worked out! I’m at the pinnacle of success! The highest possible point of the rock‘n’roll garbage heap! I love that occult shit. Himmler was deeply involved in all of that teenage black arts crap and it didn’t do him a bit of good. He went from chicken farmer to genocide to suicide in almost no time at all. Perfect. In reality though the best part about all that witchcraft, dark arts nonsense are the Goth chicks! Now you’re talking! Listen babe, you can keep the thigh high leather stilettos and the rubber mini skirt but you have to shove that Anton LaVey book up your ass. Mark: How about the ‘White Arts,’ Scientology, Mormonism, Mayonnaise, Aryan Nations? What would you suggest we do with your souls? Buzz: Heavy on the Mayonnaise and double butter, please. As for my soul, well, I’m not too worried about any of that. I think it was the Marquis de Sade who said ‘If God was willing to let that happen to his own son, then what do you think he’s going to do to me?’ I couldn’t say it any better. Mark: Dickinson, Dickens or The Dicks? Buzz: Dickens and The Dicks. It’s hard to do any wrong when you have a 400 pound communist transvestite as lead singer the way The Dicks did, plus their Kill from the Heart LP might be the best record to come out of Texas. Maybe ever. ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres would run a close second. Dickens’ cruel treatment of children in his novels is always a laugh and believe me I’ve run across many a ‘Fagin’ type character in my 30 years in the rock and roll business. On our ill-fated first tour of the USA in 1986 I saw a whole lot of that, especially in

MUSIC

Florida. On a lesser level when we met Maximum Rock’n’Roll’s Tim Yohannan in 1985 I certainly got a punk rock Fagin vibe off of him. He was nice to us, though, which was refreshing. This niceness lasted right up until he actually heard our band. Mark: When you were a kid, who did you think was the wildest, most out-there rock star? Buzz: Bowie probably. He was a total freak. When I was a teenager I was never impressed by rock’n’rollers who got written about in places like Cream magazine for smashing up hotel rooms or doing drugs because even then I knew they were simply paying for all of it. So what? Bowie looked pretty insane and his music was certainly like nothing I had ever heard, although I was in hick city USA circa 1976 and I would have thought the same things about the New York Dolls or Roxy Music had I only known about them… In hindsight, the gutter level drug addict that was Johnny Thunders made Keith Richards look like a fucking rich pussy… Mark: What are your influences? Why? How long have you been together? Why? Do you have a new album? Why? Are you still there? Hello? Buzz: We are Captain Beefheart playing heavy metal. That’s influence enough. Beefheart rules. If you ever need inspiration for lyrics you need to look no further than the Captain for that. We’ve been playing for about 30 years now… I have no idea why… It’s fun sometimes. We have a ton of new material all the time because more is more. I’m here, enjoying a cup of strong black coffee and thinking about golf. Hello indeed. Have we really been together 30 years? Fuck, I’m old… I think it’s high time I got through my Fagin phase. Everybody Lives Sausages is released via Ipecac on 29 Apr The Melvins play Bristol Exchange on 21-22 May www.melvins.com

Feature

The Hot List 2013 Still unsure of where to go this summer? Tired of the ‘beaten track’? Let The Skinny’s travel experts advise you on the hottest destinations every in-the-know traveller is whispering about in 2013

Words: Ally Brown & Quinten Dol Illustration: Nicholas Stevenson

1. The Ancient Lost City of Chernobyl Since it was discovered almost thirty years ago, historians and archaeologists have clashed over the purposes and meanings of this ugly lost city. Suggestions have ranged from the proposal that it was built by Oompah Loompah settlers on the run from their tyrannical chocolatier overlords to the idea that the central Chernobyl facility was a highly sophisticated ray gun capable of seeing through women’s clothing and giving Communists cancer. The latest controversial theory goes that a lost people – ‘the Ukrainians’ – built a giant temple to their sun god, which was later destroyed by said huffy god because of its unflattering architectural features. In terror, ‘the Ukrainians’ abandoned their homes, which remain today as testaments to the horrific aesthetic tastes of their literally god-forsaken owners. Whatever the truth, you could spend weeks exploring the ruins of this once-disgusting-butpopulated citadel. What’s more, it’s so off the beaten path you’ll hardly spot another lifeform while you’re there. 2. Makhachkala Follow in the footsteps of Cameroon star Sammy Eto’o, who visits Makhachkala every other weekend with an armed guard to play football 1,250 miles away from his home in Moscow, by giving the capital of Dagestan the briefest of possible visits. Just edging out star-struck (literally!) Chelyabinsk as Russia’s must-see destination for 2013, the charming capital of peaceful Dagestan won’t remain off-the-beaten-track for long, having been first propelled into the spotlight by the plucky exploits of Anzhi, the gazillionaire-owned local football team, and latterly as the home of Anzor Tsarnaev, father of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar. Described as “the friendly city” by drunk local officials and large men holding rifles to your ribs, Makhachkala is best viewed on a breakneck tour in an unmarked car with specially-fitted windows that concludes, conveniently, at the airport. 3. Dubai Some leaders of oil-rich countries squander their fortunate wealth on vote-buying gimmicks like state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programmes; but not Dubai’s! Dubai’s leaders built the biggest fucking thing in the world! The Burj Khalifa skyscraper towers 830m above the pittance-paid immigrants who built it in filth while their passports were withheld and are now kept well away so cleaner tourists, like you and me, can have their jaws physically towed downward by their necks as they crane backwards to not even see the top because of the scorching desert sun. The Khalifa is so big that the labourers can admire their handiwork even from their squalid distant ghettos (though they might have to squint a little to see the 150m-high dancing fountain). 4. Syria If there’s one thing better than seeing the cradle of civilisation, it’s participating in its wanton destruction! Follow in the footsteps of pioneering American adventurer Chris Jeon, who spent his summer vacation fighting with Libyan rebels, by indulging in the hottest new trend in travel today: war tourism! You don’t need any knowledge of local politics to take part – in fact, it’s better

Lifestyle

to pack enthusiasm than understanding! And if you’re lucky, you can be partially responsible for overthrowing a tyrannical dictatorship in favour of a tyrannical theocracy! What’s more, relying on the hospitality of your fellow revolutionary fighters is a great way to save money: “I haven’t spent a dollar in weeks!” Jeon told the Christian Science Monitor from Libya.

depth of one’s pockets. Selfless research methods have found that the most effective ways to earn an invitation to Guantánamo’s world famous hospitality are to blog for assorted jihadi websites, or simply start your own terror cell. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for your VIP pickup service to come crashing through the door. Once in, having settled into your concrete suite and glimpsed the ocean through the razor wire, you’ll 5. Bouvet Island never want to leave (and that’s probably just as Tired of people chiming in on your stories about well!). Guantánamo’s personal transport services the officially uncontacted Piriutiti tribespeople get our tick of approval for efficiency and value, of Amazonian Brazil because they’ve hung out with many guests reporting extended tours of with them a dozen times? Sick of other expedition North Africa and Eastern Europe being included members wandering into your solitary Facebook before finally arriving in Cuba forever. profile pictures at Jebel Uweinat in the trackless Sahara between Libya, Sudan and Egypt? 8. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Well, Bouvet Island just might be the destination Only ‘Great’!? Let’s try again with ‘Awesome!’ This for you! Towering, volcanic, Norwegian-owned place is so off-the-physical map it doesn’t even Bouvet Island is arguably the most isolated place appear on physical maps. It’s the product of an in the world and has therefore remained way off incredible environmental phenomenon, whereby the beaten shipping lane for other nauseating hu- millions of tonnes of plastic rubbish are recycled man ‘tourists.’ Indeed, its very existence between by the ocean into an island more than double the Antarctica, South Africa and the southern tip of size of Texas. Visiting the APGP is an unforgettaSouth America is unknown to virtually all normal ble experience: behold a riot of vivacious colours people. But with a climate where temperatures and violent aromas that will smack your senses fluctuate between zero and absolute zero, and silly while you battle sea sickness on the open the chance to gaze at Bouvet’s famous funghi and ocean. Somewhere between Malibu Beach and moss on rocks, we really can’t understand why! Asia (we’re not sure, it’s not on any of our maps), we suggest getting there by small boat with a tiger, as demonstrated in that film.

“If there’s one thing better than seeing the cradle of civilisation, it’s participating in its wanton destruction!”

6. The Principality of Sealand Populated by the Bates family and some pals, the Principality of Sealand is a vast and diverse land full of surprises located just off the coast of Suffolk. Boasting a geological history stretching all the way back to World War Two, the area now known as Sealand was first forged in a British factory as a sea fort for fending off German mine laying aircraft. After the war, the notoriously nomadic British navy moved on in search of new hunting grounds and Sealand was left to the forces of nature until 1967, when Prince Roy Bates and a band of family and friends declared it an independent nation. Sealand is rich in distinct landscapes: admire the expansive plains of the Lounge Room, marvel at endless ocean views from The Balcony, or if you’re feeling adventurous get off the beaten track for similar views at The Back Balcony. As for when to go, Head of Homeland Security Mike Barrington says Sealand is at its best in summer. He recently told the BBC: “It’s a cold, horrible place in winter.” 7. Guantánamo B.A.Y. The most exclusive of Cuba’s many resorts, Guantánamo Beach And Yachting (B.A.Y.) Club lets its guests in based on merit rather than the

TRAVEL

9. Ciudad de Juarez Clamber over ancient Mayan ruins, relax with a cocktail on one of hundreds of beautiful beaches, explore the flora and fauna of some of the world’s most biodiverse jungles, and snorkel or scuba in crystal clear Caribbean waters in other parts of Mexico if you want to be surrounded by tourist scum. If you want to experience the real Mexico, try Ciudad de Juarez, just across the border from the United States. So beloved by Mexicans it’s literally being fought over, you can’t help but enjoy the joie de vivre of a population seemingly living each day as if it’s their last. Soak up some authentic Mexican culture by enjoying a plate of ‘nachos’ for lunch – a dish of Doritos covered in ketchup – before ye olde afternoon shoot-out show: just like in the days of the Wild West, only more exciting with Uzis and AKs. 10. Jupiter Often overlooked by travellers on the long road to Saturn, Jupiter is an ambitious, up-and-coming destination with loads of atmosphere (if admittedly lacking in solid mass). Best of all, it’s off the beaten planet, so you’ll be experiencing it all with around half the tourists that you’d find on its more well-trodden neighbour, Earth. Marvel at the Great Red Spot, Jupiter’s legendary apocalyptic storm, as you’re torn so violently to death that your eyeballs end up 20,000 miles apart. What a way to go! For travellers with a lust for life, and time on their hands, Jupiter boasts sixty seven moons, all easily accessible for day-trips. Wonder about the possible existence of an ocean below Europa’s icy surfaces (-160 degrees Celsius, burrrrr!) and linger amongst the lava flows and sulphur fumes of charming Io’s volcanic hellscapes. It’ll be enough to have you singing Drops of Jupiter for the whole 13 (thirteen) month journey home.

THE SKINNY

I Think My Boyfriend is a Better Feminist Than Me Words: Rachel McCrum

he conversation was springing from topic to topic like an antsy goat in time-honoured second date fashion. I started to tell of a recent social media rumpus about male attitudes to girls in short skirts. He frowned and started to talk about the obnoxiousness of male privilege, heteronormative behaviour and proprietorial attitudes inherent in a patriarchal society. At this point, I realised I was dating a feminist. I find it unacceptable if I am treated as less capable because I am female: whether at work, in a pub, a shop, or my car. However, I hesitate to call myself a feminist. I find feminist theory – and those who bandy it about casually while correctly applying it to real life situations – intimidating. As a result, I often find myself retreating from conversations when feminist theory comes out and also, more shamefully, means that I often avoid the news articles, journals or newsletters on issues that concern inequality and injustices towards women. Partly it’s because I feel I don’t have the vocabulary to engage with feminist theory in any depth. Partly it’s because I find (or believe) that

it’s pretty blinkered to perceive life through any specific theory. Far too many years in further education means I can waft an epistemology around with the best of them, but jargon leaves me cold. My introduction to feminism and to feminist theory came not through engagement with real world injustices and inequalities, but through the one tint lens of literary criticism. I found feminist re-readings of existing literature to be rigid and cold experiences. It took the pleasure out of the reading and analysis of my beloved books, and seemed (at best) an irrelevance. At worst, feminist criticism seemed a distortion of the actual text; a one-shade interpretative filter prioritising gender relations over all other meaning. I’ve also never quite forgiven the feminist appropriation of Sylvia Plath as martyr. In rewriting her as cuckolded victim they betrayed a fierce and ambitious poet who wrote staggeringly angry poetry in spite of, not because of, her circumstances. Part of the reason is that I don’t often need to muster feminist arguments. I’m a white, British, middle class, university educated woman who works in the arts with a bunch of liberal,

“My introduction to feminism and to feminist theory came through the one tint lens of literary criticism” equality-minded friends. I don’t encounter much sexism on a daily basis. I have not found myself needing to do much fighting for my rights or for equal treatment in society. On further questioning, it transpired that the original interest in feminist theory had been piqued by a number of strong, well-read female flatmates who challenged him ‘constantly.’ One of his ongoing interests is how these challenges are now being aimed at the world of videogames and gamers, which has a track record of some very

dodgy attitudes towards women. He says, “It took me a long time to catch up on things because there are so many assumptions that need to be questioned.” At a real life level, this means that when I recount a story of yet another female friend being sexually harassed by a drunk in the Royal Oak late one night, and how she dismissed it with the particular stoicism that comes from years of working in bars and clubs, he asks why I’m telling the story so casually. His own writing and criticism presents a constant questioning of gender inequalities or implicitly sexist assumptions. In his practice as literary critic this means he challenges the reverence in which some of the (old, white, male) Scottish writers are held, highlighting the dodginess of some of their writing about women. He took the time to learn the theory and, even more importantly, the facts. That theory gives him a framework against which he analyses real life situations. He can then highlight and challenge the assumptions that are sexist. This is why I think he might just be a better feminist, or at least a better feminist theorist, than me.

Outing Rape Words: Miriam Prosser

am scared as I write this, because I know that by telling the stories below, I’m breaking the rules. We are not supposed to talk about rape. When I get to know a woman to the point where we’re telling each other intimate things, I’m actually surprised if she hasn’t survived rape, or some form of sexual or psychological abuse. Recent statistics suggest that in Scotland at least three women are being raped per day – a culture of sexual violence surrounds us; we’re all a part of it. From 2011 to 2012 Rape Crisis in Scotland fielded 2566 calls from people who were affected by sexual assault and abuse. The vast majority of calls were from women (91%), men (2.86%) and transgendered people (0.14%) who had been victims of, or suspected they had been victims of, sexual assault and were calling on their own behalf. The rest of the calls were from family members, partners and friends of victims of sexual assault calling for advice. These figures represent only a fraction of the real number of people who are experiencing sexual violence. The difficulties associated with getting accurate data on this subject – shame, denial, under-reporting – make it hard to know the full extent of the sexual crime occurring in Scotland. This is all true. I’m just writing stuff that people have told me. We, the wealthy and powerful people of Scotland in 2012, live in a country where it is possible for an average 28 year old person to think for a few minutes and then make a list like the one below. Sarah*, 17, raped in an alley behind a bar. Suzie, 21, raped in her home by her ex-boyfriend. Jenna, 18, raped by her father, starting when

May 2013

WARNING: this article features explicit discussion of rape and sexual assault

she was 7. Jemima, raped at knife point on campus in her final year of uni, and again on a blind date, by a man who was later arrested for causing grievous bodily harm to a local sex worker. Alice, escaped attempted rape in her first year living in halls (she locked herself in the bathroom until the students who threatened her left). Hannah was nearly raped by her ex-boyfriend; she hit him and ran away. Laura, ‘date’ raped after her drink was spiked. Sasha, raped by a friend while she was high on acid. Danielle, ‘date’ raped by her uncle. Rebecca, penetrated without a condom against her wishes. Cathie, 14, sexually abused by her 25 year old ‘boyfriend.’ Stephanie, raped by a friend of her parents when she was eight. Julie, sexually abused by her dad until she went to boarding school (he got her pregnant. She miscarried). Rachel never said “no” to sex with her boyfriend because she was terrified of him; he had repeatedly told her if she left him he could have her killed. Bethany submitted to sex with her boyfriend because she knew he would punish her if she didn’t, but cried the whole way through. Tori was abducted and raped repeatedly over three days when she went on a blind date. I’ve been building this list in my head since I was 17. There’s more: Daniel, sexually abused by his mother before he was five. Sid, raped at boarding school. Ali, raped at boarding school. Kurt, gang raped by a group of jocks at uni; Allen, raped by his teenage babysitter when he was eight. My story is on this page, but I don’t have the courage to put my name to it. Like many

survivors of sexual abuse and violence I don’t talk because I’m scared that you will say I deserved it, that it was my fault, that you won’t believe me. I am scared that everything I want to say will be dismissed or ignored because I’m not able to be ‘objective’ or because what happened to me is not the standard idea of rape and therefore somehow doesn’t count. I’m scared you will say, as my mum did, “something like this happens to everyone,” or as my friend did “you really need to get over this and move on.” Nobody said that when my laptop was nicked... they encouraged me to go to court. And I did, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t win and I didn’t. You know what else? Everyone was lovely to me about it. No one subtly suggested it might have been my fault I was burgled. Denial is built into our society; the way that victims are shamed, the way the media often reports sexual violence in terms of the devastating impact a conviction has on the rapist, the bizarre hype about false rape allegations (statistically no more frequent than other false crime allegations) and our legal system, so flawed in its approach to sexual crime that only 10.1% of reported rapes lead to prosecution, reinforcing the message that the suffering of the victim is not important. (For a more detailed explanation of these statistics visit the Rape Crisis Scotland blog and search for ‘conviction rates’). Our current system protects rapists, while victims stay silent to avoid further humiliation. Because we don’t talk about it, we allow the fantasy to continue that it doesn’t happen. There are lots of men who would take rape more seriously if they knew it had happened to their friend,

deviance

sister or girlfriend, or if they knew they were mates with the rapist. ‘Men’ are not the enemy here. Not only are men often the victims of rape, just like women, but also there are many wonderful men who agitate for change and many more who would if they understood how fucked up this society really is. But think about this: shame isn’t silencing the rapists. Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists, a survey published in 2002 by David Lesak and Paul M. Miller, shows 120 out of 1882 US college students asked admitted to an attempted rape if the question was structured without the word ‘rape.’ The world gives rapists a voice while we keep quiet to avoid rocking the boat. I WILL NOT live in a world where rapists get to speak and I keep quiet to avoid making people uncomfortable. You know what made me uncomfortable? Being abused. The subsequent years of therapy. The fact that over a decade later I still have flashbacks during sex that immobilise me with terror and rage. Let’s drag this thing into the light and show everyone how ugly it is. Whatever your gender, age or story, if you’re sick of the silence shame has imposed on you, please find a way to break it even if only with someone you trust. If you want to shout the way that I do, please join me at www. tumblr.com/outrape and say what really happened. Let’s not apologise. No one has to agree, but they will have to acknowledge. Let’s shatter this awkward silence. *names have been changed.

Lifestyle

Alexander Millar “A

variety of different things will go into an installation I put together: video, sculpture, photography and often found objects. I try to break down that sense of reassurance that everyday materials and objects give us in their habitual context and shed light on some of the anxieties and desires their dislocation can bring about. It’s with a sense of humour and pathos, however, that the work seems to be most interrogative, and ideas around the theatre of the absurd and tableaux vivants (living pictures) are a continuing preoccupation of mine. What often results is a quite musical arrangement of forms that uses a minimalist rule of extremes in its construction. I continually try to do this, however, with a nod to the very fallible longing for monumentality and beauty that is frequently tied to this artistic tendency. In this sense, I see the work I make as trying to re-present my artistic process, sometimes literally, from the ground up.” Alexander Millar graduated from Painting and Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art in 2012. He lives and works in Glasgow and has a studio at Studio Warehouse. He is currently exhibiting with the Travelling Gallery in the group exhibition Turquoise Heid, touring Scotland until June 2013. He was selected for the Catlin Guide 2013 – a book of promising recent UK arts graduates, curated by Justin Hammond. He is the 2013 winner of The Skinny & CCA Award at RSA New Contemporaries. His solo show will be in the Intermedia gallery, CCA, in spring 2014.

Top: Totem (still) - Stop-motion animation, plasticine. 4,44s, 2012 Bottom: Still from RSA show Opposite: All work from RSA show, excluding bottom right Bottom right: Untitled (Installation view) - video, metal, plasticine, clay, aubergine, lamp. Dimensions variable, 2012 New Contemporaries, RSA, Edinburgh, until 8 May www.alexhmillar.com

SHOWCASE

THE SKINNY

May 2013

SHOWCASE

The Designer, The Model and The Photographer Words: Alexandra Fiddes

Lifestyle

FASHION

THE SKINNY

e all know that Scotland is famed for its creativity, vision and wealth of talent (obviously). And, at the moment especially, the country is bursting at the seams with artistic individuals who appear to be destined for great things: designers, make-up artists, hair stylists, models, jewellers and photographers. So, in the name of innovation (or our own curiosity) we decided to team an up-and-coming designer (Amber Hunter) with a newly signed model (John O’Hagan) and a rising photography star (Elliott Mackie). We found out a little about what made them tick, then put them to work... here are the images that are the result of that meeting. Designer: Amber Hunter After studying Fashion Design in Galashiels (the Heriot Watt University School of Textiles and Design) and leaving with a first class honours degree, Amber Hunter decided to continue her studies at Edinburgh College of Art, where she is currently undertaking a masters course. Why fashion? “I have always had a passion for art and I liked the idea of communicating my ideas in a wearable form,” she says. “As a fashion designer I feel it is important to not only build a strong aesthetic, but to ensure you understand your wearer.” This knowledge is certainly evident in her impeccably tailored menswear garments. She is currently working on her latest collection Lose The Rag, which will be shown at the ECA MA degree show in August. “I have moved towards a more relaxed silhouette, while maintaining tailoring techniques. I’m bringing in digital print and continuing to experiment with a build-up of unique textures.” Model: John O’Hagan Signed to prestigious Scottish agency Model Team, John O’Hagan started working in the fashion industry late last year. Born in Cambuslang, just outside Glasgow, he was drawn to the world of modelling because of his cousin, who had a successful career herself. “I’ve been scouted a few times by different agencies, and so I finally just went for it,” he explains. Expect to see more of O’Hagan over the coming weeks. “I am one of the new faces of St Enoch centre, meaning I will be up on the billboards in Glasgow city centre soon!” And the dream modelling job (apart from this of course)? “It would have to be a Topman campaign...” We’ll be watching this space. Photographer: Elliott Mackie As someone who has only been a professional photographer for the last nine months, Elliott Mackie has taken to his chosen career pretty quickly indeed, having already worked with the likes of Hair for Heroes’ Lou Clave and the awardwinning Glasgow based label Obscure Couture – shooting their AW13 look-book. Mackie’s path to photography is a somewhat unusual one. “I was drawn to photography by modelling, I’ve been a model for a few years now and I know and love the industry a lot.” Adding that a trip to Italy allowed him to “see the high end of photography.” “I think it was always a passion. I just didn’t have someone to introduce it to me until recently! I just love taking pictures!” enthuses Mackie. With his eye for detail, his love of fashion and his experience both in front of and behind the camera, Mackie has created some highly atmospheric imagery, placing him firmly on our ‘ones to watch’ list. Shoot Credits Garments: Amber Hunter @AmberRHunter www.projeqt.com/amberhunter (get in touch for sales enquiries) Styling: Alexandra Fiddes @AlexandraFiddes www.alexandrafiddes.co.uk Photography: Elliot Mackie www.facebook.com/ pages/Elliott-Mackie-Photography Model: John O’Hagan @Model Team www.modelteam.co.uk

May 2013

FASHION

Lifestyle

THE SKINNY

It's a Rum Job...

...But someone’s gotta do it. When we were invited to try the most expensive rum in the world, we very quickly and excitedly said yes. Here is the story of that day, complete with mystery, intrigue, and funny costumes

ou aren’t to know this, but the life of your neighbourhood food writer isn’t exactly wallto-wall with glamour and intrigue. Yes, we get to mock others for their hard work and argue over pieces of burger art, but it isn’t a lavish existence. Just last month there was much excitement when an enormous box arrived in the office marked for yours truly. Turns out the box was filled with unrefrigerated meat pies. We couldn’t be sure if it was a promotional freebie or a leftfield assassination attempt. So when an invitation to attend a tasting of the world’s most expensive rum landed on the virtual doormat, we jumped on it. Well, we wrote a very nice email to confirm our attendance, after initially sending said email to a non-existent address by spelling the rum company’s name incorrectly. Same thing really. Angostura Legacy has a list price of $25,000, or £16,000, per bottle. Being invited to celebrate a bottle of rum which is worth, objectively, more than a year of your time could be a little depressing if given too much opportunity to ponder it, which presumably explains the choice of venue. No dive bars or nightclub back rooms here; instead we were off to one of those two massive five-star hotels in the middle of Edinburgh. Not that one, the other one. For the day, your humble food section was one of the big shots. Rather than being shooed from the hotel lobby with a broom, we were referred to as a ‘Sir’ and given incredibly detailed directions. Someone took our coat without rifling through the pockets or giving it a dissatisfied sniff. Someone else, for some reason dressed as an extra from the Galactic Senate scenes in the Star Wars prequels, handed us a daiquiri. Unprovoked. At five to twelve on a Tuesday morning. There are only 20 bottles of Legacy in the world. That’s it. It really isn’t a lot, which made the somewhat-excessive setting, and the fourcourse meal, and the constant refreshing of glasses all seem a little moot. It felt a little odd to be hyping a product that, realistically, next to noone will ever experience, let alone own. But then at the same time, there’s a glass of wine in one hand, a cocktail in the other, a fillet of monkfish in the middle and an enormous golden chandelier above, so it all seems fine. This must be how people agree to start wars; one minute you’re having a nice steak and the next thing you know people are throwing paint at you and calling you a “murderous shit-head.” Angostura Legacy comes in a customdesigned crystal decanter, hand-crafted by ‘Her Majesty’s number one champion decorative glass-creators’ Asprey. Thus began the long spiel about the history of said glass company, and their love of expensive things and of people who make expensive things which can be placed inside other expensive things. Much like a time share presentation or a meeting with a distant relative, the best thing to do was settle in and wait for the interesting stuff to resume. Fun fact, though: 560 man hours went into the production of each bottle, and its individual silk and calves’ leather presentation box. That is, at the very least, £3000 of labour for a single glass bottle and a fancy box. It looks more depressing in print, but it’s still an unsettling sum to have to work out. John Georges is the master distiller for Angostura, and one of the men behind the most expensive rum in the world. Mr Georges himself wouldn’t call it the most expensive rum, for two reasons. One – the expensive angle “is just something that the marketing people came up with”

May 2013

Words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Sarah Tanat-Jones

for his ludicrously pricey and rare rum. Two – to him, he said mopping his face with a handkerchief, “this liquid... it’s priceless.” Mr Georges wore a sharp suit coupled with some mad hipster glasses, strongly resembled the character of Johnson from TV’s Peep Show, and seemed to be simultaneously channelling the spirits of an evangelical preacher and a warlord from a 1980s action movie. Mr Georges was, and we believe this is the correct technical expression, a ‘boss.’ A ‘boss’ and a ‘lad.’

“This must be how people agree to start wars; one minute you’re having a nice steak and the next thing you know people are throwing paint at you and calling you a ‘murderous shit-head.’” Angostura Legacy is bloody lovely. It’s very rich, and a little like being punched in the nose with a bag of dark brown sugar. It’s fruity and oaky and dark and it has a nice finish to it. It also costs $25,000 a bottle. After finishing our one and only taste of the world’s most expensive rum, and overcoming the sadness of knowing that it probably won’t be repeated unless we strike oil in the back garden or end up making a late run at a career in professional football, there’s just time to ask our one question of Mr Georges. Around the table, people are asking about barrel types, and the stills used in production, and all sorts of other technical gubbins. But our question was a bit more straightforward: “Why do any of this? Why make a bottle of rum – the world’s most social spirit – that’s so expensive that next-to-no-one will ever suckle at its mighty teat? Why bother?” Mr Georges wiped his glasses on that handkerchief, presumably getting head sweat all over the lenses, and smiled. “Well you see, it’s kind of like when a car company makes a really fast car, a concept car. There’s no real point to it, no-one ever gets to drive it. But it shows what can be done.” “So... this rum, the most expensive rum in the world, it’s just so you can show off?” “Yes, pretty much.” Our reply: “Hmm... fair enough.” And with that, the spell was broken. As your correspondent and one of his fellow journalists left trying to work out how many toiletries we could steal from the bathrooms if we put our minds to it, all was right with the world. The world’s most expensive rum – it’s just there to show off. Turns out that even in the world of the hyper-rich and superpricey, there isn’t much intrigue – just depressing numbers and a whole host of fancy outfits. Fewer pies, too. Angostura Legacy costs $25,000 a bottle. Other rums are available

FOOD AND DRINK

Lifestyle

Food News

This month, we prematurely declare the start of summer, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, and wonder when a back garden becomes a beer garden

Words: Peter Simpson

ummer might be on the way, and we can tell because this month’s Food News is shot through with optimism and cheer. Never would have seen that in February, I tell you. Kicking off this month it’s Cinco de Mayo, the annual Mexican-American celebration of all things

Mexican-American. And where to go for this celebration of Mexican-American culture and cuisine? Glasgow, of course! The Grosvenor Cafe have a Mex-themed menu and plenty of margaritas and similar cocktails waiting, so go eat, drink and celebrate your people’s victory over the French at

Puebla in 1862. Take that, the French! Grosvenor Cafe, Ashton Lane, 5 May, all day. If you fancy an anniversary-themed food and drink celebration that’s somewhat closer to home, Hendersons have just the thing. The vegetarian monolith has been on the go for 50 years in Edinburgh, and they’re putting on a 50-day festival to celebrate. It all kicks off at the end of this month, with a couple of key dates to point out. Sunday 26 May sees the festival’s Back to 63 launch party, with a first hour cocktail list at 1963 prices. Whether you’ll be saying “wow that’s cheap” or “I have no idea what ‘one-and-six’ means, just give me some change” we can’t say, but we’re sure it’ll be a blast. Then there’s the Hendersons Family Takeover on the 30th, where various members of the Henderson clan will cram into the restaurant’s kitchen and do their best to upstage each other with their cooking. As someone with four competitive and niggly siblings, I feel that this plan can only end well. Both events at Hendersons, Hanover St, Edinburgh. From family feuds to whisky, and the return of the Whisky Stramash. Returning to Surgeons’ Hall for more bizarre whisky-fuelled hijinks, storytelling, ‘sensory experiences,’ an on-site barber and whiskies from the likes of AnCnoc, Laphroaig and Bunnahabhain are all on the menu for the event’s second year. Plus this time around, you’ll get your own branded glass as well. That’s the kind of improvement we like to see, the addition of free tableware. Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh, 25-26 May, £26/session. And from whisky in a surgery to beer in a dissection hall, with Summer(beer)hall, Summerhall’s take on the classic European booze-up (that is to say, lots of drinking in a large room with pretzels and musicians). They have plenty of beer thanks to their on-site brewery and a host of guest brews, they’ve arranged an array of things to keep you occupied like talks and pop-up events, and they even have a beer garden. Not ‘outside’ or ‘over there,’ but a beer garden. Summer’s here folks, let’s make the most of it before it starts snowing again. 24-25 May, £5-8

Phagomania: Paint Your Pizza When the moon hits your eye like a... what the hell is that?

ou kids won’t understand, but when this writer was a young lad the only exciting thing you could do on a computer was make crude, limited-colour drawings on a paint programme. And that’s pretty much what I do for living now. But imagine if we combined that with another childhood joy – pizza? If that sounds a little far fetched (what kind of a fool would combine virtual paint and pizza?), we have artist Jonas Lund to thank for conceptualising this particular venture. Originating from the foundations of a site (thepaintshop. biz) where people collaboratively use a simple paint interface (like the good old days) that can be printed onto canvas, Lund swapped canvas for

Lifestyle

In honour of our dalliance with the world’s priciest rum, we take a look at some of the other liquids available in the home of the stuff, Trinidad and Tobago: super-powered rum for the grown-ups, and beer for the kids Words: Peter Simpson

Words: Lewis MacDonald

Around the World in 20 Drinks: Trinidad & Tobago

pizza dough. From hilarious drawing battles with strangers, to an individually laboured work of art, each colour represents a topping that will grace your final piece of pizza pie. Just think of the possibilities. You could feel like a spy sending coded messages to other secret cool spies who use pizza instead of, eh, any other available form of technology... Or feel like an arse with smug satisfaction as you unveil your minimalist, geometric creation in front of unsuspecting eyes. Well, you thought ‘unsuspecting’ – everybody knew you were going to do that. It’s great to see that humanity hasn’t let expectations down here: you leave a drawing publicly open and what do you get? A toilet

here’s something to be said for excess. After all, why have a bag of crisps when you can have two, or a ‘normal’ sandwich when you can cut a loaf of bread in half and stick a block of cheese in the middle? That being said, the phrase ‘NOT LESS THAN 75% ALCOHOL’ might be a bit much for most of us to handle. Puncheon rum is the favourite of Trinidad’s hefty boozers, thanks to its... well, its 75% abvness. We think that might have something to do with it. Word is that the stuff smells like rubbing alcohol, and drinking it feels a bit like having your mouth set alight. We’re intrigued, but it turns out it’s a light rum and we prefer the dark stuff, so we might give it a miss. Yes. That’s our reason. Now for something slightly more palatable: Peanut Punch. Take peanut butter and sugar, add some cinnamon and nutmeg, blitz the whole lot up with some condensed milk, and bam! Heart wall esentially. Text book cocks, personal insults attack waiting to happen. If that sounds too (both predictable and obscure) nestle in the sweet, why not try adding some angostura bitonline gallery among more creative and postive ters, or a handful of granola mix? Genuinely, this messages. It is probably understandable that this is a thing that exists. is quite a venture to take on, and the original New Also a thing that exists is Malta, the beer York pizzeria partner is no longer in the business for kids. Malta is basically a non-alcoholic soft of making these exquisite artworks. drink, designed to have all the yeasty flavour of Lund is currently on the lookout for a new a refreshing beer without any of the point. It’s partner. Let’s take this concept over the pond unfermented, but has all the barley and hops that and encourage willing pizzerias to get in touch you’re used to. It looks like a pint of Guinness, with either Jonas or ourselves and talk Picasso on but you can have one sitting in front of your boss a pizza, shall we? with your lunch without being fired or slapped. It lets you pretend to be a big boy, basically. And if www.jonaslund.biz it’s a choice between that, death rum or diabetes www.paintyourpizza.com juice, we know which one we’re picking.

FOOD AND DRINK

THE SKINNY

dog's dinner

EDINBURGH RUM CLUB Forthcoming events...

Sat 4th May

Angostura

Sat 11th May Social Event with live music from Ghanama Trio (free)

Thu 23rd

May

Plantation Rums

Mon 3rd June El Dorado

FIND US ON The City Cafe @TheCityCafe TheCityCafe

www.thecitycafe.co.uk

23rd may 2013

Edinburgh Rum Clubs will be held in Kilderkin Bar, 65 Canongate, with the exception of Sat 11th social event which will be in Windsor Buffet, 45 Elm Row. Find us on facebook for ticket details, start times & to book your space.

lGg

A real taste of Scotland in the heart of Edinburgh 20% off for Skinny readers Just quote Skinny when booking your table to receive 20% off your food bill when ordering off the a la carte menu in May and June. Turquoise Thistle Restaurant @ Hotel Indigo Edinburgh 51-59 York Place Edinburgh, EH1 3JD Tel: 0131 556 5577

May 2013

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26th

PRIMAL SCREAM

27th

2013

The Enemy KT Tunstall Dexys Bellowhead Stiff Little Fingers King Charles Public Service Broadcasting Dave Clarke Kissy Sell Out Justin Robertson Andi Durrant The Rezillos Anti-Nowhere League Vice Squad Vukovi Roman Nose

WITH TEN STAGES, A DEDICATED CHILDREN’S AREA, A HOST OF OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES, LUXURY CAMPING OPTIONS, A FIREWORKS DISPLAY AND THE SPECTACULAR BURNING OF THE WICKERMAN AT MIDNIGHT ON SATURDAY, IT IS AN ADVENTURE NOT TO BE MISSED.

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Gig Highlights May offers a diverse range of musical treats, from the intense post-punk of Savages to the lo-fi rock aesthetics of Dirty Beaches; not to mention outdoor and indoor festival fun at Kelburn Castle and Stag & Dagger

Words: Illya Kuryakin Photgraphy: Sol Nicol

n 2 May, all-female post-punk innovators Savages come to Glasgow’s SWG3. Anticipation is building for their debut album Silence Yourself, due out on 6 May. Many modern bands with a post-punk bent will simply ape the sounds of the late 70s and early 80s, but lack the artistic flair and spirit of sonic adventure, not to mention the challenging, often confrontational political leanings, of those early scene-setters. Savages however are the real deal – as likely to hit you with spoken word intros or experimental noise as they are to deploy their distinctively chopped, urgent guitar riffs and snarling, powerhouse vocals. A strong highlight in a month that offers an embarrassment of riches. Edinburgh gets its first taste of festival fun at Electric Circus with Big Day In. For a mere tenner, you can enjoy arty indie-rock liberally sprinkled with complex time signatures and poptastic flourishes courtesy of Dutch Uncles, FOUND experimentalists Lomond Campbell + River of Slime, smooth disco-and-synth-pop-meetsindie rock from Auld Reekie’s Jonnie Common and Discopolis alongside Glasgow’s Machines In Heaven, plus DJ sets from the likes of Errors, flanked by BBC Radio’s new music gurus Vic Galloway and Ally McCrae. 5 May, this is bang for buck. Nice ’n’ Sleazy in Glasgow plays host to Dirty Beaches, aka Alex Zhang Hungtai, a TaiwaneseCanadian musician whose album Badlands impressed fans of avant garde, lo-fi and no-wave music in 2011. Revered for his early releases on early cassette labels, his contributions to the four-way split LP Statement on Clandestine Records in 2012 were excellent, and anticipation is building for the planned May release of two new albums, Drifters and Love Is The Devil. Support comes from fellow lo-fi travellers Supreme Dicks, and local garage rock/shoegazer hybrid mob The Yawns (7 May). Kelburn Castle will reverberate to the sounds of the Psychedelic Forest Disco – the first of three musical outings at the site over the course of the summer on 11 May. With a powerful lighting rig, booming soundsystems, and the no doubt esoteric and multifarious range of intoxicants ingested by wide-eyed ravers in attendance, it’s less of a psychedelic experience on offer; more of a hedonistic one. Regardless, the proceedings can only be helped by the DJ talents of JD Twitch, John Morales, NoFace and Taz, a live set from muscular neo-Italo dons Den Haan, the hipster-friendly house of Mia Dora, plus upand-coming garage producer Fault Lines. London trio Vondelpark make

Lomond Campbell

electronica-tinged indie pop which draws on influences from R’n’B, shoegaze and post-dubstep, while never managing to let that stew of diverse sounds obscure their deliciously-fresh pop hooks. They are, quite simply, irresistible. Catch them at Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh on 17 May. Ninja Tune stalwart Bonobo returned this year with a rather fantastic album, The North Borders. Whereas 2010’s Black Sands and 2006’s Days To Come seemed to suggest a move deeper into Cinematic Orchestra territory, ...Borders saw Simon Green embracing elements from bass music and dubstep alongside the jazzier, more cinematic moments. It also featured a few highprofile guests, such as Erykah Badu. See how it all turns out in a live context on 25 May at the Picture House, Edinburgh. Those unable to attend can catch him when he returns to Glasgow’s O2 ABC on 4 October. Sugar and Husker Dü frontman Bob Mould is one of the songwriters who dominated alternative American music throughout the 1980s and 90s. His influence on later musicians such as The Pixies and Nirvana is well established, but his wry, acerbic lyrics and keen way with a melody continue to reverberate with up-and-coming musicians. His solo work is nothing to sniff at, either, with last year’s Silver Age proving that the Sugarman is still capable of hitting the alt.rock sweet spot. Catch him for an intimate solo show at Òran Mór, Glasgow on 18 May. The festival madness kicks up another notch on 23 May with the start of the Knockengorroch Festival – the three-day binge of folk, rock, techno, dub and... well, pretty much everything, has a whole host of highlights on offer, including

agit-prop rap-rock-jungle fusionistas Asian Dub Foundation, jungle legend Congo Natty, multifaceted Warp Records star Luke Vibert, hotlytipped folk and hip-hop purveyors Dizraeli and The Small Gods, alongside local legends such as Glasgow dub crews The Mezzanine Allstars and Mungo’s HiFi, master of the hard techno, bass and breaks Morphamish, and some live graffiti from the Too Much Fun Club. More fun, then, than you could shake an unfeasibly large stick at. Ghostpoet returns to Scotland to play his new album Some Say I So I Say Light, the follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut. Now imbued with an even more infectious electronic sonic palette thanks to the collaboration of co-producer Richard Formby (Darkstar, Egyptian Hip Hop), and with a solid year or so of touring and performing under his belt, we expect the ceaselessly inventive Obaro Ejimiwe to be on top form at Glasgow’s Broadcast on 24 May and Edinburgh’s Electric Circus on 25 May. For hip-hop fans, the coming of A$AP Rocky to the O2 Academy in Glasgow on 26 May will either cause deep joy or scornful outrage. The Harlem rapper and leader of the A$AP Mob has been attracting attention along with the likes of Flatbush Zombies and The Underachievers as part of the (very) loosely affiliated ‘Beast Coast’ movement, but his focus on swag, swag, and more swag, and his propensity for summarily-dispensed fist-based justice to perceived enemies, place him firmly on the more gangster-inclined side of the rap divide. Conscious rap and ‘backpacker’ hip-hop fans might want to dodge this one – everyone else, get ready to throw your set in the air.

Church of Noise

n eclectic month starts as it means to go on as genre-mashing punks Sharks mix things up at Glasgow’s 13th Note (1 May) with a couple of danceable indie rock outfits in tow, namely Beach Blood and The Barents Sea. Auld Reekie also gets off to an early start: Portland stonerdoom quartet Witch Mountain will be laying down the riffery at Bannerman’s with Black Magician (3 May). The following night, take the opportunity to support a worthy cause at Banshee Labyrinth as Happy Spastics, Subordinate, Overspill, Down to Kill and Spacehandle play a DIY punk rock benefit in aid of Chernobyl Children Life Line UK (4 May). Over in Glasgow’s Ivory Blacks, Deafheaven’s lush, dramatic post-black metal sprawls will be accompanied by The Secret’s chaotic bursts of fury (7 May). Local hardcore crew No Island set the scene. Unmissable. Then, be seduced by Chelsea Wolfe’s dark, gothic brand of folk music at Glasgow’s King Tut’s (11 May). Those of a more progressive persuasion might want to take in The Pineapple Thief at Glasgow’s O2 ABC2. Orchestral rockers The Red Paintings and Atlas : Empire support (13 May). Post-hardcore fiends can also get their fix, again at O2 ABC, when Sleeping With Sirens roll into town (22 May). A psychedelic surf ’n’roll onslaught is also imminent as Los Tentakills launch their album at the 13th Note with a little help from Easy! Tiger, Reverse Cowgirls and Kosher Picklers (24 May). If you’re over in the East, Mancunian noisemakers Obsessive Compulsive take their healthy stramash of alt. rock influences to Bannerman’s on the same night. If experimental hardcore from Canada’s your bag, Nomeansno aim to please. They’ll be getting a run for their money at the hands of homeside trio Hey Enemy (at Stereo, Glasgow, 26 May) before attacking Edinburgh’s Electric Circus on 28 May. Balaclava-clad death/black metal crossover act Dragged Into Sunlight delve into the bleakest, filthiest corners of the human psyche in their music, and their live show promises to be no less forgiving. Atmospheric sludge quintet Bossk will ease you in gently – relatively, of course. That’s at Glasgow’s Audio (27 May). Freeze the Atlantic (featuring ex-members of Hundred Reasons and Reuben) meanwhile bring the pain to Stereo, with Paisley punkers Carnivores and noise rockers Cactus & Cardigan (28 May). Seeing us out of May, it seems rumours of Damian ‘Pink Eyes’ Abraham’s longterm retirement from touring with Toronto venue wreckers Fucked Up have been greatly exaggerated as the formidable hardcore crew plot their long overdue return to Glasgow (28 May), with spiritual brethren Titus Andronicus and reverb-drenched kings of the road METZ on board. Let’s hope Glasgow’s SWG3 renewed the insurance. [Ross Watson]

Do Not Miss Stag & Dagger

The annual Stag & Dagger outing is a gloriously shambolic affair, langorously spreading itself out across the breadth of seven of Glasgow’s bestloved music stages. It is half gig, half endurance contest, as increasingly pint-afflicted music fans stagger from venue to venue, attempting to cover all the bases. And what a range of bases... there’s almost too much to choose from. Decide for yourself, picking between Scottish causes célèbre and crowd-pleasers such as We Were Promised

May 2013

Jetpacks and neo-folk rising star Rachel Sermanni, our favourite avant-punk weirdos Divorce, muscular post-hardcore crew United Fruit, intimate folk-pop troubadors Randolph’s Leap, and visiting dignitaries such as electronicatinged alt.country star Phosphorescent, ethereal R‘n’B supremo How To Dress Well, and the trippy psych rock of Wolf People. There are still more names to be announced – keep your eyes on our website for more details as further additions to the bill are made.

MUSIC

Divorce

Feature

Photo: Stella Wan

Various Venues (Glasgow), 18 May

Steve Mason

King Tuts, Glasgow, 9 Apr

Òran Mór, 7 Apr

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For much of their current tour, British Sea Power have been opening gigs with a bonus set of ‘mellow’ fan-favourites. Unfortunately, Oran Mor’s tight curfew prevents such an arrangement tonight – which is a shame, but an ultimately insignificant one. Because if anyone has turned up early on the off-chance of getting extra BSPfor-their-buck, support Casual Sex offer succourable compensation, their impeccably tight set snaking through styles superbly – from the penetrating groove of North to the choppy, wiry guitars of National Unity. As is customary for a British Sea Power performance, tonight’s stage is bedecked with woodland paraphernalia, continuing a penchant for pastoral-theatricals dating back to their earliest shows. But while some things haven’t changed in their decade-plus existence, in other

respects the band performing tonight seem an age removed from their erratic roots. The contrast is most strongly felt when a breathless, fitful Apologies to Insect Life veers forth towards the end, its idiosyncrasies standing out starkly against the more measured sounds – largely picked from new album Machineries of Joy and 2008’s Do You Like Rock Music? – that precede it. Yet, while most of tonight’s highpoints have miles on the clock (most memorably a stunning rendition of Lately), the band BSP have gradually become are far from a disappointment – for instance, Machineries of Joy’s title track makes for a stately opener, while the buzzing rush of K-Hole can’t be faulted. And besides, it’s difficult to accuse a band of encroaching conservatism when their finale comes packaged with a dancing polar bear – a sure sign that their appealing quirks are far from exhausted. [Chris Buckle]

Pere Ubu / Variety Lights Mono, 17 Apr

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www.britishseapower.co.uk

Hausfrau

Umberto / Hausfrau / Leaf Wrist

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Opening proceedings, Leaf Wrist offers a hypnotic performance of experimental electronics, running the gamut from dusted, dub-influenced loops to something approaching techno, but constructed from sampled and treated birdsong. Never lurching quite into the realms of structured, easily classifiable beats, but rather allowing rivulets of machine noise, sampled organic sounds and improvised abstraction to run from his fingertips and out across the audience’s brain-space, it’s a convincing set that promises interesting material in the future. Hausfrau, a duo composed of members from Organs of Love and Aggi Doom, play some gothic, minimal synth covers of a selection of obscure and less obscure pop hits, leading off with a spellbinding version of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man. Slightly less successful is a subdued Nutbush City Limits. But in the main, their

Review

appeal lies in the fragile, mournful singing of Aggi Doom’s Claudia Nova, who drawls in a black lace dress like a latter-day Piaf, and the deceptively simple synth arrangements concocted by Organs of Love’s James T. Wilson, who with his greystreaked beard resembles a 70s Orson Welles. By the time Umberto takes the stage, we’re all ready for some dancing, and he delivers in spades. Tracks from Night Has A Thousand Screams are reconfigured as techno with sweeping synth breakdowns and melodic spines heavily indebted to his beloved giallo score composers. Through a fug of dry ice, flickering black and white images from classic horror films are screened on the rear wall, but rather than delivering a cinematic, downtempo set, Umberto sticks close to a four-to-the-floor beat throughout. It’s a fascinating, crowd-pleasing take on his album, and thoroughly accomplished, although a bit less of the dry ice would have been nice. [Bram E. Gieben] umberto.bandcamp.com

Photo: Vito Andreoni

Pere Ubu

Kinning Park Complex, 30 Mar

Steve Mason

stevemasontheartist.com

Team Ghost / Sonic Hearts Foundation Broadcast, 10 Apr

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Despite the entire evening being beset with technical problems – vocals drift in and out, disappearing behind squalls of guitar feedback, and the overall mix is one-dimensional, a slab of sound rather than a wall – both bands manage to pull off convincing, muscular performances that shape the shoegaze template into sculptured, towering edifices of heavenly noise. Glasgow’s Sonic Hearts Foundation kick off proceedings, guitarist Brian Crawford stood in front of a pedal array the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer. Tracks from their forthcoming EP Into Forever are anchored by the powerful caterwaul of singer Anthony Henderson, his punk-rock sneer indebted as much to !!!’s Nic Offer as it is to Ian Brown or Joe Strummer. The music however is far from the standard indie punk-pop that is the stock-in-trade of so many Glasgow bands – 1984 pulses with looped synths, building towards an explosive climax; one track features a pedal effect on the bass that evokes dubstep and trap dynamics; while a culminative USA closes the set with doom-laden drums that recall early Killing Joke. There’s a political heft to their

MUSIC

Photo: David P Scott

British Sea Power, Casual Sex

By his own estimation, Steve Mason is operating at about 80% strength tonight due to a lousy start-of-tour cold. But, he adds, “that’s still enough to level most people to the ground.” The lurgy may steal away vocal range and leave the Fife songwriter gulping lemsips between songs, but it does nothing to diminish the set’s overall impact, with tonight packing more clout than most performers dream of. Naturally, Monkey Minds in the Devil’s Time’s wings are clipped for the live setting, the album’s sprawling outreaches trimmed to fit a four-piece band: that means no choirs, no raps, and no ambient stretches. But none of that diminishes the sweep of Oh My Lord; the tender pleas of A Lot of Love; or the flinty anger of Fight Them Back. Mason seems relaxed throughout, trading banter with a spirited crowd and just about keeping his coughs out of the microphone. If he really does have another 20% in reserve, his next visit should skirt magnificence. [Chris Buckle]

Seminal is an overused word, but it can be fairly applied to both Pere Ubu and the earlier work of Variety Lights’ David Baker: as the original frontman on Mercury Rev’s first two LPs, he established trajectories in early-90s avant/psych rock that eventually lead to successors like Animal Collective. Following two decades out of the spotlight, he returned last year with Variety Lights’ debut LP, Central Flow. The new songs have a dazed, tentative quality: while their blend of grinding basslines, piercing feedback, and woozy keyboards loses some of its subtlety in the live context, Baker remains an intense stage presence. David Thomas, similarly, has lost none of his acerbic charm since Pere Ubu burst onto the post-punk scene almost four decades ago; and the band’s wilfully disjointed take on garage still retains its spiky irreverence. The set ranges over material from this year’s Lady From Shanghai LP and their back catalogue, joining dots between different phases. On classics like The Modern Dance, Thomas now tends to growl more than yelp; that aside, the consistency of Pere Ubu’s sound over the years is remarkable. It’s testament to the complexity of their original vision that they’re still developing its possibilities. [Sam Wiseman] ubuprojex.net

lyrics, as suggested by the sampled Weatherman Underground speech on Decades. The almost total lack of audible vocals throughout Team Ghost’s superb set could have been a deal-breaker – fortunately the Frenchmen are performance veterans, and they adapt quickly, tearing through the vocal parts of highlights from their long-incubating debut LP Rituals as quickly as possible, and exploding into awesome riffage. Multi-instrumentalists, the band divide synth, guitar and vocal duties between ex-M83 founder member Nicolas Fromageau and synth wizard Benoit DeVilleneuve. Dead Film Star is the poppiest moment, revelling in psychotropic synths and vocoder effects from De Villeneuve; Curtains and Somebody’s Watching exude a dripping sexual tension; while the band’s theme song, Team Ghost, is reconfigured as a six minute epic, full of hypnotic guitar textures and glacial synths. They play their hearts out, criss-crossing the stage to trade riffs and rock postures like the pros they undoubtedly are. They make the tiny venue reverberate and hum, filling it to bursting with their powerful stage presence. Two fantastic performances, marred but not spoiled by disappointing sound. [Bram E. Gieben] www.teamghostmusic.com

THE SKINNY

Photo: Ann-Margaret Campbell

British Sea Power

Photo: Kat Gollock

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The Dirty Dozen Nursing epic hangovers from the night before, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s Jason Reece and Jamie Miller debate whether they need pure punk rock or “a modern day Phil Collins” to take the pain away Interview: Ross Watson Photography: Vito Andreoni Suicidal Tendencies – Cyco Style [from the album 13, out 6 May via Suicidal Records] Jason Reece: [rocking out] I used to listen to Suicidal Tendencies when I was like 15. Jamie Miller: Sounds like old school Venom! It’s definitely how you want ’em to sound. Awesome! It’s just their classic style, you know? Little more modern production, a little more thrash. JR: My favourite album’s the first one. JM: I’d give it two thumbs up. Solid eight, yeah, definitely. JR: It’d be fun to jam that in here after a show. JM: Plus if we say anything less they’ll find us and beat us up. Vår – Into Distance [from the album No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers, out 13 May via Sacred Bones Records] JR: I heard about these guys. JM: That sounds like The Church. Oh, one of these dudes is in Iceage. JR: Some Joy Division in there. Yeah, I’d probably get the CD and check these guys out. JM: Yeah, this is up my alley. Especially their pedigree – they’re hardcore dudes. It’s just polished enough, but it still sounds lo-fi. Not too slick. I’ll check more of that out. JR: Eight. JM: I’m gonna give it a nine. Three Blind Wolves – Parade [from the album Sing Hallelujah for the Old Machine, out 27 May via Instinctive Racoon] JR: These guys are Scottish? JM: That some pedal steel? It’s a trip, all these UK bands playing Americana music. America’s been ripping off the British for years, so... JR: The Americana thing’s big right now, huh? Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers. It’s not bad, you know? JM: It’s not really my thing. I’m not super familiar with this kind of stuff. I’m sure American college students would eat it up. Let’s say five. I bet they have cool beards. Princess Chelsea – We’re So Lost [single – released 20 May via Lil’ Chief Records / Cargo] JM: Princess Chelsea... [disappointed tone] Oh, Chelsea... JR: It’s really David Lynch. JM: Sort of childlike. I think the acoustics in this room are adding to it. JR: Yeah, making it even more reverbed out. JM: It does sound a lot like Beach House. Maybe a little too much. It’s cool, it’s chill. Somethin’ to sit back, drink some wine to... before moving onto Beach House. JR: I’d say five. Middle of the road. JM: Points for tryin’. Keys – Hiding In Our Smirks [from the EP Innocuous Beats, out 6 May via Sturm Und Drang Recordings] JM: That riff sounds like somethin’ – what is that? JR: Well, we’re into The Fall. A little Gang of Four maybe. Very innocuous. Ha! JM: I hear a lot of bands do this. When they discover Wire and stuff, they’re like “oh, we can do that!” JR: I’ll give it a three.

May 2013

Hookers for Jesus – On a Night Like This [from the EP Hymns for Beautiful Losers, out now via Pioneer Sounds] JM: Hookers for Jesus? Ten! Haha! The Skinny: The name’s a bit misleading. JM: It’s kinda like our misleading name. I went to a record store once in Denver that sold mostly hardcore music, and Trail of Dead had a section. All of the headers had a description of the band, and on ours it just said ‘not very brutal’. That’s all it said! This band’s called Hookers for Jesus, and it sounds like this! That’s worse false advertising than Trail of Dead! JR: I’m disappointed – I was expecting punk rock. Songs about sex and violence. It’s a little too ‘sleepy time’ for me. JM: We had too long of a night for this. This is gonna put us to sleep! Everything’s got its right moment and mood, that’s the tough thing about music. JR: So, what should we give it? JM: I’ll give it a six – it wasn’t as generic as the Chelsea one. He’s got a cool voice. Breathless – Please Be Happy [single – out 6 May via Tenor Vossa] JR: Oh, there’s a remix on this single by Jim from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. It’s Dominic Appleton, who sang for This Mortal Coil. JM: Really? Wow. Yeah, this is how you do sleepy music. JR: It’s definitely dark. It’s got that darkness. JM: This is what I gravitate towards. The Skinny: Are you more of a punk rock purist, Jason? JR: Uh, no, you know there’s a time and a place for this kind of music. JM: I’d put this on after one of our shows with headphones and just bask in it. JR: Yeah, that might work. JM: I dig this. I’d give it an eight. JR: Alright, he’s giving it an eight, I’m giving it a f[short pause] five-and-a-half. Haraball – Cock Persona [from the album Sleep Tall, out 13 May via Fysisk Format] JM: I like this a lot. I would actually buy this right now. I’m in the mood for something like this. JR: This band was started by Norwegians from straight-edge bands, and some arty dudes. JM: It’s got a song called My Douche. Yeah, this is just killer, old school hardcore. When I first heard about Iceage, this is what I wanted them to sound like. Like old Agnostic Front or something. JR: Yeah, this is really good hardcore. I’d say seven. Young Aviators – Forward Thinking [from the album Self Help, out 13 May via Electric Honey] JM: Young Aviators... I’ve heard that name somewhere before. Britpop! Where’re they from? JR: They’re based in Glasgow. I’m hearing Nine Black Alps... JM: They’re like, on the poppier edge of Nine Black Alps. It’s just got that classic britpop sound. JR: Like Ride. A little more sixties. JM: It’s got that tempo of a Yardbirds song or somethin’. Yeah, it’s weird, it’s like a cross of sixties and, like 80s brit. It’s cool. I’d give it a seven.

Dead Sea Souls – The Comet [single – out 20 May via Platform] JR: Too much like Vampire Weekend. This shit is awful. JM: Yeah, I was about to say, man! Where are these cats from? The Skinny: The West Lothian area... JR: [mimics Scottish accent] Shite! I’m giving that a one. Pretty harsh, but... JM: I give it an “I don’t care.”

TRACK OF THE MONTH: Retox – Mature Science [from the album YPLL, out 27 May via Epitaph] The Skinny: This is a Justin Pearson (of The Locust) project. JR: Oh yeah, I’ve heard some of this before. JM: [laughs gleefully] always loved The Locust and what they did. It’s like a swarm of bees comin’ at ya. Very jittery and very nervous, I love it. Frantic, just nuts. JR: [starts drumming along before turning to the press release] Oh, Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played on some of it. This is fun! JM: Punk rock, man. Badass. I’d give that a ten.

Raffertie – Trust (feat. YADi) [from the EP Build Me Up, out 20 May via Ninja Tune] JR: [looks at the cover] Stylish. JM: Oh, that’s quite a jacket he’s got there. I’d give that jacket a five. Yeah, this has that modern day Phil Collins production, but it’s just weird enough andyouwillknowusbythetrailofdead.bandpage.com to make me want to hear more of it. I almost don’t want to hear it, but at the same time I do. I’m like “what’s gonna happen next?” JR: Yeah, it’s nice. JM: It’s interesting. Not cliché. JR: Yeah, it’s like The Weeknd. Dark R&B, like, seductive. That’s cool! JM: Cool vibe. I like the dark, oddballness of it. I’m gonna say eight.

RECORDS

Review

Album of the Month Mount Kimbie

Cold Spring Fault Less Youth [Warp, 27 May]

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After kickstarting the post-dubstep sound on Crooks & Lovers, Mount Kimbie have turned their attention towards stranger sounds and more challenging song structures, bringing Kai Campos’ vocals to the fore. The tracks Campos leads are among the standouts – opener Home Recording nods to James Blake while walking their own distinct line, pairing subtle electronic percussion with muted woodwind and organ, and Campos’ fragile voice. You Took Your Time, one of two collaborations with King Krule, starts as low-slung electronic hip-hop, but takes a sharp left turn into Clash-like blues-punk crooning. Break Well carries hints of Tame Impala’s exquisitely faded surf pop, while the fantastic Made

To Stray reconfigures minimal techno as horn-laced, lo-fi electropop. These songs shift and twist: So Many Times, So Many Ways fuses delicate jazz bass and percussion with muted synths, while Lie Near is possibly the closest the album gets to post-dubstep – a hypnotic half-time beat with reverb-drenched synths and distant saxophone, it is beautiful and involving. Sullen Ground is at once the simplest and strangest track on the album, its rhythmic DNA built from sampled knocks on wood, filtered static and angular, minimal house beats, while Campos again drifting in and out. It’s characteristic of the album’s bold, pioneering approach to sonic architecture. A step away from the dancefloor, and into the unknown – this is an important, enchanting LP for 2013. Imaginitive to the point that it’s quite impossible to classify. [Bram E. Gieben] www.mountkimbie.com

The National

Savages

eagleowl

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Trouble Will Find Me [4AD, 20 May] The National have always chosen to polish rather than reinvent; to delve deeper, rather than jump ship. So as LP number six prepares to see the light of day, those hoping for a new wheel best look away now. The journey to Trouble Will Find Me is arguably the least dramatic the band has made yet. It’s less ornate than High Violet, but more dense, instrumentally. It’s the least oblique Matt Berninger’s lyrics have ever been, with countless instantly gratifying couplets. “You are not the only one that sits awake until the wild feelings leave,” he sings to Jennifer – this record’s Karen – on Fireproof. Graceless chugs from indie standard to showstopper in the space of a single key change and it’s this power to subtly visit three different places on every song that makes Trouble... such a marvellous listen. But unlike the wonderfully shadowy outros of Boxer, these are well-lit porticos attached to stylish, stately manors: fantastic places to spend an hour of your life. [Finbarr Bermingham] www.americanmary.com

CocoRosie

Tales of a Grass Widow [City Slang, 27 May]

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Silence Yourself [Matador, 6 May] The soberly dressed women comprising this London-based quartet present something of a refreshing anomaly in contemporary British music. Who else out there is making staccato, Gang of Fourinfluenced post-punk with this much attitude? And wasn’t that revival killed off in 2005? Although it remains to be seen whether Savages’ presence will bring the gloomier end of 80s fashion crawling out from its grave (again), there’s no doubting Silence Yourself backs up the initial bark of their show-stopping double A-side from last summer. Cathedral-shaking stop/start bass is ever present and Jehnny Beth’s gutteral howl gives Siouxsie Sioux a run for her money, never more so than on She Will. Influences may be clear, and certainly never hidden, but in among the spindly guitar work are some weighty riffs – I Am Here would worry Tad Doyle’s speaker stack – and plenty of pop nous. [Stu Lewis]

The family of birds known as eagle owls (easily identifiable by their ear tufts) are notoriously elusive, spending most of their time roosting out of sight. The group of Edinburgh-based musicians known as eagleowl (easily identifiable by their penchant for slow, sad sounds in the Low/Smog mould) also have a habit of keeping quiet, with this silent year arriving eight years after the band’s formation. Not that the interceding years have been entirely silent, of course, with EPs confidently marking their territory and ensuring their debut long-player is backed by the full weight of their maturing talents – a long-game strategy that’s borne exceptional results. From the imposing expanse of Too Late in the Day to the stately Eagleowl Versus Woodpigeon (a messy match in the bird world but an unspeakably beautiful pairing in the musical one), the band have assembled something enduring and elegant – not so much a birdie as a hole in one. [Chris Buckle]

Playing SWG3 Glasgow on 2 May www.savagesband.com

Playing Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh, 10 May and The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 12 May www.eagleowlattack.co.uk

Small Black

The Pastels

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Limits of Desire [Jagjaguwar, 13 May]

The Casady sisters have certainly come a long way since La maison de mon rêve’s Paris bathroom – and their latest record shows fresh strengths even since 2010’s Grey Oceans. While not entirely shedding their quirky stylings, Tales of A Grass Widow uses the characteristic tinkle of toys and pitch-warped vocal effects as an asset rather than a gimmick. Flexing what were previously disparate (and to some ears discordant) elements, the duo now proffer an accomplished, emotive LP. There is no clutter here; the warbly organ on Villain is considered, not showy. End of Time has an engaging hip-hop strut that carries, rather than obscures, the trademark exoticism; likewise, Gravedigress is fittingly armed with a snarling beatbox vocal. Tribal panpipes lend several tracks an earthy flavour, in line with the girls’ penchant for atmosphere and storytelling. Whatever they might have traded in youthful abandon, they more than compensate for with a newfound cohesion. [George Sully]

Although Limits of Desire is Small Black’s second album proper, it’s also a follow-up to 2011’s fantastic Moon Killer mixtape, released online for free. The conceit of Moon Killer was to mix hip-hop beats with shoegaze guitars and dream-pop melodies, lending an extra edge to tracks like Two Rivers. On Limits of Desire, the hip-hop influences of Moon Killer and New Chain are replaced by a softly-shaded synth-pop bent. When it works, as on openers Free At Dawn and Canoe, the results are impressive – a narcotic wash of muted guitars and gently-pulsing synths underpin a louche, breathy vocal, everything concealed behind a film of reverb. But No Stranger, the title track and Breathless feel like half-finished New Order offcuts, while Sophie errs towards the twee. Only A Shadow lifts proceedings again, burying the vocals beneath a propulsive house beat. It’s a pleasant enough experience, but fails to match the inventiveness of Moon Killer for both ideas and hooks. [Bram E. Gieben]

www.twitter.com/LaRealCocoRosie

www.small-black.com

Tricky

False Idols [False Idols, 27 May]

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this silent year [Fence, 13 May]

It Hugs Back

Recommended Record [Safe and Sound, 6 May]

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Slow Summits [Domino, 27 May]

Slow Summits is being billed by some as The Pastels’ first album in 16 years – a timescale that only fits if you discount their 2003 The Last Great Wilderness soundtrack and their 2009 collaboration with Tenniscoats. But to strike both from memory for the sake of implying a comeback would be remiss, with both projects arguably key to Slow Summit ’s graceful configuration – the former coaxing the band down more wistful avenues and ushering in a gentler aesthetic; the latter commencing an alliance carried over to this record’s guest appearances from the Japanese duo. Opener Secret Music is impeccable, Katrina Mitchell’s purring vocals melting into rich (but never ostentatious) instrumentation. Its airy beauty ushers in an album remarkable more for its sense of wholeness than its individual peaks. Nonetheless, there are standouts, including Summer Rain’s misty waltz and Come to the Dance’s lithe sign-off. [Chris Buckle] Playing CCA, Glasgow, 1 Jun www.thepastels.org

Sam Amidon

Bright Sunny South [Nonesuch, 13 May]

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In many ways a return to the dynamics of his first (and best) album Maxinquaye, False Idols pairs Tricky’s distinctive, half-whispered vocals with the mellifluous singing of Francesca Belmonte. Although his 90s output exerts a powerful influence, rehabilitating the trip-hop sound, there is a polished sheen and confident structure on show that indicate an artist back at the top of his game. Still happy to cherry-pick choruses (Van Morrison and Patti Smith are referenced on Somebody’s Sins; Valentine is constructed around a down-pitched sample of Funny Valentine), Tricky makes them his own. The weed-laced paranoia of his lyrics is sharpened, used with scalpel-like precision to examine social issues and relationship dynamics. Melodic pop hooks underpin every track – there is not a single moment of the difficult experimentalism or brag-rap posturing that marred more recent albums. Mr Thaws was always the king of the Bristol sound; False Idols sees him relcaim the throne. A triumphant return. [Bram E. Gieben]

It’s easy to see why Matthew Simms, the guitarist, vocalist and songwriter behind London quartet It Hugs Back, was asked to join Wire last year. Despite being recorded on a modest budget, the psych-poppers’ third LP has a remarkable clarity and sharpness: Simms’ guitar style here may suggest a sunnier, more melody-led approach, but the glossy, crunching riffs and expressive brevity of tracks like Go Magic! and Big Sighs have much in common with Wire’s insistent, metallic post-punk. If Recommended Record has a flaw, it’s in the occasional feeling of sensory overload: there is some impressively clear layering of organ, synth, dreamy vocals and crashing guitars here, which works best on slower songs like Teenage Hands; but combined with relentless garage tempos, those elements can feel overwhelming. Some respite appears in the motorik pastiche of Piano Drone, but It Hugs Back are too exuberant to rein things in for long. [Sam Wiseman]

A folk singer cast from an old-fashioned mould, Sam Amidon rearranges and repurposes songs from the ages, his albums to date principally reinterpreting hymns and trad folk standards – plus, often, a cover version of lesser vintage, with Tears for Fears and R Kelly gracing past releases, and Bright Sunny South offering up an incongruously reworked Mariah Carey number. But while his sources are venerably second-hand, the selected songs are reborn in novel shapes, with jazz inflections and instrumentation beyond the banjo-fiddle-acoustic genre hub. That’s not to say the fruits of Amidon’s latest labours will curry broad favour, with Bright Sunny South likely to play best to those already partial to roots re-visitations, or existing fans of the Vermont artist’s work. But then again, Amidon’s hardly shooting for mainstream adoration, with the aforementioned Carey cut less an aspirational point-of-reference, more an impressive (and successful) attempt to find depth where it’s least expected. [Chris Buckle]

www.trickysite.com

www.ithugsback.co.uk

www.samamidon.com

Review

RECORDS

THE SKINNY

Brazos

Alice in Chains

Deerhunter

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Saltwater [Dead Oceans, 27 May]

The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here [EMI, 27 May]

Monomania [4AD, 7 May]

Since his 2009 debut Phosphorescent Blues, Martin Crane (who performs as Brazos, perhaps to avoid being confused with Frasier’s pop) has relocated from his native Austin, Texas to Brooklyn, New York – and there are distinct whispers of neighbours Grizzly Bear’s urbane precision and Vampire Weekend’s cosmopolitanism across Saltwater (both acts for whom Brazos has opened for in the past). The album’s textured, layered instrumentation evidences Crane’s broad palette, with much to take in between the afrobeat flavoured pop of opener Always On and the low-key blues of closer Long Shot. But while there are no major errors of judgement to spoil proceedings, there are lesser offerings amid the tracklisting that fail to impress themselves, rendering this an assured but asyet-unperfected expression of a definite talent. [Chris Buckle]

If 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue was about legitimising the resurgence of Alice in Chains while eulogising the irreplaceable Layne Staley, this fifth album from the Seattle survivors arrives with the conviction of a band still capable of greatness. Time might have nudged Jerry Cantrell’s outfit into the realm of classic rock statesmen, but status hasn’t hindered them from reaching for higher ground. With an even split of melodic slowburners and lead-heavy bangers with blindsiding tempo-shifts, songs such as Phantom Limb and Breath On A Window carry the familiar hallmarks of AiC’s heyday without entirely surrendering to the predictability they might imply – brooding, doomy riffs usher in soaring two-part harmonies which reiterate that, against some odds, Cantrell has found a worthy foil in co-vocalist William DuVall. [Dave Kerr]

Fans of Atlanta quintet Deerhunter, accustomed to the band operating in a mire of genres within their self-proclaimed ‘ambient punk’ label, should hold no truck with the direction sixth album Monomania takes. After the soporific and nostalgic tone of 2010’s Halcyon Digest, it stands as something of a wake-up call, full of scuzzy garage riffs and heavily treated, lo-fi vocals. As such, it can feel a tad regressive at times, particularly on initial cuts like Leather Jacket or the bluesy stomp of Pensacola. It’s the more gradual moments that shine, from the flowering lament of Sleepwalking to the stealth-pop jangle of Back To The Middle. Such highs will likely eclipse any minor misgivings, leaving a somewhat measured and uncharacteristically consistent work. It’s no clean kill shot, but Deerhunter still possess the power to stun. [Darren Carle]

www.brazosbrazos.com

www.aliceinchains.com

www.deerhuntertheband.blogspot.co.uk

Mike Patton

The Place Beyond the Pines OST [Milan Records, 6 May]

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From Faith No More to Fantômas, Tomahawk to ‘pop’ project Peeping Tom, Mike Patton’s restless creativity is too big for one band – and for Derek Cianfrance’s latest drama, he continues his fledgling career as soundtrack composer. A triptych of interconnected crime stories that ask whether we can ever escape our family history, The Place Beyond the Pines is a thinker – and Patton gives it a suitably cerebral backdrop, evoking the great Ennio Morricone. Like Morricone, Patton understands subtlty. This is not a big orchestral punch of a score – rather, Patton uses a combination of electronic tones, electric and acoustic guitar accents and a sampled choir to build an eerie and affecting soundscape. The Snow Angel is as close as we come to a traditional theme, used more than once over the film's recurring scenes of forlorn bikers riding through tall trees. Its icy piano refrain is graceful, but holds back: like the movie, the music won’t let you off so easily. [Laura Kelly] www.milanrecords.com

Ghostpoet

One Of Us Is The Killer [Party Smasher, 20 May]

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Where debut Peanut Butter Blues... was more a scattergun of influences and styles, Some Say I So I Say Light has consistency in its corner. Obaro Ejimiwe has lost none of his wit nor love of wordplay, but here the whimsical, nursery-rhyme cadences are all but gone, replaced by an observational spirit of reflection. Nearly every track is as strong as that debut’s undoubted highlight, Cash and Carry Me Home – perhaps down to the influence of co-producer Richard Formby, veteran of albums by Egyptian Hip Hop and Darkstar, or maybe it’s simply a natural growth. Tracks like Cold Win and Them Waters are imbued with an elegant electronic melancholy, evoking twilit London scenes. Elsewhere, Dial Tones is an exquisite slice of neo-soul, Plastic Bag Brain employs a spiralling guitar line to hypnotic effectk, while the album’s more experimental moments (Dorsal Morsel, the fuzzedout MSI MUSMID) are equally enthralling. [Bram E. Gieben] Playing Broadcast, Glasgow on 24 May and Electric Circus, Edinburgh on 25 May www.ghostpoet.co.uk

Saltland

Thirty Pounds of Bone

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I Thought it Was Us But it Was All of Us [Constellation, 13 May]

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Some Say I So I Say Light [PIAS, 6 May]

I Cannot Sing You Here, But for Songs of Where [Armellodie, 6 May]

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The Dillinger Escape Plan’s fifth LP might not grip listeners with anything quite so visceral as past staples like Fix Your Face or Panasonic Youth; One Of Us Is The Killer is instead presented as a seamless, interconnected narrative rather than a collection of short, controlled bursts. Chaos still reigns, though: the vicious guitar-stabs of opener Prancer settle into a towering groove, while Hero of the Soviet Union’s wasp-swarm assault of discordant riffs and complex, polyrhythmic drum patterns is truly relentless. Instrumental CH 375 268 277 ARS (good luck requesting that live) is reminiscent of the cold technicality of Calculating Infinityera Dillinger, whereas the title track boasts a clean vocal performance from singer Greg Puciato, whose overall contributions vary from enraged, testosterone-fueled barks to soft, sincere croons. A varied beast, then, yet the sum feels more like a checklist of previously employed tricks than a true evolution. [Ross Watson] www.dillingerescapeplan.org

Sparrow and the Workshop

Murderopolis [Song, By Toad, 27 May]

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Rebecca Foon is in some ways the archetypal Constellation artist, a Montreal-based cellist who has previously played in Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Set Fire To Flames. However, this project with Jamie Thompson eschews the overwrought melodrama of those acts for an intricate and understated approach, blending soft, tender vocals with strings, drones and electronica. Ominous GYBE!-style strings are in evidence, but they are balanced against unearthly synth chords, and resist the urge to pursue apocalyptic crescendos. All of Us is at its most impressive on the pieces that showcase Mark Lawson’s masterful engineering, like Unholy. Foon’s vocals hypnotise against a backdrop of seamlessly-mixed live and electronic percussion, delayed guitars, and droning strings; the whole merges dreamily into a single horizon, recalling the lush textures of Tara Jane O’Neil. The delicacy and restraint on display here lift Saltland above the pack. [Sam Wiseman]

I Cannot Sing You Here, But for Songs of Where is Johnny Lamb’s third album as Thirty Pounds of Bone, and its title is evocatively apt. As Lamb sings these ‘songs of where’ – recorded in dozens of bucolic locales from Shetland loch-sides to coves in Cornwall; quartered into sections entitled Past Place, Present Place and suchlike; and woven through with field recordings that hark to earthy origins – it’s easy to feel transported. This applies not only to space (with allusions to and echoes of landscape in every water splash and wind howl) but time, as Lamb carves his niche amidst a plethora of traditional folk sounds. But this is no moribund exercise in revivalism; rather, I Cannot Sing You Here… is a vibrant collection that combines old and new to great effect, with special mention owed to drone-backed opener Veesik for the Broch and tender ballad The Snow in Kiel. [Chris Buckle]

Since their first EP dropped four years ago, Sparrow and the Workshop have stacked up the accolades for a sound that, in lesser hands, would border on pastiche. But the skill and aplomb with which the band delivers their pseudo-gothic balladry and cactus-flavoured rollickers has, rightfully, been exempt them from such critiques. Murderopolis deftly continues the arc. Their sound has grown rockier by record and on occasion (see Darkness and lead single Shock Shock), there’s a tasteful hint of Fever to Tell-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs on show. Jill O’Sullivan’s honeyed vocals are again set to centre stage. Opening track Valley of Death reminds us that Caitlin Rose has been doing a half decent O’Sullivan turn since we last heard from the trio, while the salacious set highlight Odessa has to be one of the vocal highlights of the year so far. Thankfully, there’s nothing over-complicated here. Murderopolis is 11 fine tracks from a band that should really be reaching more ears. [Finbarr Bermingham]

www.cstrecords.com

www.thirtypoundsofbone.bandcamp.com

www.sparrowandtheworkshop.co.uk

Boats

A Fairway Full of Miners [Kill Rock Stars, 20 May]

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On their third album, Winnipeg’s Boats present an array of unruly but endearing quirks that are liable to be manna to some, anathema to others. Their hyperactive brand of indie-pop recalls the likes of Architecture in Helsinki, with lyrics that straddle strange poetry and jolly nonsense (“o mighty cufflink pincher, o frothy eater of sandwiches!”) and a playful songwriting style that conjoins carnivalesque abandon with extra-sugared electro-pop. Mat Klachefsky’s high-pitched nasal yelp needs acclimatising to (Getting Worst.Jpeg’s shrill assault especially so) and there are moments where the smorgasbord of ideas starts to sound less like inspired eccentricity and more like a band in search of a rudder. But when it works, it really works, with Animated GIFS a squelchy twee-epic and Advice on Bioluminescent Bears undoubtedly the year’s finest song about a captive colour-changing grizzly. [Chris Buckle] Playing 13th Note, Glasgow, 13 May www.yeahboats.com

May 2013

Woodenbox

End Game [Olive Grove, 27 May]

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They may have undergone a minor rebranding since Home and the Wild Hunt (having re-dropped ‘…And a Fistful of Fivers’ from their moniker a wee while back now), but Woodenbox’s second album suggests their influences and intentions haven’t drifted far from those that informed their gallantly spit-and-sawdust 2010 debut. Frontman Ali Downer continues to belt out lead vocals with rugged fervour, his forefront presence anchoring a robust assortment of rollicking country-folk sounds, while the three-piece horn section (arguably Woodenbox’s second cornerstone asset) delivers bolstering melodies that quicken the pulse of tracks like lead single Courage. But while the ingredients are occasionally over-familiar, the band have found convincing ways to extend their reach, with erstwhile rough edges scraped smooth and a streamlined sense of purpose showing through in the likes of opener Asphyxiation’s pop stomp chorus or Roll For Me’s jazzy, jerky verses. A confident, if not quite revelatory, return. [Chris Buckle]

The Top Five 1 2 3 4 5

Mount Kimbie

Cold Spring Fault Less Youth

The National

Trouble Will Find Me

Savages

Silence Yourself

eagleowl

this silent year

Sparrow and the Workshop

Murderopolis

Playing Grand Ole Oprey, Glasgow, 23 May www.wdnbx.com

RECORDS

Review

ALBUM LAUNCH

www.wdnbx.com

LOVE MUSIC + TICKETS SCOTLAND

INDEPENDENT FESTIVAL & COACH TRAVEL since 1996

T IN THE PARK ROBBIE WILLIAMS WICKERMAN ROCKNESS DOWNLOAD COLOURSFEST STONE ROSES EMINEM HYDRO SECC REWIND FALKIRK STADIUM BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Please check site for full listings

www.happybus.co.uk www.yourockweroll.co.uk

THE SKINNY

Speaking Words To The Blind Technology may make us feel safe but it could be lost in the blink of an eye. Are you ready to join Savages? Vocalist Jehnny Beth lays out a very particular manifesto

Photo: Steve Gullick

Interview: Simon Jay Catling

f you believe that true stylistic originality in music currently lies dormant or, worse, deceased, then to find real resonance you look to the qualities of those behind its creation: the message, the ethos, the decisions made as to why they’ve reached to the past to further the present. That Savages are currently one of the brightest burgeoning acts on this island isn’t down to any great sonic furthering on their part – it’s well established there’s no great leap between the electrifying crackle of their sniping dissonance to post-punk groups of the late 70s and early 80s. They themselves wrote ‘Savages is not trying to give you something you didn’t have already,’ in a statement accompanying the breath-stealing thrill of debut LP Silence Yourself – it’s down to the convictions of the individuals behind it. The four-piece treat this band as manifesto; they’re artists beyond writers, using the word just so they don’t have to write ‘band’ again. The lean, sinewy tissue of their music serves a function beyond mere sound. Their public presentation is derived from an intense methodology; where the tight, self-straightjacketed post-punk of the 80s was a reaction to the rockist excesses of the 70s, Savages’ interpretation is a reaction to our internet-aided existence of all-access, all-choice, all-influence. By actively devolving and stripping away the surplus elements of their own music they’re making a societal response; it’s not a paean to cultural fashion, it’s a howl against our own cultural bloat. Savages realise that to go forward, you first have to go back, because all new paths must start at the beginning. If you caught Savages’ initial shows last year and found tracks like City’s Full and Husbands already fully-mobilised in leaving you punch-drunk from the startling co-ordination of their attack, then it was because the intentions of the band had been forged before they’d played a note. “The name was the starting point really; it was there before the band was even formed,” explains singer Jehnny Beth. “Gemma [Thompson, guitarist] had been talking to me about wanting to start a particular group for months, and she came up with the name Savages. The discussions we had were about presenting these ideas, about creating a tension from trying not to pretend that we are technologically advanced, that savagery is still in every one of us and that it’s still capable of coming to the surface; how technology can give us the impression that we’re in total control of

May 2013

everything, but how this can be lost in the blink of an eye. Gemma really wanted a sonic representation of this dystopia, of these ideas of human devolution.” The Savages we know, the one that went from playing their first gig with British Sea Power in January last year, to a full summer festival schedule, TV appearances and latterly Coachella, were already racing along on wheels put in motion far in advance of their first, striking perforation. “Before we even practised,” confirms Jehnny. “It’s important that you set yourselves goals and directions, because it’s very easy to be distracted otherwise – and you know, we play and jam, but for what? What’s the idea? What do you want to say?” Silence Yourself’s message reveals itself in crystalline fashion in the spoken word intro for the video of lead-off track Shut Up. “The world used to be silent, now it has too many voices and the noise is a constant distraction,” Jehnny says at its opening. “They multiply, intensify, they will divert your attention to what’s convenient and forget to tell you about yourself.” Thus the knowing simplicity of the record counteracts that complexity; its chief elements are constant. The restless grooves of bassist Ayse Hassan and tom-heavy bullishness of Fay Milton’s drumming provide the muscular backdrop to Thompson’s guttural guitar and Beth’s tight, staccato-syllabled lyrics, reflecting the tautness of what’s around her. They are tightly controlled, placed on rails that provide a route through the eleven tracks even as the dynamics and tempo alter. “When we started the band I was reading Nietzsche and one thing that I got really into was the idea that, from when you start writing, you try not to lose what made you first begin even as you continue further; the first spark is the purest and you should try to keep hold of that and not get distracted along the path,” explains Jehnny by way of the band’s desire to create this singular aesthetic. “But it demands a lot of concentration! The actual process of it is hard because your brain is not trained to be so simple, and as a human you naturally want to be seen as this complex personality – indeed you are a complex animal.” The group’s desire for control is replicated in their working set-up, surrounding themselves with people they know and trust. Jehnny now

yourself in a little trance; live it transfers to your body and makes it a little more mechanical…” The lyrical delivery often comes from a place of gums-bared aggression (“are you coming for the fight?”); sometimes it’ll subvert conventional semantics, like those associated with love and affection, to dark environs (“hit me, I think I’m ready tonight, hit me with your lips,”). Elsewhere there’s a general sense that she’s standing on the cusp of something unknown (the track title Waiting For A Sign, the words “are you ready to face the future?”). The latter suggests that the intention behind this sound, even as it revisits past sonic ghosts, is to simultaneously attempt to reject it. It’s an internal monologue that afflicts all artists, when the sheer size of bygone creative material is so vast and the future contains no perimeter, how is it possible to resist the familiarity of the past? Otherwise a record bristling with a haughty confidence, it’s these incidences where Silence Yourself illuminates the insecurities of the band, even as they’re thunderously delivered. Jehnny Beth What’s exciting about Savages is that they’re a band who choose to be one because they recognise that it gives them a chance of having a voice. “That’s never really departed from music,” put out Savages’ two previous releases to-date, muses Jehnny, “it’s just guitar music has been 7” Husbands/Flying To Berlin and a live EP – and adrift in a way. Bands are the same, and to be in ultimately streamlined the singer’s thinking towards joining a music project that sought to exist one with a direction is kind of an old school thing, almost like it was gone.” with minimal interference beyond those who Savages, though, have a voice, a method, could help elevate them for the right reasons. “I an outline. To go back to the spoken word of wish I’d had someone to tell me how to do this Shut Up, when Jehnny coldly intones “You are the first time round,” she sighs, “but then we all distracted. You are available. You want flattery. do. I remember an interview with Billy Corgan, Always looking to where it’s at. You want to take for instance, and he was saying exactly the same thing. But of course there never is, and now I have part in everything and everything to be a part of you. Your head is spinning fast at the end of your a power because I have knowledge from these spine until you have no face at all,” it could be an past mistakes.” attack on every band whose sound is akin to a Last year, in the initial flush of their hype, Spotify-clicked six degrees of separation. Wider they told The Quietus that their songs improved than that, it could be an attack on every person once they’d started taking the choruses out of them. It’s a process of reduction that Jehnny also who buys into the social media culture of each individual being a brand, adapting and speakapplies to her own lyrics, initially writing a lot ing to their marketing requirements and not to of text, then editing and extracting the essenwho their being ultimately is. No, Savages are not tial from it, contorting it sharply to match the punchiness of the music. Track titles, meanwhile, pointing to the future yet. What they’re doing is holding a mirror to the present, and doing so are devices for repetitious use with mantra-like with such irresistible assertiveness that it’s imeffect – would-be open-ended phrases become possible to avoid its glare. her own through their whirling revolutions. She comments: “It’s important, I think, because the Playing SWG3, Glasgow, 2 May. Silence Yourself is released meaning evolves and changes, each repetition via Matador on 6 May captures you in a different kind of way, you put savagesband.com knows the industry rigmarole, havng experienced it with her partner as John & Jehn, and it’s from those early experiences of inevitably naïve compromise that they re-gathered their thoughts to found record label Pop Noire – which

“Bands are the same, and to be in one with a direction is kind of an old school thing, almost like it was gone”

MUSIC

Feature

Introducing: Magic Nostalgic W

We take a look at the O2 ABC’s newest club night, Magic Nostalgic, which has a music policy selected at random by a game-show style giant wheel Interview: Ronan Martin

ith so many clubs focussing on ‘serious’ events, and with promoters continually trying to outdo one another to bring the latest hyped dance acts to Scottish venues, it’s often easy to overlook novel and intriguing residentbased nights or those promoters with the temerity to have a laugh with their programme. Magic Nostalgic, a sort of club-night-slash-musicallottery, appears to have been devised to offer just that type of alternative clubbing experience. Having proven successful in drawing a crowd at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus over the last few years, the Magic Nostalgic concept will now find a second home in Glasgow’s O2 ABC. As one half of the hosting duo, Danny Chutes seemed like the ideal person for The Skinny to talk to ahead of the launch...

Fred Deakin (Lemon Jelly/Impotent Fury Records). We both had such varied music collections that it seemed a perfect idea to have a night where we could change from one style to another with the spin of a wheel. We ask someone from the club to spin the wheel every 30 minutes and whatever it lands on we play! There’s no fixing the wheel.

Can you explain the concept behind Magic Nostalgic for anyone unfamiliar with it? It stemmed from an idea to recreate the much loved ‘Wheel of Destiny’ concept pioneered by

Can you tell us about some of the most memorable selections and combinations of music that have been thrown up at past events? It’s always pretty special if the wheel lands on

How have crowds in Edinburgh taken to the night? We have queues to get in now. It’s been a huge success and mainly by word of mouth. People know they’re going to get a fun night and whilst they may not like the Rock Gods category, 30 minutes later it might land on the 90s Rave category or the Boy Bands category they’ve been waiting for.

Power Ballads at 2.30am. Not a dry eye in the house. We also have a RIP section where we play music by dead artists – special tributes have been paid to Whitney, Michael, Biggie and even Neil Armstrong (Man on the Moon!), whose death was announced whilst we were DJing. I’ve just realised 4 May will be a year to the day since MCA sadly passed away. Massive Beastie Boys section coming up! Are there any limitations placed on the kind of music that’s played? Do the categories change from one event to the other? There are no limits! That’s the main rule. We can make up new categories each month and try to get away with playing whatever we can! We managed to sneak in Kylie vs Jason last month, but my favourite is still Power Ballads – there’s something unique about seeing a club full of people singing China In Your Hand.

You present the event on stage with your co-host JP. What’s your role and what other elements, besides the music, make the night unique? John Paul is Neil Tennant and I’m Chris Lowe. But sometimes Chris Lowe has too much to drink and tries to become Neil Tennant. John Paul does the interviews and wheel spins and I scramble around trying to find a song to play in the right category. We enjoy a good dress-up as well – any excuse really. Finally, what kind of night are you hoping for when you launch the event at O2 ABC? We just want people to have fun and not be too precious about music. Leave that at the door and grab some air (power ballads). Magic Nostalgic launches at the O2 ABC on 4 May

Clubbing Highlights This month’s highlights include house heads Theo Parrish and Prosumer, techno pioneer Derrick May, local disco duo 6th Borough Project and many more

Words: Ronan Martin Illustration: Jennifer Oliver

ay kicks off in fine style with a bank holiday weekend schedule that could potentially leave some people bankrupt and broken long before they even know what month it is. Chief among the innumerable highlights on 4 May, Glasgow’s La Cheetah welcomes back gifted selector Theo Parrish, a year after he treated patrons of the club to a four hour masterclass in the art of mixing. That night the deep house pioneer performed one of the finest sets the club has ever hosted, and his general form suggests it would be a mistake to miss him this time round (£12 + BF). The same night sees Edinburgh’s Unseen celebrate its first birthday in the company of London-based producer Truss aka MPIA3. Tom Russell operates at the grittier end of the techno spectrum and his releases have found a home on such acclaimed labels as Perc Trax and R&S (Studio 24, £5 before 11, £8 after). Elsewhere in the capital, Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston take their celebrated club night, A Love From Outer Space, to the Cowgate, offering ‘an oasis of slowness’ for those who like to get down to mid-tempo sounds at peak times (The Annexe, £12.50 adv). Back in Glasgow, Naïve hosts a showcase put together by the increasingly hyped Belfast-based duo, Bicep. Over the past year, whether dropping infectious piano house or more sullen, penetrating productions on Will Saul’s Aus Music, they have firmly signalled their intent, epitomised by the establishment of the Feel My Bicep label in 2012. Joining them is Berlin’s Panorama Bar resident Steffi and London trio Dark Sky (Make Do, 5 May, £8, £10, £12 adv). Later in the month, Pan-Pot make their debut appearance in Edinburgh as Pulse and Karnival team up to host a night of driving, minimalist techno. The increasingly in-demand duo have become almost synonymous with that most prevalent breed of 4/4 dancefloor rhythms which

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pulsate through rooms across the globe. They’re joined on the night by Andy Problems and Darell Harding (The Liquid Room, 11 May, £13.50 + BF). If you like your tunes similarly driving, but with slightly more grit, you would be wise to head down to Glasgow’s Animal Farm the following week for Truncate aka Audio Injection and Rødhåd. The former has seen his work praised by heavyweights such as Ben Klock and Marcel Dettman, while the latter often plies his trade in Berlin’s legendary techno temple, Berghain (Sub Club, 17 May, £12). Glasgow’s Saint Judes has been steadily building momentum in recent months and this month’s We Love Detroit event may just be their biggest splash yet. On 18 May they welcome techno’s early innovator Derrick May to the club along with more recent Motor City graduate Jimmy Edgar (£10/15/18) The following weekend, Sneaky Pete’s hosts one of the capital’s best nights this month with the appearance of Panorama Bar resident Prosumer. The German house head has recently moved to Edinburgh which will hopefully enable a steadier diet of appearances on Scottish soil (24 May, £10). There’s a strong close to the month with La Cheetah teaming up with The Guild of Calamitous Intent to showcase the rarely off the mark New York-based label L.I.E.S. The night will see Delroy Edwards dropping deep house sounds galvanised by chunky, ghetto style percussion, while the label’s multi-functional Steve Summers presents a live set (25 May, £10). Last but not least, a brief thought or two on May’s Electric Frog. Following on from their Easter event, the lineup is once again impressive in its scope. Standouts this time around are Detroit techno brothers in arms Octave One, Chicago house veteran Chez Damier and Scotland’s own disco edit masters 6th Borough Project, the pairing of Craig Smith and Graeme Clark (SWG3, 25-27 May, £35 weekend ticket).

THE SKINNY

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Spotlight On... The Bongo Club Continuing our series profiling Scotland’s best nightclubs, we take a look at a relaunched Edinburgh favourite... Words: Nicol J. Craig

Photo: Carl Bartram

“I

A Love Unwavering

Sean Johnston discusses his collaboration with Andrew Weatherall and the ethos behind their club night, A Love From Outer Space, which lands in Edinburgh this month

Interview: Ronan Martin

ith their increasingly popular touring club night, A Love From Outer Space, veteran DJs Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston have shunned the pervasive convention of presenting music within fixed parameters strictly defined by genre and frantic bpm counts. Both emerging from rich musical backgrounds, and with a shared involvement in myriad alternative scenes dating back to the 1980s, they bring a wealth of diversity and expertise to a venture which has reclaimed a spirit long lost in much of mainstream clubbing. The pair share a passion for styles from post punk to dub and A Love From Outer Space is as much informed by these early influences as by contemporary electronic music. “Andrew and I come from the same school of DJing,” explains Johnston. “When I started going to clubs, at the beginning of the night people would play slow music and the night would build up. Going back to the early raves, you would hear tracks like Soul II Soul’s Keep On Moving being played alongside banging Detroit techno records and there was a progression in the music over the course of the night. But, at some point in the late 90s, you started to see the emergence of what I call genre fascism and the kind of ghettoisation of different types of dance music. Now you’ll go to a club and it’ll be a techno night or a deep house night or a disco night or whatever. We’ve got stuck in a situation where clubs are full of DJs playing all the latest Beatport top 100 deep house records. I think we’re presenting something different which does have a certain degree of quality to it. I think people recognise that.” Having taken ALFOS beyond its initial setting in front of a small crowd in London, and touring it throughout Europe, one wonders if they have at least found some need to adapt their approach depending on where they go. “No, Andrew and I decided to stick to our guns,” affirms Johnston. “The temptation is just to play faster music if people aren’t getting it. But we found that if you stick to your guns, though there’s an hour and a half of people going, ‘errr, we don’t get this.’ When they realise it’s not going to change – and you get that submission – it’s fine. If I had been doing it by myself I don’t know if I would’ve had

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“Clubs are full of DJs playing all the latest beatport top 100 deep house records. we’re presenting something different”

t’s alive!” Colin Clive’s maniacal cry in James Whale’s Frankenstein pretty much sums up the collective reaction when much-loved Edinburgh institution The Bongo Club announced it was being saved from closure at the end of last year. The city’s nightlife has been somewhat lambasted in recent years and closures of La Belle Angele and the Big Red Door among others had many dreaming up doomsday scenarios for club culture in the capital. The Bongo Club was thankfully spared such a fate and, having moved to a spruced up new venue, the mainstay nights are back in residence and the artist community has been re-energised by the resurrection. “Bongo is a unique institution and none of us wanted to see it end,” reflects head honcho, Ally Hill. Likewise, the rest of Edinburgh’s artistic community had been begging for its survival – the ‘Save the Bongo’ campaign proved crucial, as did plentiful press coverage and some lease leeway from the University of Edinburgh. The club’s future was finally secured in December of last year. “It had to continue,” says Ally. “The successful public campaign was much bigger than we could ever have hoped for and spurred us on.” First opening in 1996 on New Street, The Bongo Club really found its feet in its second home, the much loved Moray House on Holyrood Road. The venue’s ethos stems from its ongoing ownership by Drill Hall based arts charity, Out Of The Blue. For Ally, the venue’s independence allows them to “put the sounds of the underground and imaginative aspirations before the mighty dollar, encouraging the community to get involved and use our space to do their own thing.” Despite supporting all forms of artistic expression, club nights have always been a mainstay of the Bongo, attracting some the finest DJ talent from across the city and beyond.

The club has fostered some fruitful long-running relationships with nights such as Messenger Sound System, who have been taking dub reggae music to the capital since 1987. More recently, nights like Xplicit have been a cornerstone of the programme throughout the 00s. Drilling drum ’n’ bass into the Bongo’s walls since 2005, they have been joined by headliners such as Fabio, Grooverider and MC Verse to name a few. Exemplary techno night Substance have also utilised the Bongo for the last half decade, bringing names such as Nathan Fake, Jeff Mills, Boddika & Luke Vibert to the city. What the Bongo has always supplied though is a steady programme of dedicated residents’ nights catering to a variety of styles. For sure, there have been plenty of big name DJs, but it’s the continual work of residents like Astroboy, Jonny Cashback, Simon Hodge and Wee G that keeps loyal punters coming back. The Bongo Lives! Festival starts at the beginning of May and five consecutive club events, reflecting the diversity of the venue, have been scheduled as part of the series. The Bongo Club has always positioned itself at the forefront of the capital’s club scene and it seems like that will remain the case. Long live the Bongo! BONGO LIVES! CLUB LISTINGS: Champion Sound – A blend of dub through to jungle and everything in between, 1 May No Globe – A playlist of music from across the world, 2 May Four Corners – Everything, from deep funk and jazz, to hip hop and reggae, 3 May Big n Bashy – Bassline-heavy journey through reggae, grime, jungle and dubstep, 4 May Terror 3rd Birthday with Ceephax Acid Crew, Fexomat, Anton Serra & Nico, 5 May www.thebongoclub.co.uk

Sean Johnston

the mettle to persevere with it. But when you’ve got Commander Weatherall present it’s a bit easier.” While the two friends go back a long way, and though Johnston is hardly an incapable DJ himself, he exhibits a clear reverence for his partner’s skills behind the turntables. “He’s a legendary DJ, probably one of the most technically gifted DJs I’ve ever seen, so trying to maintain the quality assurance alongside that is fucking nerve-wracking from my point of view! I spoke to both Ewan Pearson and Ivan Smagghe about it, as they’ve both played back to back sets with him. Ewan asked me how I felt about it and I told him I was shitting myself. He replied ‘Yep, so was I.’ Ivan was exactly the same.” Yet, the balance that exists between the ALFOS duo is a key component of their collaboration. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” says Johnston. “It’s interesting when I play something Andrew would never play and it works, then he has to kind of run with that. It’s an interesting dynamic playing as a pair. Ewan Pearson said that it was like waltzing, or playing chess – it’s fun.” Sean Johnston and Andrew Weatherall bring A Love From Outer Space to The Annexe, Edinburgh, 3 May

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THE SKINNY

DJ Chart: Wardy & Dom D’Sylva (La Cheetah Club) As they prepare to host legendary selector Theo Parrish, La Cheetah residents Wardy and Dom D’Sylva each share five records well worthy of your attention Interview: Ronan Martin

n recent years, Glasgow’s La Cheetah Club have consistently turned heads with their increasingly ambitious events programming. Whether they’re bringing in relatively untapped local talent or luring well-established names to their basement dwelling, the club continues to cement its status as one of the most reliable venues around. On 3 May they welcome peerless deep house producer and effortlessly versatile DJ Theo Parrish back to the club, almost exactly a year after he lifted the roof of the venue with a four hour whirlwind of funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop, expertly woven through a patchwork of house sounds from his hometown of Detroit and his native Chicago. Ahead of Parrish’s return, club residents Wardy and Dom D’Sylva dig into their record bags to select ten tracks that have been doing the damage for them recently.

Delroy Edwards – Drop Dead [L.I.E.S] This one is out on the ever-reliable L.I.E.S label. Delroy’s tracks are a refreshing take on the ghetto -house sound. A definite dancefloor destroyer!

WARDY Anthony Naples – Faceless [Rubadub] This whole EP’s amazing! Anthony Naples seems incapable of making an average tune. The Mister Saturday Night EPs have been on heavy rotation since they came out and this one will be no different. I chose this track as it’s got a bit of a summery vibe to it. I can see it going down a treat in the club.

Urban Tribe - Program 1 [Mahogani Music] KDJ, Carl Craig, Shake and DJ Stingray on top form here. This track is a complete destroyer. I just wish it was longer!

Photonz – 1551 [Unknown To The Unknown] Unknown To The Unknown is an absolute gem of a label. Anyone releasing Photonz tunes knows what they’re talking about as far as I’m concerned. As with every Photonz production, this sounds completely unique. But you can tell it’s them within the first eight bars. Theo Parrish – Sweet Sticky [Peacefrog] In anticipation of his return, it’s rare that a day goes past when a Theo tune doesn’t get played in my gaff. It’s too hard to pick a favourite, but Sweet Sticky has really been doing it for me of late. It starts off so sparse and builds into this funky, repetitive belter.

Lidell Townsell – Nu Nu [Mercury] Since we started [The House Sound of Chicago] nights in the club I’ve been listening to as much Chicago-related music as I can get my ears round! This one’s an old favourite. It’s so simple but so effective! Just those drums under the vocal are all it needs. It always gets a good reaction. DOM D’SYLVA Theo Parrish – Overyohead [Sound Signature] This has been my favourite Theo production for a long time and possibly always will be. From the outset, the chord progression fills you with a sense of purpose and what follows is just over 12 minutes of bliss. That piano hook is pretty dope too!

Dungeon Acid - The Wait [Unreleased] I’ve been into this for a while now. It’s quite aptly named too, seeing as I’ve been waiting quite some time for it to be released. Be sure to check out the video too, it’s fucking great! This one’s for the creeps. Andrea Parker - Melodious Thunk [Mo’ Wax] I started with this the last time I played out and a few folk asked what it was. So here’s a reminder in case they forgot! It was originally released in 96 on Mo’ Wax. I just had to check the sleeve for that nugget of wisdom. Every day’s a school day! Polarius - Fly The Chopper [Bunker] Polarius is one of the many pseudonyms taken by Danny Wolfers, better known as Legowelt. This track is a no-messing, jacking dancefloor killer. You should check out everything this man has had his hand in since he can do little or no wrong. A truly inspired producer. Theo Parrish, La Cheetah, Glasgow, 3 May

May 2013

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May Film Events

Glasgow Film Theatre brings the best worst movies available to its screens this month, Institut Français d’Ecosse have a season of Gallic film noir and Dundead returns to DCA with a heaven-sent De Palma retrospective Words: Becky Bartlett & Jamie Dunn Something in the Air

Something in the Air (Après mai)

A Hijacking

rrrrr

Director: Olivier Assayas Starring: Clément Métayer, Lola Créton, Hugo Conzelmann, Léa Rougeron, Félix Armand, Carole Combes, India Salvor Menuez Released: 24 May Certificate: 15

Director: Tobias Lindholm Starring: Johan Philip Asbæk, Søren Malling, Gary Porter, Abdihakin Asgar, Dar Salim, Released: 10 May Certificate: 15

Set in 1971, Something in the Air is French filmmaker Olivier Assayas’s ebullient tribute to the kids who had to follow in the footsteps of those student firebrands who helped bring his country to a standstill in the summer of 1968. It centres on Gilles (Métayer), a mop-haired teen who wants to change the world but doesn’t quite know how. Political, artistic, nonchalantly handsome – he’s essentially the kind of gloriously pretentious Frenchman that would send knees quivering if he turned up at your secondary school on a cross-channel exchange. Gilles is clearly a thinly veiled version of Assayas, who also missed out on the generation-defining strikes of 68 (he would have been thirteen at the time), and authentic autobiographical detail is what makes Something in the Air sing. Politics with a big ‘P’ can often drown cinema, but in Assayas’s sure hands the moving image wins out. By the film’s end individual expression has trumped political collectivism and his onscreen stand-in has channelled his political ardour into personal filmmaking rather than agitprop. [Jamie Dunn]

The understated manner in which the taking of a cargo ship occurs in A Hijacking is indicative of Tobias Lindholm’s approach to the subject. He avoids the scenes you’d expect to see in a film like this; he veers away from sensationalism at every opportunity, and instead immerses us in the minutiae of a painfully protracted negotiation. As Danish chef Mikkel (Johan Philip Asbæk) and his shipmates cower under the guns of Somali pirates, his company’s CEO Peter (Søren Malling) attempts to haggle them down with the assistance of a professional hostage negotiator (Gary Porter, who really does this for a living). Watching this back-and-forth play out is astonishingly tense, with the actors performing as if their lives really are on the line, and Lindholm uses this scenario to make potent points about the class divide and corporate responsibility. Lindholm and editor Adam Nielsen expertly capture the agonising sense of time – and hope –slowly slipping away. When the credits roll, you may feel as if you too have been released from captivity. [Philip Concannon]

Byzantium

Gimme the Loot

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Director: Neil Jordan Starring: Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, Sam Riley, Caleb Landry Jones Released: 31 May Certificate: 15

Director: Adam Leon Starring: Ty Hickson, Tashiana Washington, Meeko, Zoë Lescaze Released: 3 May Certificate: TBC

Neil Jordan loves a myth. His best movies (The Crying Game, Mona Lisa, The Company of Wolves) are dreamy fairy tales with one toe in reality. The sensual and stunningly beautiful Byzantium continues this tradition. The film concerns two vampires who’ve been on the run for two centuries and opens with two murders that neatly summarise our heroines’ characters. Clara (Arterton) is an old-school, Hammer-style vamp: sexy, violent and handy with a cheese wire. Elenor (Ronan), an etherial 200-yearold trapped in a teenage body, would be more at home in Twilight ’s emouniverse. When she feeds it’s to euthanise the terminaly ill. This is probably what initially draws her to the peely-wally Frank (eccentrically played by Jones), with whom she begins a wistful romance. Byzantium is more interesting in Clara’s company, however. Jordan sporadically flashes back to a fascinating origin story that imagines her as an immortal suffragette born into a chauvinistic brotherhood of the undead. The film often meanders, but these delicious moment of surprise and invention more than compensate. [Jamie Dunn]

In Adam Leon’s debut feature, two teenaged graffiti artists, Malcolm (Hickson) and Sofia (Washington), attempt to leave their mark on an iconic monument at a New York baseball stadium. Needing $500 to pay off stadium security, the pair manoeuvre through a myriad of loosely-conceived schemes and disparate characters over 48 hours, from flirtations with over-privileged slackers to break-ins with irritable tattooed thieves. Recalling the energy of early Cassavetes and Linklater, plus the latter’s fondness for eccentric conversations, Leon’s film has a lot of warmth, both in character interaction and the evocative capturing of a New York rarely portrayed in contemporary cinema. Bolstered by a low-key but assured aesthetic and a soundtrack of vintage soul and doo-wop, the film is infectiously enjoyable, with frequently amusing insights and an affable shagginess. Though its protagonists’ capers repeatedly prove hapless, Gimme the Loot is less about the goal – or even graffiti – than the entertaining camaraderie of the aspirational duo and the irrational lengths they are willing to go for each other. [Josh Slater-Williams]

I’m So Excited!

Village at the End of the World

Director: Pedro Almodóvar Starring: Javier Cámara, Raúl Arévalo, Carlos Areces, Lola Dueñas, Cecilia Roth Released: 3 May Certificate: 15

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After making an unsettling and memorable foray into thriller territory with The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar’s new film feels like a conscious attempt to recapture the spirit of his earlier comedic films. A cast of Almodóvar regulars play the eccentric passengers and cabin crew who find themselves on board a potentially doomed flight, but while they all bring commendable energy to their parts, the coincidences and revelations that the director’s stories have always been built on feel particularly strained here. The gags – many of which lean heavily on tiresome gay stereotypes – are frequent but they only provoke the occasional chuckle, and Almodóvar’s decision to play rape for laughs is astoundingly misguided, creating a sense of discomfort that is at odds with the breezy tone. I’m So Excited is a broad, raunchy farce that sometimes threatens to develop into a Buñuelian satire on Spain’s ruling classes, but it ends up looking like a disappointingly half-baked effort from a director whose body of work has entitled us to expect much more. [Philip Concannon]

Review

Director: Sarah Gavron Released: 10 May Certificate: 12A

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Many small-town teens dream of moving to the big city, but few experience as profound an isolation as sixteen-year-old Lars. Living in the remote Inuit settlement of Niaqornat in northern Greenland, peers are few and options limited. “We don’t have internet cafes, hotels or restaurants,” he explains. “We only have the shop” – a small convenience store serving the settlement’s 59 residents, and one of the few employers left in a village facing an uncertain future due to its ever-dwindling population. Filmed over an 18-month period, director Sarah Gavron focuses in on a handful of those that remain, piecing together an absorbing documentary portrait of everyday life in an extreme environment. The community’s attempts to kick-start their prospects by purchasing an abandoned fish factory provide a kind of overarching narrative, but it’s the vignettes proffered along the way – from whale butchery to springtime celebrations – that make Gavron’s film so fascinating. Beautifully-shot and purposely unsentimental, Village… is an insightful study of lives in transition. [Chris Buckle]

FILM

Body Double

veryone loves a bad movie and Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) is screening three of the very worst this month. First there’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (10 May), which features the last footage of horror legend Bela Lugosi. This movie, directed by lovable Z-movie hack Edward D. Wood Jr, is so ineptly made (a chiropractor unconvincingly stands in as Lugosi’s double, wobbly flying saucers are courtesy of a hobby kit) that some critics have claimed it an avant-garde masterpiece. There’s a double-bill on 12 May, when Troll 2, a film without any trolls in it, shows alongside documentary Best Worst Movie, which examines just how and why the former is so popular. Finally, Tommy Wiseau’s melodrama The Room returns on 24 May; don’t forget to bring plastic spoons. Institut Français d’Ecosse in Edinburgh is hosting a French noir season, screening film adaptations of novels by crime author Auguste Le Breton. Rififi (14 May), a gripping 1955 heist thriller famous for a half-hour robbery sequence that takes place in near-silence, is proceeded by a special Q&A session with Pierre Fourniaud, General Director of the French publishing house La Manufacture de Livres. The season also includes Chnouf (21 May), Bob the Gambler (28 May), and The Sicilian Clan (4 Jun). DCA in Dundee, GFT, and Grosvenor in Glasgow are hosting a special screening of Shane Meadows’ documentary The Stone Roses: Made of Stone on 30 May. The band reformed after 16 years in 2012, and Meadows was on hand to capture the preparations for their eagerly anticipated reunion gigs at Heaton Park in Manchester. These screenings include live satellite red carpet footage, and are followed by a Q&A session with the director and ‘special guests.’ BAFTA Scotland and Glasgow Film Office present a special event, the BAFTA Masterclass, at the CCA in Glasgow on 16 May, examining why the city has become such a popular film location, having been used in productions of such American films as Cloud Atlas, World War Z, and Fast & Furious 6. The event, a lively panel discussion, is sure to be both interesting and informative. Dundead returns to DCA 2-5 May. As well as the usual line-up of classics (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), UK premières (Would You Rather) and mint-fresh horrors (John Dies at the End, The Lords of Salem, Kiss of the Damned), Dundead is having a mini retrospective of America’s finest living filmmaker, Brian De Palma. The trio of the films screening are BDP’s giddy horror-cum-sexcomedy Dressed to Kill, feverish political thriller Blow Out and his insane meta-Hitchcock homage Body Double.

THE SKINNY

Sacrifice

The Last Stand

Gangster Squad

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Director: Chen Kaige Starring: Wang Xueqi, Ge You, Hai Qing Released: 27 May Certificate: 15 If there’s one thing that we learn from this historical epic from director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) it is that if revenge is a dish best served cold (15 years cold in this case), its preparation should also be fiendishly complicated. Indeed, so tortuous is the plan of mild-mannered doctor Chen Ying to avenge the terrible wrong that was done to him by the warlord Tu Angu that, when the climax is reached, the revenger spends a whole scene explaining (with flashbacks) his logic to the revengee. Ultimately, neither looks convinced. Like other big budget Chinese historical dramas, Sacrifice is made on a truly grand scale; sets are vast and beautifully detailed, costumes exquisite, and the extras multitudinous. Scenes of assassination and fighting are dramatically and lovingly staged, and Wang Xueqi is a powerful, sullen presence as Tu Angu. But these state-approved productions remain carefully and reverentially locked in the past and divorced from the life and energy of contemporary China. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

Director: Kim Jee-Woon Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville Released: 27 May Certificate: 15 “I’ll give the sheriff a call to tell him to get out of the way.” When a psychopathic cartel boss is sprung from custody in Las Vegas and races towards the Mexican border in a souped-up supercar with teams of killers running interference for him, the FBI warn the lawman of the sleepy border town that lies in his path to stand aside. What they don’t realise is that this particular sheriff has a past... This decent comeback vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger, fresh from his previous role as the Governator of California, is directed with some nice car-crunching flourishes by South Korean genre maestro Kim Jee-woon, including an exciting cat-and-mouse chase through a field of corn. The focus of the film, however, is always on Arnie who remains an impressively granitic presence despite his protestations of old age. Although the accent seems to have mellowed, he still lumbers through his dialogue with the panache of a Speak-and-Spell low on batteries. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

Not much liked by the critics on its theatrical release, Gangster Squad’s account of the creation of a extra-legal LAPD team to take down mob boss Mickey Cohen in postwar Los Angeles perhaps suffered because it covered the same ground as James Ellroy’s influential LA Quartet. But where Ellroy’s novels, and the films derived from them, owe their pervasive atmosphere of corruption and moral ambiguity to film noir, Gangster Squad channels the more straightforward world of the gangster B-movie and Dragnet, where the line between the good guys and the bad guys is always clear. Viewed in this light the film is an enjoyable, slick, violent, and lightweight pastiche, where the all-star cast play characters who can be summed up in a single line of dialogue (Josh Brolin’s ex-army police captain is described as “A bull in a china shop” and that’s really all you need to know). It’s also fun to see a ludicrously miscast Sean Penn hamming it up unashamedly as arch-gangster Cohen. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

Quartet

The Unbelievable Truth

Hors Satan

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Director: Dustin Hoffman Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Released: 6 May Certificate: 12 Dustin Hoffman’s shameless Bafta-bait arrives on DVD and is a pleasant diversion, if ultimately lacking in substance. Maggie Smith leads an all-star cast as a retired opera singer struggling to adjust to life in a nursing home for professional musicians, including her estranged ex-husband. A piece like this depends on character actors and Hoffman brings together some of the best Britain has to offer, including Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay and Billy Connelly. A faint plot about an upcoming concert is more of an excuse to get these actors on screen together as much as possible and they’re always entertaining. Only Pauline Collins can’t seem to find the right note as the principal comic relief battling with senility. The meatier elements of growing old, and the loss of talent and dignity, are only superficially dealt with; but Smith commands every scene and it has an undeniable warmth that’s hard to ignore. [Scotty McKellar]

Director: Hal Hartley Starring: Adrienne Shelley, Robert John Burke, Chris Cooke Released: 27 May Certificate: 15 Audry feels, and looks, like the heroine of a Nouvelle Vague film who is trapped in the very ordinary surroundings of a Long Island suburb in the late 1980s. She obsesses about the hollowness of existence and the threat of nuclear conflagration, wears black and has an uncanny resemblance to the young Bardot. So it is inevitable that, after she dumps her proto-yuppie boyfriend, she becomes fascinated by Josh, an older man who has returned to the neighbourhood after a long and enforced absence. For not only does he wear a black polo neck, he also has ‘a history.’ What saves Hal Ashby’s 1989 debut from being as annoying as his heroine is his deft undercutting of any pretentiousness with some lovely comic and absurdist set pieces, from running gags and bedroom farce, to a bizarre circular conversation and the unexplained reappearance of a minor character. A warm and witty love story for what might just be the end of the world. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

Win T in the Park Tickets Plus Return Travel with Citylink!

Fresh from being crowned International Music Festival of the Year, Scotland’s biggest music festival, T in the Park is back for its 20th year with an epic line-up of some of the world’s hottest musical talent. Heading to Kinross over 12-14 July are headliners Mumford & Sons, Rihanna and The Killers plus electronic pioneers Kraftwerk, Foals, alt-J, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Frightened Rabbit, Villagers, CHVRCHES, Richie Hawtin, Laurent Garnier and many more. Be part of the greatest audience in the world and experience the 20th year of T in the Park – get tickets now from www.tinthepark.com. Thanks to festival organisers DF Concerts and founding partner Tennent’s Lager, we’re giving one lucky winner and a mate the chance to experience the 20th year of T in the Park with a pair of weekend camping tickets and return travel with Citylink!

April 2013

Director: Ruben Fleischer Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone Released: 27 May Certificate: 15

To enter, just go to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and tell us which year T in the Park was first held. Is it: A) 1992 B) 1993 C) 1994 Entrants must be 18 or over. Competition closes midnight Friday 31 May. Winner will be notified within two working days and are required to respond within one week or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Full details of terms and conditions can be found at www.theskinny.co.uk/about.terms For more updates from The T Lady visit: www.tinthepark.com For the facts about alcohol: www.drinkaware.co.uk Citylink travel is valid from designated Citylink depots

Director: Bruno Dumont Starring: David Dewaele, Alexandra Lemâtre, Christophe Bon Released: 13 May Certificate: 15 No one goes to French filmmaker Bruno Dumont for easy answers or anything approaching ‘fun.’ His oeuvre is marked by an ascetic aesthetic, employed to serve sober themes – and Hors Satan may be his most inscrutable work yet. Precise meanings may be elusive, but there’s more to comprehension than whos, whats and whys, and by the final scene, Dumont’s meditation on good and evil has punctured through its recondite shell to leave an indubitable mark. Visually striking throughout, Dumont contrasts rural tranquillity with shocking violence and abnormal sexual encounters, including one scene in which the unnamed male protagonist sleeps with a backpacker, only for her to disturbingly growl and froth at the mouth in response – a reaction that may signify euphoria, but could equally indicate something more unsavoury. You won’t necessarily understand every frame, but you won’t easily forget them either. [Chris Buckle]

Win Tickets to Knockengorroch World Ceilidh!

Whether you hail from Scotland, Pangea, Middle Earth or Mars, make the journey into the southern uplands and gather where all are one, under the brightest stars in the UK (certified). With music and more from near, far and everywhere in between, it's the biggest bite-able sized festival in any mountain valley in Alba. Come and be huge with us! Our 16th year's line-up includes Asian Dub Foundation, Breabach, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Luke Vibert, Congo Natty (aka Rebel MC) with Tenor Fly, Slamboree, Headmix Collective, The Correspondents, Federation of the Disco Pimp, The Old Dance School, Sheelanagig, Vibronics, Mungo’s Hi Fi Sound System, The Bevvy Sisters, Krar Collective, Freddy Frogs, Morphamish and The Mezzanine Allstars, cabaret, spoken word, comedy, workshops, kids area,

FILM / COMPETITIONS

sessions, sauna, dance and more. To be in with a chance of winning a pair of weekend tickets to Knockengorroch, Thu 23-Sun 26 May 2013, go to www.theskinny. co.uk/competitions and correctly answer this question: In what year was the first Knockengorroch festival held? A) 2008 B) 1998 C) 1958 D) 1898 Competition closes midnight Sun 19 May, 2013. Winners will be notified within two working days of closing and required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Full details and competition T&Cs can be found at www.theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

Review

Nicolas Party

The Modern Institute, until 8 May

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In one of the still lifes alluded to in the misleadingly sober title of Nicolas Party’s solo show, Still Life oil paintings and Landscape watercolours, a strip of green grass lies under a vibrant red area. Though barely touching – meeting only to form a straight horizon – visually they’re battering each other. This is the slippery ground for a vase of the world’s most menacing-looking flowers, which took two years of painstaking intuition to imagine and paint. The time it takes to get just right the disarming simultaneity with which every petal turns to face you, the self-conscious spectator. The still lifes’ brightly coloured and economically geometric aesthetic brings to mind in equal measure Hockney, Léger, de Chirico and the OTT three-dimensionality of CAD models. Emphasising this graphic element, a pinched oval motif (see physics textbook illustrations of the double convex lens) repeats itself industriously and hypnotically across almost every wall in the

gallery. Following one particular wall’s path of sorbet yellows and reds, this enticing trail of lemons and strawberries leads to... the toilet. Punctuating the flow of the decorated walls downstairs are two dusky charcoal murals of an undulating, otherworldly forest. Upstairs, these nighttime woods shrink and blush spectacularly into the gumdrop spectrum of Party’s dark confectionary of watercolours. These neatly rendered, medium scale works on paper are the neon mouth-watering hallucinations of a dehydrated Disney prince, long-lost in an already enchanted forest. Leave, look up and down. A new habit: floor and ceiling are Party’s few designated quiet spaces. What’s this renewed pleasure in the intersecting forms of cramped Glaswegian architecture, or that doorway’s three leafy spheres of green balancing precariously on a red cubed plant pot? This strange, mild delirium is the invisible souvenir of Party’s infectious fervour. Those patterns are a pox! [Adam Benmakhlouf] www.themoderninstitute.com

Cough em if they can’t take a choke Verge

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What do you get when two Scotsmen, a Mexican and a Welsh woman spend three weeks together in a gallery space in Govan? Well, a pretty good show, actually. The residency by Jon Thomson, John Nicol, Carla Novi and Gwenan Davies culminates in an entertaining exhibition about identity, experimentation and the nature of humour. Setting the tone, the exterior window bears an utterly surreal handwritten joke, playing on the aforementioned classic joke prelude and making reference to other clichéd joke lines and cultural stereotypes. Inside, among a jumble of cacti, crickets, comedy sunglasses, cocktails and kissing, the gallery is overrun with impressively stacked towers of beer mats; perhaps a token of the time spent in each other’s company, hours of thinking and drinking. A number of video works on TV monitors show footage of moments captured in the space. On one, John Nicol sits in the gallery window

playing a silly beat on a tiny keyboard to a pattern generated by the unsuspecting public as they traverse the pedestrian crossing. This spontaneous game summarises the general feeling of the show – intuitive and refreshingly playful. A second screen shows Carla Novi attempt to tell a joke in her native tongue, but bursts of red-cheeked laughter prevent her from reaching the punch-line. On a third, clad in a Mexican wrestling mask (but an unlikely wrestling candidate), Jon Thompson scales walls in order to combat a static beer mat tower. The looped repetition of these relentlessly ridiculous scenarios gives everyone uncontrollable giggles, and it’s not just because the Govana Libres are flowing. There is no attempt to draw contrived relationships – instead, the artists start from scratch to produce something that is impulsive and entirely the product of the group as a collaborative entity. It may have only scraped the surface in its investigation into human nature, but it made me laugh. A lot. [Emma Ewan] Glasgow Artist Studios www.ga-studios.co.uk

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Sarah Wright: Operation Inkjet Interview: Jac Mantle

or anyone who’s studied at art school, the world is a wearying minefield of cultural signs and texts – cross them at your peril. Art made in delicate pastel pinks and yellows, for instance, is burdened by age-old associations with femininity. Few artists take on this baggage and instead play it safe. One who hasn’t refused the candy is Karla Black, whose powdered paper and cellophane creations enveloped an already ornate palazzo like perfumed and gift-wrapped confections at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Returning from her visit to the show, printmaker Sarah Wright immediately bought five packs of pastel-hued paper, determined to lighten her work and get some colour into it. The influence of Black’s palette is evident as I visit Wright in her home studio, where the floor is covered in A4 inkjet prints in pretty shades. Experiments with paper marbling, multiple variations of an upside down image of ballet dancers, and reproduced magazine images layered up with painted marks and then reprinted, cover the laminate floor. Incongruous among them squats a black plastic beast, the inkjet printer central to Wright’s process. “I work really directly with the printer, so I’ll sit on the floor, put the memory card in and go

through the images, print them out, put them back through again,” she explains. “I just try and respond to them as they’re being made, rather than knowing what the finished piece will look like.” Wright’s images are sourced from books and magazines, a fashion model’s head or women in paintings. She assembles these on the wall with other objects – found mirrors or ceramic tiles – in an arrangement she describes as a kind of visual poem, as in the work she recently showed in the Glue Factory exhibition Print Process. For her show at Glasgow Print Studio she’ll also use flat images and mirrors, again with the idea of making a visual vocabulary. She likens the elements to spoken words or vocal textures, rather than the left-to-right of a Western written language. Within the “rubbishy inkjet prints” are vestiges of time-honoured fine art techniques – a monoprint enlarged beyond recognition overlays the ballet dancers, for example. “At art school I spent so long trying to paint and then afterwards realised that maybe the subject was painting, rather than the medium I used,” Wright explains. Other images have been made by painting directly onto the copier bed and printing copies of book jackets – images which look like they’re painted, but have never

touched the paint. “I guess I’ve always reproduced painted marks, trying to undermine the unique painted mark,” she tells me. We talk about influences and Wright shows me books on RH Quaytman and Wade Guyton, joking that she’s subconsciously just copying all Guyton’s work, even using his motifs in a cushion design at a workshop she took recently. Influence of interior design is also evident in Wright’s prints, perhaps underscoring a crossover of visual art printmaking with textile design in the city that seems increasingly prominent lately – designers and artists showing in the same spaces, such as the Print Process show. Like Wright’s use of whatever images and motifs she encounters, perhaps her choice of palette is less a statement and more a reflection of these art-design crossovers. “I see a lot of pastel colours at the moment. I don’t know if it’s a conscious decision. These are considered feminine but I don’t know if that’s why I chose them.” The beauty of her process is, if the colour comes out wrong she can always print them again. You can view and buy Sarah Wright’s prints at the Glasgow Print Studio, 3 May-2 Jun. Glasgow Print Studio operates the Own Art scheme, offering an interest free loan to spread the cost of buying original work over ten months

Sarah Wright, Tic Tac Toe, inkjet print on paper, 2013

www.ownart.org.uk

Galleries across Scotland are members of the Own Art scheme. By offering interest-free loans of £100-£2,000 through Own Art, buying an original piece of quality contemporary art or craft couldn’t be easier. For more information about Own Art and a list of participating galleries see the Own Art website: www.ownart.org.uk

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

Look for the pink logo. (representative 0% APR)

249 West George Street Glasgow G2 4QE

Review

ART

THE SKINNY

New Contemporaries RSA, until 8 May

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One could be forgiven for assuming that emerging into a turbulent artworld rife with under-employment and plummeting levels of governmental support might be somewhat demoralising; however, a year down the line from degree shows, these artists seem fairly unscathed. This year’s New Contemporaries sees the sinister sides to corporate life, the military, and religious dogma all carefully dissected with a skeptical wit and verve. Notions of shifting landscapes, cultural heritage and environmental design are explored with intelligence. The whole shebang is dutifully garnished with a healthy attitude to a crappy state of affairs. Amid the clamouring of the sacred and the profane, three outstanding works of formal sculpture by Tim Sandys act as silent sentinels. The wall-mounted hulks of velveteen rust, sandwiched wood and cakey, smeared grease evince a rigorous understanding of medium and a lightness of touch which unsettles their mass. In a nearby space, The Skinny Award winner Alexander Millar riffs on Neoclassical motifs borrowed from his backdrop, using a gallery bench as a prop, form and pattern echoing throughout his quirky tableau. His pared-back use of material is reminiscent of Claire Barclay, but the shrivelled, pregnant forms of aubergines assert themselves as his own, articulating a certain fadedgrandeur as hoops of colour bleed from their form like a failed chromatography experiment. The moody printmaking of Amy Gear resonates with a soulful ‘Northern’ authenticity, reflecting on landscape and the weight of ancestral responsibility. Densely textured and stitched drawings support an enormous ‘eclipse’ of velvety-thick rubbed paper created especially for – and successfully dominating – a high-walled room in the upper galleries. Likewise striking and technically masterful

BOOK OF THE MONTH Laidlaw

By William McIlvanney

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It has been said that there is not a single Scottish crime writer publishing today who does not owe William McIlvanney and his eponymous hero, Laidlaw, a stylistic debt – if that is true, prepare to be thrilled by this re-release of the character’s debut, a novel which comes on like the raw, distilled spirit of these latter-day writers’ work. McIlvanney paints an acutely socially aware picture of 1970s Glasgow; grimy, dilapidated, but vibrant. Perspective shifts frequently – we see through the eyes of the young killer, before meeting a rogues gallery of small-time crooks, grizzled hard men and elegantly dressed gangsters. Then there is Detective Jack Laidlaw himself: fearsomely intellectual, much maligned, he does not suffer fools gladly. He’s a compelling protagonist; a humanist, empathic detective with a strong moral compass in a city of always-incipient violence. The plot, which follows the city-wide hunt for a damaged young killer, is gripping and sensitively handled. But the novel’s central pleasure is in the rich cadences of McIlvanney’s west coast dialogue, the dogged persistence of Laidlaw, and the portrait of a darker, grittier Glasgow. His tough, vivid prose combines the sardonic wit and stark economy of Chandler with the authenticity and artfulness of his own much-admired nongenre work. The DNA of all Scottish crime fiction is here. [Bram E. Gieben]

are Ibraheem Adeyemi Adesina’s monochrome etching/linocuts, which ruminate on an ancient world colonised by the creeping shadows of intensive farming and energy-harvesting. Scottish wildstock mingle freely with those of the African plains in a stark culture-clash landscape peppered with oilrigs, turbines and solar panels, like Donald Trump’s feverish nightmares. A pleasing exception to the relative scarcity of time-based media in this year’s show, Nick Thomas presents us with an impressively succinct installation, evoking the eerie half-seen presence of military technology with a Heath Robinson-esque charm. A whirling ‘wireless’ emitting the tinny drama of Classic FM underscores our placid acquiescence to surveillance and control. In the ‘library’, Theresa Moerman Ib speaks softly of memory and redundance; the precarious balance between our material and personal lives. By her hand, obsolete audio tapes are spun into new strings for a sad old guitar and the artists’ own teardrops are preserved: a salty tribute of banal pathos. It’s not all doleful downstairs: Sarah Louise Alexander gets all jazz-hands on us with a playful deliberation on the nature of entertainment, expectation and coercion: one leaves her spangly labyrinth feeling manipulated yet distracted by the Wonder Woman-esque gold ribbon which is yours to take away – hooray! Glitter-magpies may be equally drawn to orifice-fond Laura Duncan’s reprise of Courbet’s erotic masterwork L’Origine du Monde – womankind is vajazzled towards empowerment through unabashed human sexuality. Finally, we are invited to enter another space beyond the typical reach of sunshine in Liam McLaughlin’s Bucklemaker Court, a thoughtfully-constructed blackout chamber which houses a delicate meditation on ‘communal isolation’ within the decaying relics of social housing. It is important to remember that this

AMY GEAR: GYO (2013) COURTESY THE ARTIST

exhibition is not only a showcase but a barometer for the state of art, politics, and discourse in Scotland. If the pervasive mood of anxiety and cynicism are symptomatic of these difficult times, then New Contemporaries may also represent its antidote: a cohort of confident emergent

Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That’s Changing How the World Gets High

The Humans By Matt Haig

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artists, ready to tackle difficult subjects with a pithy wit and an often masterful handling of material. [Kate Andrews] www.royalscottishacademy.org

Best of Young British Novelists 4 By Various

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By Mike Power

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Like its subject matter – at least as self-confessed popper Mike Power would have us believe – Drugs 2.0 is stimulating, providing a timeline of chemical development from the first archaeological drug discovery in Thailand, to the state-ofplay in today’s online market. It is clear Power believes drugs have been, and continue to be, revolutionised by the web – his thorough and informative research providing plenty of proof to support his theories. Drugs 2.0 achieves a middlebrow, none-too-chemically-inconvenienced style of writing which means the less savvy among us can understand everything, right down to the molecular structure of Phenethylamine – which by the by, is a psychedelic. However, as entertaining at times as the book is to read – Power has positioned it as a stable intellectual investment, looking into the positives and negatives of consumption – it is certainly no tool of seduction for the uninitiated. What the book does ask is if drugs have won the ‘War on Drugs.’ With astonishing discoveries and alarming facts, Drugs 2.0 is a must-read for anyone interested in pharmaceuticals, popular culture or the ever-changing face of the web. [Amy Balloch] Out 2 May, published by Portobello, RRP £14.99

Any writer who can fuse maths and peanut butter in his opening paragraph is a certified genius in his own right. In his book, Matt Haig introduces us to a character whose magnificent mind has solved history’s greatest mathematical puzzle. Unfortunately for Cambridge professor Andrew Martin, the Vonnadoreans, an advanced civilisation from a distant planet, can’t let loose such dangerous knowledge on the primitive, violent and greedy earthlings. Professor Martin is blitzed, and his body inhabited by an alien whose mission is to destroy the professor’s nearest and dearest. Prof. Martin 2.0 must infiltrate his adopted family without arousing suspicion. But his arrest for parading through Cambridge in the buff suggests he has a lot to learn about life on earth. Things are further complicated when the phoney Prof. develops an all too human fondness for his family, Emily Dickinson and a dog called Newton. Cleverly straddling the playful and the profound, the book’s observations on the things we take for granted can be startling. There’s great beauty in the protagonist’s consideration of love, while an outsider’s reflection on the pointlessness of the working week had this reviewer reaching for the diazepam. In short, a mathematics book that actually counts. [James Carson] Out 9 May, published by Canongate, RRP £12.99

Once a decade, since 1983, Granta has compiled a list of the 20 best British novelists under the age of 40. Accompanying the announcement is a volume featuring a short piece of work from each selected writer. This year’s selection differs from previous decades in that, for the first time, we find a majority of women dominating the list. In addition there is a truly international flavour to what is in the collection; an acknowledgement of the multiple diasporas any sort of modern idea of Britishness must include. We see this in Kamila Shamsie’s Vipers, an excerpt from her forthcoming novel about the experience of British Indian soldiers fighting in Europe during WWII. David Szalay’s Europa is an examination of the strange relationships that develop through human traficking and prostituion in London. Many of the stories take place outside of Britain itself, such as Ned Beauman’s Glow, or Evie Wyld’s After the Hedland. Jenni Fagan envisions a Britain on the verge of enviromental collapse; Londoners fleeing the bursting banks of an overflowing Thames. Putting aside the Britishness of the collection however, it is the quality of the writing which will define this generation, and the quality is very very good. [Ryan Rushton] Out now, published by Granta, RRP £12.99. Read an interview with Jenni Fagan on p21

Published 2 May, published by Canongate, RRP £7.99

May 2013

ART / BOOKS

Review

Mayfesto 2013

Invisible Empire

Summerhall, 10&11 May When Company of Wolves offered the work in progress Invisible Empire as part of The Surge Festival in 2012, they came across as a sort of performance art super-group: members of the cast came from across Glasgow’s lively dance, drama and musical communities and their style matched the polyphonic rigour of Polish companies like Song of The Goat against tropes recognisable from Caledonian contemporary performance. Although the line-up has changed, the version about to be unveiled at Summerhall retains this eclecticism: the presence of Maite Delafin (herself a star from a previous Edinburgh Fringe) and Tom Pritchard (perhaps best known as a tireless champion of improvised dance) mark The Wolves’ interest in the physical, while director and co-founder Ewan Downie was a member of Song of the Goat for their award-winning Macbeth. Invisible Empire isn’t just about the experimental technique: it looks at the psychology of conformity and rebellion, and explores how alienation can provoke the individual towards acts of resistance. While it is difficult to pigeonhole the company’s format – it draws on dance and movement but includes the music on a far more integrated and visceral level than much choreography – they avoid the traps of scripted theatre: language becomes another tool of communication, working in tandem with the body to transmit an emotional, and immediate, message. If the title might suggest the conspiracy inflected theories surrounding the New World Order, Invisible Empire promises to represent the power of justification and the possibility of taking a stand against the forces that force themselves upon the late consumer... [Jack Booth]

Tron Theatre, 1-20 May

www.companyofwolves.org.uk

Gyuri Sarossy and Pearl Chanda in The Seagull

The Seagull

of the Moscow Art Theatre, led by famous actordirector Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov thought of The Seagull as a comedy, While Shakespeare’s output was prolific and but it’s not what is normally considered comedy. Beckett and Ibsen’s output hardly inconsiderIt’s neither a gag fest nor does it end in marriage: able, Chekhov achieved greatness on the basis of rather The Seagull is comedic in the way that real just four plays, generally considered as modern life is painfully laughable. The characters go about theatrical masterpieces. The Seagull is the first of their everyday lives but bubbling under the surface his quartet. Written in 1895 and performed in St hearts are breaking and worlds are crashing apart. Petersburg one year later it was a complete failThe Seagull takes place on a country estate ure. However, its second production in 1898 was and follows the lives and loves of a family and appreciated by its audience and launched both their friends. It focuses on the actress Arkadina, Chekhov’s career as a dramatist and the prestige her lover the writer Trigorin, her son Trepliov and The Citizens, 1-11 May

Preview

his love, the aspiring actress Nina, but the play is essentially an ensemble piece. First performed in the UK by the Glasgow Repertory Theatre in 1909, 2013 sees a new version of the play by writer John Donnelly which is co-produced by Headlong, who recently staged a modern version of Medea at the Citizens Theatre last year. Blanche McIntyre, named Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards in 2011, directs. [Susannah Radford] Various times and prices www.headlong.co.uk/work/seagull/tour

THEATRE

Photo: Tristram Kenton

Photo: McAteer

he Tron Theatre launches its summer season with Mayfesto – Glasgow’s new theatre festival since 2010. Mayfesto 2013 examines the theme of identity from as many angles as possible, with 15 events over 19 days. “I’m a great believer in providing occasions to have a celebration of theatre,” explains Andy Arnold, the artistic director responsible for creating the festival in 2010. It is focused heavily around new work, works in progress, and the spoken word. Partly political in nature, the idea for Mayfesto stemmed from the original Mayfest as set up in 1983. May as a month seemed appropriate as it is both “the month of socialist revolutionary celebration” and a reasonably quiet time of the year for theatre. It all kicks off with Jenna Watt’s awardwinning Flâneurs. This is a thought-provoking piece of theatre exploring the nature of violence and how it is related to the ‘bystander effect;’ if someone is being attacked, do we intervene? If the answer is ‘no,’ why not? Equally troubling questions are brought to the surface by Mike Daisey’s The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Looking at Apple, one of the world’s favourite brands, in a completely different light, the show explores the state of electronic sweatshops in China – including armed guards, child labour, and the toxic effects of hexane. Vanishing Point also make an appearance with As It Is. The situation: Damir Todorovic is taking a polygraph to determine whether or not he imagined certain events in his past or not. In January 1993, he was sent to the war in Bosnia against his will. What really happened? Can a polygraph answer such a question? This piece appears to be the beginning of a very long discussion about true and false, and how we experience certain events. Discussion is also thrown into the mix, however, as the Mayfesto 2013 programme includes a debate about Scottish culture, titled Who Runs Scottish Culture? (And What is it Anyway?). In the context of the Scottish independence referendum, the remark by Alasdair Gray concerning the reliance of the Scots on the English ‘colonists’ was met with outrage in 2012. What would the cultural landscape of an independent Scotland look like? This free but ticketed event is no doubt just tackling a piece of a very large, multi-layered puzzle. On the other end of the programming sit more light-hearted, yet equally engaging pieces, like Daniel Bye’s The Price of Everything. This considers the difference between the price of an object and its value, and also includes a free glass of milk. Stage to Page is the festival’s final event on 20 May. Run by The Playwrights’ Studio as a regular event on the last Monday of every month, it involves examination of three scenes from brand new plays through hour-long workshops, performed readings and heated debate. On this particular day, Andy Arnold features as the industry guest. These events are just a taste of what Mayfesto promises for 2013: overall, an entertaining, at times provocative, and certainly thoughtprovoking, engaging night out for less than a tenner. [Eric Karoulla] www.tron.co.uk/whatson/season-brochure

THE SKINNY

Binary Gold Rush How to make up a currency, get lots of media attention, and threaten money as we know it

itcoins! Should you buy them? Short answer: no. But! There’s a longer answer too. For those who are pretty sure the world is talking about a video game currency (gold pieces FTW), Bitcoins are a virtual, digital currency based not on any commodity or government to limit them, but on complex maths problems that take a lot of computer power to generate. Every Bitcoin has a unique ID that can’t be faked, and using them as currency works without an exchange rate across countries, all held in a digital wallet on your phone, your laptop, or whatever device you can log in to. What began as an interesting experiment back in 2009 has skyrocketed out of control in the past month, with prices jumping to over £66 per Bitcoin. It must be repeated: this is a virtual currency, guaranteed by no government or realworld object. Detractors claim this makes it unstable, based on utter speculation and a suckers’ game. Supporters say that’s pretty much true of most currencies anyway. Over the past few months the price has jumped around more than a Glaswegian hen night, and shows no signs of changing any time soon. What’s worse, this could all just be a fad

Episode 5

Words: Alex Cole

that we laugh about in two years’ time. Of course, it could just as easily be the case that the price is only going upwards from here, that buying now will quintuple your money, and that Bitcoins evolve into the universal credits from every sci-fi series ever. Isn’t speculative investment fun? The promise of what Bitcoins could be has inspired some people to sell entire houses for it, trade their life savings for them in the hope the market will properly explode, and some great headline-grabbing stories have leaked about some lucky bastards who have made a ten-times return after putting in pocket change. Sounds great, will do wonders for the PR and sounds a lot more comprehensible for the average Joe than mucking around on the stock market. But one crash last month wiped out nearly half the value of all Bitcoins, before spiking back up again. So the short answer, if you’re still like most of us and scrounging for beer money, is still that it probably isn’t worth it. Ultimately, though, this is the perfect kind of currency for nerds. It’s based on maths, lives on computers and mobiles, and if it succeeds, it gives them all the smug satisfaction of having been into it before it was cool. What can possibly go wrong?

Bioshock: Infinite

everything for you. Games are held to a different standard from IRRATIONAL GAME, OUT NOW, RRP £29 movies or TV, because the interactivity means there’s a whole separate component of actually If ever there were a series that was self-aware playing the game that has to be as fun, compelabout the nature of storytelling and the mechan- ling and rewarding as the visuals, audio, and ics of sequels, it’s Irrational Games’ Bioshock. The story. And sadly, this is one area where B:I drops much-anticipated Bioshock: Infinite takes this to the ball. It almost seems criminal to take such a new heights (ha!) by framing a story with multiple beautiful environment to explore, lavishly decouniverses, one that seems to wink at the player rated with brilliant ads, period details and clever that every time they fail and die just makes anmusic, and muck it up with running and gunning other universe where your character made a bad first-person-shooter bloodbaths. The fights seem move. Bioshock prides itself on dollops of deep very mechanical, out of place in the narrative, story, genuinely beautiful worlds, and twists that and a distraction from an engrossing story. make you feel every moral choice you make. Happily, at least for me, those clunky comBut there is always a man, a city, and a light- bat sequences never seem to make their way into house, and B:I puts you into all of them right from my fond impressions of the game. It’s just fun, the off – the man is Booker DeWitt, a bloodied engaging, intelligent, endearing, punctuated by ex-soldier, the city is Columbia, the beautiful city moments of riding the rollercoaster rails that among the clouds full of old-timey racists and wind around the city and pummeling racists. religious nuts; and the lighthouse is where it all Bioshock: Infinite is unequivocally worth your begins, launching you into the sky in search of a time and attention, and is the kind of game that girl to pay off a debt. For those who hate spoilreminds us what a magnum-opus looks like in a ers, that’s about as far as I can go before ruining game. [Alex Cole]

rrrrr

VOGUING, DRAG, CLUBBING, AND THE POLITICS OF COMMUNITIES MAKING DIFFERENT PERFORMANCES OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY VISIBLE WWW.ARIKA.ORG.UK | WWW.TRAMWAY.ORG CO-PRODUCED BY

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“The emotional impact is shattering and beautifully conveyed.”

****

★★★★

Joyce McMillan The Scotsman

‘ONE OF THE MOST VERSATILE ENSEMBLES IN BRITISH DANCE’

Feed

Twitter eyeing a music service, record labels poised to claim it was their idea all along ◊ Google Fibre comes to new city in the US, all those in favour of mounting a campaign for Scotland? ◊ Goal-line technology at last comes to football, catches up with 1990s in all other sports ◊ Facebook launches Words: Alex Cole Home, which slaps all your ugly friends on top of your phone, because you want that ◊ Justin Bieber evidently has a ton of fake followers, even the real ones tend to be zombies anyway ◊ GTA puts their entire game soundtrack up on Spotify, enjoy the playlist: ‘Songs to beat a prostitute to’

May 2013

Fri 24 — Sun 26 May 2013 Tramway, Glasgow

TECH

THE TIMES

SOmE OThEr MOtHeR a new play by AJ Taudevin directed by Catrin Evans

Touring  –  June TUE 28 & WED 29 MAY 7.30PM 0844 871 7647

someothermotherplay.wordpress.com twitter.com/someothermother

www.atgtickets.com/glasgow* *BOOKING FEES APPLY

Preview

Glasgow Music Tue 30 Apr DEATH GRIPS

SWG3, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

CAPONE AND THE BULLETS, ESPERANZA, CHOMSKY ALLSTARS, MARK MCGHEE, UMBONGO NAMBARRIE SOUNDSYSTEM

The Californian heavy-hop trio deliver their usual full-frontal musical assault, touring their latest LP – The Money Store – before heading off to party it up at Barcelona’s revered Primavera festival and the return of Washington’s Sasquatch! come May.

Glasgow-based ska ensemble Capone and the Bullets headline a special Glasgow Against Atos Fundraiser, with visuals courtesy of Automatic Exposure.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

LA-based producer Alfred Darlington does his one-man electronic thing.

WASHINGTON IRVING

The indie-folksters (whose story began in a basement flat back in February 2008, fact fans) take to the road as part of their UK spring tour. MOSA FUNK CLUB

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The Glaswegian club-orientated jazz-funk outfit bring the, er, club-orientated jazz-funk.

Wed 01 May CHUCK PROPHET

ORAN MOR, 19:30–23:00, £14

American singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer who hit the road straight outta high school in the 80s with psychedelic roots band Green on Red. HATEBREED (BLACK DOGS, DEMORALISER) O2 ABC, 19:00–23:00, £14.50

Hardcore metal hailing band from Connecticut, entertaining riled up audiences since back in’t 1994. LUCA

THE ART SCHOOL UNION, 19:30–22:00, £6

Glasgow-hailing post-punk lot led by Mark Rankin, currently touting their wares around Scotland. UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

Portland-based three piece making alternative indie-rock with a healthy dose of electronic influence. SHARKS (BLEACH BLOOD, THE BARENT SEA)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £7

Midlands born-and-raised rock’n’roll outfit who embellish their hardcore DIY ethics with a bit o’ soul.

Thu 02 May

FOSSIL COLLECTIVE (JOE BANFI, THE BLIND DOG, THE JOHN MCIAIN BAND) KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

Bright young multi-instrumentalist duo from Leeds, made up of David Fendick and Jonny Hooker. SAVAGES

SWG3, 19:00–22:00, £9

London-based foursome bringing the noise with their howlin’ mix of psychedelia, complete with dubtinged rhythm section. BRING ME THE HORIZON

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Yorkshire lads known for their rock and metal musical stylings, currently touring the hell outta their fourth album, Sempiternal.

ELECTROBUDDHA (JAMES MITCHELL, THE HIGHWAY CHILE, WILL JOHNSTONE) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

The up-and-coming Glasgow quartet launch their new LP down’t Sleazys, marking a return for frontman McCaffer to his old stomping ground. JANE SIBBERY

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £18

Candian singer/songwriter of mostly 80s fame, back touring a selection of hits and new material. THE ROCKET SUMMER

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:00–22:00, £12 ADV.

Solo project of Texan Bryce Avery, known for playing every instrument on his records as well as producing them.

STEREO, 19:30–00:00, £7 (£5)

DAEDELUS

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £7

SPOCK’S BEARD THE ARCHES, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

LA prog rockers formed way back in’t 1992 by brothers Neal and Alan Morse. LIGHT PARADES (TIM COURTNEY)

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–22:30, £5

More heart-on-sleeve lyrics and melodic post-rock sounds from the London-based outfit. DEPTFORD GOTH

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

London producer and singer/ songwriter Daniel Woolhouse plays under his Deptford Goth guise.

Fri 03 May

Sun 05 May

THE ARCHES, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £7

THE PIGEON DETECTIVES (MUST)

By the numbers indie-rock, chockfull of staccato and jangly guitar riffs intermixed with unassuming bass lines and hip-swaying beats. KILLSWITCH ENGAGE

O2 ABC, 20:00–23:00, £16

Formed in 1999 from various members of Overcast and Aftershock, the Massachusetts-based five-piece now have six studio albums and one DVD under their belts – still making loud and angry metalcore, natch. MINOR DELILAH (DEAD STARS, DAVID NEIL) CLASSIC GRAND, 19:30–22:30, £5

The Lanarkshire acoustic lot launch their new EP, driven along by their own brand of hard guitars and strong melodies. TRAPPED UNDER ICE (BACKTRACK, BROKEN TEETH, CLIMATES, HEAVY HANDS) CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £10 ADV.

Brutal Maryland lot who proudly inherit and build upon the mantle of their predecessors Next Step Up and Gut Instinct. ALASDAIR ROBERTS (TANGLES)

STEREO, 19:30–22:30, £8 ADV.

Inimitable folk musician and songwriter Alasdair Roberts plays a full band show, performing tracks from new album, A Wonder Working Stone. SAM FORREST, VERSE CHORUS VERSE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6 (£7)

Nine Black Alps frontman Sam Forrest and former member/founder of And So I Watch You From Afar, Tony Wright (aka Verse Chorus Verse), hit the road together. THE PRIMEVALS (LOS TENTAKILLS, THE CREEPING IVIES, THE BRUTES)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £6

Longstanding Glasgow psychedelic rockers on the go since 1983, built on swinging rhythm-tenacious beats.

Sat 04 May TRONGATE RUM RIOTS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Scottish ensemble comprising seven lads and one lass making their own brand of folk-punk songs, or ‘hyper-sea shanties’ as they call ‘em. THE STRYPES

KING TUT’S, 17:00–23:00, £5

Crazy young Irish four-piece playing rhythm ‘n’ blues with a level of skill well beyond their years. COLLAR UP (KILL SURRRF, STAGE FRIGHT)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Dream-pop Edinburgh trio signed to local Permwhale label, rich with sweeping pianos and dreamy vocals. THE DEADLINE SHAKES

STEREO, 19:00–23:00, £5

Powerpop Scots currently causing a bit of a stir with their chiming euphonics. COLIN HAY (CHRIS TRAPPER)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

The Grammy Award-winning frontman of Men At Work gives his latest solo LP, Gathering Mercury, a live airing.

Tue 07 May

THE FALL (THE ROSY CRUCIFIXION)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

Seminal 70s post-punk outfit from Manchester – led by the inimitable Mark E Smith with an otherwise interchangeable line-up. NELL BRYDEN

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

New York singer/songwriter whose Americana-inspired sound takes in elements of soul, blues and folk. DIRTY BEACHES (SUPREME DICKS, THE YAWNS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–00:00, £7 ADV. (£9 DOOR)

Solo performer, sound-smith and trans-Pacific nomad Alex Zhang Hungtai plays under his Dirty Beaches moniker, all drum loops, yearning melodies and enchantment.

ARCANE ROOTS

BEARDYMAN

MAGIC ARM (JONNIE COMMON)

TITLE FIGHT

THE ABYSSINIANS

THE ARCHES, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £6 ADV.

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £10

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

The London-based beatboxing king (known to his mammy as Darren Foreman) plays a set of his livelooping beatbox. THE D.O.T

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £15

New musical project from Mike Skinner of The Streets and Rob Harvey of The Music.

Thu 09 May THE SPECIALS

BARROWLAND, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The legendary ska group take to the road for their all-but sold out 2013 UK tour, some 30-odd years since they first called it a day. RUSSIAN BRIDE (NERVEGAS, MISS DEMEANOUR, THE MADEMOISELLE)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Hard-hitting alternative rock lot founded by guitartist and vocalist Mike Lieder.

Surrey-based rockers adept at pushing the genre in fresh and unexpected ways.

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (ARLISSA, PRIDES)

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £9

Soul lady of the moment, imbued with gospel stylings and a voice that’ll make you stop and savour. PETER ROE

SWG3, 19:30–23:00, £7

London-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and live/studio stalwart in Laura Marling’s band, out on his lonesome touring his debut album.

Opera. Expect the

unexpected.

SÓLEY

KRAFTWERK CONSOLATION NIGHT

MONO, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

An evening of Kraftwerk interpretation and appreciation, before the band take to T in the Park come July.

MONSTER A-GO-GO INTERGALACTIC BALL

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Intergalactic-themed night of live bands, burlesque, go-go dancing and other such fun from the Monster A-Go-Go lot.

Mon 06 May ALT-J

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14

Mercury-nominated Cambridge quartet – whose name is literally the computer shortcut for a geometrical symbol – sporting intricate fusions of plucky jazz, sombre guitar and dubby rhythms. BIG DADDY KANE (MASTA ACE, WORDSWORTH, BUNTY)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

Grammy award-winning American rapper who started his musical career back in 1986 as part of the Cold Chillin’ Juice Crew. SEA PINKS (SACRED PAWS)

MONO, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

The Belfast ensemble play a stripped-back set, all pristine guitar pop loveliness as they give latest album, Freak Wakes, a live airing. MOUNTAINS

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

The New York-based lot bring the ambient drone waves, as per.

THE BOY WHO TRAPPED THE SUN (BEERJACKET, THE RAMISCO MAKI MAKI ROCKING HORSE) KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

Stornoway-based songwriter (known to his mammy as Colin Davif MacLeod) making lovely acoustic powerpop and folk-rock soundscapes. DESECRAVITY (ACRANIA, LACERATION)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Brutal death noisemakers from Japan, on tour to promote latest album, Implicit Obedience.

Listings

San Diago one-man industrial doom and drone metal chap (aka Tristan Shone), utilizing primarily custom fabricated machines/controllers and speakers.

Sat 11 May

PORT CULLAS (MUTNICK)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

The classic-styled Glasgow rockers play a pumped-up hometown show. RDGLDGRN

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £7.50

Virginia-based trio who take hiphop infused punk and indie-rock soundcapes and mould ‘em into something unique. Oh, and the name’s pronounced RedGoldGreen. Obviously. The Californian songstress brings the richly layered and darkly haunting stylings as per, touring with her fourth studio album. LIFE ON STANDY

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £8

Female-fronted alternative rockers touring on the back of their recently-released new EP. JOHNNY GRAHAM

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £8 (£6)

Following stints in bands Tonik and the Stranded, Johnny Graham continues his musical path as a solo singer/songwriter – tonight playing a full live band set. EAGLEOWL

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–22:00, £8

TREETOP FLYERS BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

London-based quintet cruising along on their quintessential vintage West Coast sound. SWEET BABOO (TURTLE)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

North Wales singer/songwriter all sparkling melodies and deft lyrical turns.

Wed 08 May

SPARROW AND THE WORKSHOP (STRIKE THE COLOURS) MONO, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

The electric and brooding countrytinged trio – led by the ethereal tones of Jill O’Sullivan – launch what will be their third album, Murderopolis, in full-on party stylee. LUCY ROSE

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

The singer/songwriter who has contributed vocals to Bombay Bicycle Club tracks strikes out on her lonesome. ALY BAIN AND PHIL CUNNINGHAM

APOLLO GETS THE GIRL NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £3

Jack Violet’s solo bedroom project emerges as a fully-fledged cinematic synth three-piece (bolstered by brother and best pal). THE STORY SO FAR (THE AMERICAN SCENE, GNARWOLVES)

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £8

California-based punk rock outfit, touring with their latest album, What You Don’t See. THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £9

Prog-styled indie-rock from New Zealand, founded back in 1997 when Conrad, Samuel and Luke were but young high school pups. HA HA TONKA

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Experimental duo who sample old public information films and archive material and set them to new music, making for a pretty special live set. THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Alternative rock’n’rollers formed between London and Glasgow in the summer of 2011. WE ARE THE IN CROWD, NEVER SHOUT NEVER

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

American indie-rock lot We Are The In Crowd take to the road for a special co-headline spring tour with fellow US indie-popsters Never Shout Never. FYI, that’s a whole lotta indie.

TECTONICS FESTIVAL: LATE GIG (AIDAN MOFFAT, STUART BRAITHWAITE, HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR, OREN AMBARCHI, JAMES RUSHFORD, JOE TALIA)

OLD FRUITMARKET, 22:00–01:00, £20 WEEKEND

Sun 12 May

THE SPECIALS

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £8

The ex-InMe frontman takes to the road solo.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £4

The Glasgow outfit launch their debut album of folktronica-inspired tunes, Halendi, with support from labelmates The Sea Kings and Heirloom.

BARROWLAND, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Traditional Scots fiddle and accordian duo now in their 27th year of touring together. DAVE MCPHERSON

THE PAPERBACK THRONE (SEA KINGS, HEIRLOOM)

Fri 10 May

West Plains Americana-styled indie-rock quartet led by Brett Anderson, named after a Missouri State Park.

The legendary ska group take to the road for their all-but sold out 2013 UK tour, some 30-odd years since they first called it a day.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £20

Fence signees and self-described ‘lethargic pop’ lot eagleowl finally launch their debut EP, available on the night a whole day before it’s official release. Part of Glasgow Southside Fringe.

Aidan Moffat, Stuart Braithwaite, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Oren Ambarchi, James Rushford and Joe Talia play as part of the first Tectonics Glasgow festival, fusing the worlds of experimental, rock and orchestral music.

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £5

RODDY WOOMBLE

The Idlewild frontman plays solo acoustic, drawing on songs from his new solo album, Listen To Keep, as well as handpicking tracks from the Idlewild back catalogue. WILLIAM CONTROL

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:00–22:00, £12 ADV.

Electronic side project of Aiden’s William Francis, touring on the back of his third LP. DRENGE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7 ADV.

Sheffield-based brothers Eoin and Rory provide the guitars and drums-built soundscapes. KEEPING DIRT CLEAN, THULA BORAH, THE MINOR OPERATIONS

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £5

Mixed bag of noise, taking in The Minor Operations’ soulful and reflective acoustica, Thula Borah’s post and prog-tinged alternative rock and Keeping Dirt Clean’s scuzzy yet tuneful punk.

The pirates of penzance 62

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

CHELSEA WOLFE

THE ARCHES, 19:00–22:00, £8 ADV.

Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and fully signed up member of indie collective Seabear.

AUTHOR & PUNISHER (GNOD, BLACK SUN, PYRAMIDION)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £9

Alternative Californian quintet led by heavily-tattooed frontman Jesse Rutherford. Laura Mvula

Manchester multi-instrumentalist Magic Arm plays songs from his new chamber-pop inspired album, Image Rolling. Part of Glasgow Southside Fringe.

The Kingston natives show their love of melodic hardcore anthems, as displayed on the Walter Schreifels-produced new album, Shed. THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Progressive indie rockers formed by mainman Bruce Soord back in 1999.

The Jamaican roots reggae ensemble return to a live setting, known for their close harmonies and promotion of the Rastafari movement in their lyrics. DANCE GAVIN DANCE

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £10 ADV.

Tue 14 May

Formed back in 2005 in California, the post hardcore lot return with their ever-changing (aka unguessable) line-up.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10.50

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–22:00, £8

VALERIE JUNE

Memphis based singer/songwriter, making ‘organic moonshine roots music’, so says she. JULIE DOIRON

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

Canadian singer/songwriter of mid-90s fame as the bass and guitar player for the grunge rock group Eric’s Trip – now doing her solo folk/indie-rock thing to suitably fine effect. RYAN FRANCESCONI AND MIRABAI PEART

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–22:30, £8.50

Acoustic composer Ryan Francesconi (musical director on Joanna Newsom’s triple album, Have One On Me) performs a special set with his partner, violinist Mirabai Peart, in celebration of their collaborative new release.

Wed 15 May THREE BLIND WOLVES

THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–22:00, £8

More singalongable, dancealongable alternative countryesque tunes from the Glasgow lads, fresh off tour with F’Rabbit and playing a two-night stint at The Glad Cafe. Part of Glasgow Southside Fringe. SKATERS (SECRET MOTORBIKES)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6.50

New York-residing plasma-punk outfit, comprised of lead singer Michael Ian Cummings and drummer Noah Rubin (both formerly of The Dead Trees), and guitarist Joshua Hubbard (who’s played in The Paddingtons and Dirty Pretty Things).

THREE BLIND WOLVES

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £4

Cambridge-based singer/songwriter who self describes his sound as ‘infringed acoustic wonderfullness with chocolate chip peril’. Yeah, that.

Fri 17 May

VAKUNOHT (HEADLESS KROSS)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

The mysterious experimentalists play a set of their trademark progressive space rock at their second home of the 13th Note. DODGY

O2 ABC, 18:00–22:00, £16

Reformed Britpop rockers made up of Nigel Clark, Andy Miller and Mathew Priest. FISH

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

The charismatic former Marillion frontman delves into his back catalogue, spanning an inpressive 20+ years. PEATBOG FAERIES

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £17

More high octane instrumental contemporary folk from the Isle of Skye crew. TREMBLING BELLS (MUSCLES OF JOY, THE ROSY CRUCIFIXION)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £9 (£7)

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

Those kings and queens of modern folk treat our earlugs to a special solo acoustic set down’t Sleazy’s.

Thu 16 May

Raw death metal band hailing from Long Island, New York – formed back in 1988 and reformed in 2003 with a new line up.

STEREO, 19:00–23:00, £5

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

MYKKI BLANCO

All-encompassing metropolitan artiste who can list poet, rapper, actor and author amongst her varying vocations. THE MATHLETICS TEAM

SUFFOCATION

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £13

THE DEAD LAY WAITING

More bizarre and light-hearted circus-pop from the Glasgowbased ensemble.

Swindon-based melodic metalheads furiously playing their way across the UK.

KEVIN MONTGOMERY KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £13.50

Sat 18 May

THE TWANG, CAST

VARIOUS VENUES, 13:00–23:00, £19 (ALL-ACCESS)

SHOVELS AND ROPE

STEREO, 19:00–23:00, £10 ADV.

Husband and wife duo from South Carolina – making lovely harmonydriven folk with the help of a a few guitars, a kick drum, a snare, some harmonicas and the occasional bit of keyboard. BALTHAZAR (HERCULES MANDARIN)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

Belgian pop outfit infusing their sound with rock, electro and hiphop influences. KING TUFF

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

The Sub Pop Records chap and his flowing locks make their way to Glasgow, acting the furioso frontman/artist/acoustic guitar legend that he is – or, in his own words ‘me like to rock’.

Mon 13 May PAPER AEROPLANES

THE ART SCHOOL UNION, 19:30–22:00, £9

Acoustic alternative folkies from Wales, led by vocalist and songwriter Sarah Howells.

Country, folk and rock-styled acoustic US singer/songwriter. O2 ABC, 18:30–22:00, £16

Prepare thy lugs for a double dose of indie veterans, as The Twang and Cast play as part of their coheadline tour.

STAG AND DAGGER

Now a firm fixture on Glasgow’s music calendar, the one-ticket, multi-venue export takes over Weegieland with a suitably eclectic line-up set across multiple venues. See website for line-up breakdown nearer the time.

Get £10 tix if you’re under 26. Any seat. Any performance. THE SKINNY

MISS THE OCCUPIER (BURT WARD, THE SCREICHS) 13TH NOTE, 21:00–23:00, £5

The punk-inflected Glasgow popsters play tunes from new mini-album, Keeping Company With Wolves. THE HANDSOME FAMILY (SNOWAPPLE)

THE ARCHES, 19:00–22:00, £15 ADV.

Musical collaboration between husband and wife duo Brett Rennie Sparks – still making lovely Americana-styled alternative folk tunes after some 20 years together. BOB MOULD

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £20

Alternative San Fransiscoan rocker (and one time Husker Du and Sugar man), showcasing his latest album, Silver Age, with a four-date tour of the UK. UNION STATE (AWAKEN, SCOTT NICOL AND THE LIMITLESS SKY)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

Guitar-driven pop-meets-rock chaps hailing from deepest, darkest Lanarkshire.

Wed 22 May

DIZRAELI AND THE SMALL GODS (LE JUKI, BETATONE DISTRACTION)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £9

Bristol, Brighton and Londonstraddling hip-hop ensemble fusing harmony singing, turntablism, heavy beats and delicate instrumentation in one fresh whole. Rescheduled date. SLEEPING WITH SIRENS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The Florida post-hardcore quintet bring their latest LP to a live setting, following on from last year’s acoustic EP. LORD HURON (CABEY)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

LA-based folk pop outfit formed around Chicago native, Ben Schneider. NEXILVA

THE ART SCHOOL UNION, 19:30–22:00, £5

Six-piece progressive death metal outfit from Sunderland, blending technicality and sheer brutality with intense speed and mystical synths.

THE BESNARD LAKES (SWEET JANE)

NOMEANSNO (HEY ENEMY)

STEREO, 19:30–22:00, £10 ADV.

STEREO, 19:00–23:00, £13 ADV.

LUCY SPRAGGAN (FRANK HAMILTON)

BUS STATION LOONIES (NINE BULLETS)

Lil Lucy Spraggan, of X Factor fame, now a fully fledged touring musician making ‘flop’ – that’s folk meets hip-hop for the uninitiated.

Psychedelic and progressive pop offerings from the charming Montreal foursome, formed in 2003 by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. LOS TENTAKILLS (EASY! TIGER, REVERSE COWGIRLS, KOSHER PICKLERS)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Glasgow-based noisemakers riding along on a lo-fi patchwork of psychedelia, garage and surf. SLAM DUNK SCOTLAND (FOUR YEAR STRONG, THE EARLY NOVEMBER, PIERCE THE VEIL, THE WONDR YEARS, FIREWORKS, WOE IS ME, MAN OVERBOARD)

O2 ABC, 17:30–22:00, £15

Better known as the piano-pounding frontman from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin, now doing his solo synth-pop thing, drawing comparisons to Death Cab et al.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

London-based post-rockers built on a backbone of guitars, with divergent tendencies towards melancholic strings and synth domination.

Sat 25 May

LARRY MILLER (AGAINST THE GRAIN)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £9

Brother and sister duo making their own magical brand of bluesy sludge rock, complete with rancourous guitar and propulsive drums.

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

ORAN MOR, 20:00–23:00, £13.50

MUMIY TROLL

MANRAN

Traditional Scottish ensemble on driving accordion, fiddle, Highland pipes, Uilleann pipes and wooden flute. That do you? BRIAN MCFADDEN

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

The former Westlifer plays his first live dates in over 8 years, we do our best to look busy.

Mon 20 May

BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12

More in the way of gentle, acoustic pop ditties from the Yorkshire singer/songwriter. THE SKINTS (CURRENT SWELL, GECKO, THE HOSTILES)

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £11

London quartet whose rock sound takes in reggae, dub, ska, pop and roots as it goes.

Tue 21 May TRIBES

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Camden town indie kids out on their own playing the obligatory indie-rock soundcapes.

LIFE IN FILM (LIKELY LADS, SOLDIER ON, STONEHOUSE VIOLETS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

London-based indie-pop quartet touring on the back of their new EP, Needles & Pins – the title single of which you can currently download via their Soundcloud, for gratis. MOUNT EERIE (GARETH DISCKSON)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £8.50 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

The latest evolution of Phil Elverum’s fuzzy-folk musical vision, formerly playing as The Microphones.

Glasgow-based punk racketmakers led by vocalist and bassist Jim Shit (FYI, their guitarist goes by the name Horace Cockpuppet – you hopefully get the general idea). O2 ABC, 18:30–22:00, £15

Longstanding Russian art rockers founded in 1983 in Vladivostok by vocalist and songwriter Ilya Lagutenko. SENSES FAIL (MARMOZETS, HANDGUNS)

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £10

Punk rock-meets-screamo outfit from New Jersey, touring with their latest album, Renacer. Should be a loud one, if Mr Nielsen has his way... SHIV-R

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:00–22:00, £10

Hard-hitting electronic project of Australian-born musicians Pete Crane and Ben Lee Bulig. ADAM SUTHERLAND

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £10

Talented Scottish fiddle player, composers and teacher who has in his time been a part of The Treacherous Orchestra, Session A9, Peatbog Faeries, Babelfish and more.

Fri 24 May GHOSTPOET

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Experimental hip-hip from the Mercury-nominated lisped Londoner, whose brand new track, MSI MUSMID, will be available as a free download after it gets 1000 Soundcloud reposts. BLUEFLINT

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00, £10 (£8)

The Edinburgh outfit layer their crisp, vaporous vocals in understated two-part harmonies, currently on the road for their spring/summer 2013 tour.

HAIM

SWG3, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

LA-based band of sisters who build their sound on a whimsy of folk and R’n’B beats. THE 1975

AUDIO, 19:00–22:00, £10

ANDREW MCMAHON

REVERE (THE YOUTH AND YOUNG, CRITTERS)

THE JACKHAMMERS (MOONSHINE DOCKS, DEPRESSANTS)

Mon 27 May

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

AUDIO, 19:00–23:00, £6.50

JOE GIDEON AND THE SHARK

Punk-styled lot formed from various bands, including Oi Polloi and Bikini Atoll, on the road with their usual live buffoonery.

Manchester-based collective who specialise in r’n’b-infused guitar pop, currently touring their new EP.

Boz Boorer and Alex Lusty bring their Happy Martyr project to Scotland for the first time, working their own inimitable mixture of acoustic and rap.

Thu 23 May

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Scottish offshoot of Slam Dunk Festival, featuring a handpicked line-up of alternative acts across two rooms.

HAPPY MARTYR (THE COFFINS, THE APPARELLS)

Sun 19 May

Progressive punk rock bunch from Canada with a loyal following over on this side of the pond.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT

The extreme doom metal noisemakers bring the sonic destruction, as per the Dragged Into Sunlight law. LILYGREEN AND MAGUIRE

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:30–22:00, £10

Two young lads from South Wales, churning out songs on guitars since they were kids – now on a UK-wide tour with their debut EP, Roll On. UNEVEN

MONO, 19:30–22:00, £8

Collective ensemble featuring Charles Hayward (of This Heat) and various Acid Mothers Temple members. HOUNDMOUTH (FROM THE STORM, THE LEVEE STROLLERS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

The Rough Trade-signed, New Albany-based pop-rock lot tour in advance of the release of their debut album.

Tue 28 May WATSKY

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Hard-rockin’ bluesman Larry Miller and his band share the bill with Scotland’s premier Rory tribute band, Against The Grain.

The emerging San Franciscoan hip-hop chap does his slam poetry thing, still riding high on his 2011 viral track, Pale Kid Raps Fast.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £15

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £10

NIMMO BROTHERS

The Glasgow bluesmen play an all-acoustic hometown show.

SCOTTISH FICTION PRESENTS: AYE TUNES VS PEENKO (THE SPOOK SCHOOL, GARDEN OF ELKS, COLIN’S GODSON) BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

THE SUMMER SET (NATIVES)

Arizona-based five-piece making breezy pop rock – often seen touring with the likes of Yellowcard and Hey Monday, but heading out on their own for a UK-wide tour. FUCKED UP, TITUS ANDRONICUS (METZ)

SWG3, 19:00–22:00, £15

Local bloggers Scottish Fiction, Aye Tunes and Peenko join forces for their monthly music showcase night, with a singer/songwriter special featuring a trio of showcase acts in the form of The Spook School, Garden of Elks and Colin’s Godson.

Ear-basher of a show, with New Jersey-based rough punk lot Titus Andronicus squaring up to Toronto-based crushers Fucked Up. Plus support from Toronto-based grunge trio Metz. Expect punk, in all its many and glorious forms.

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

TURNING PLATES (SARAH HAYES)

GREAT CYNICS

Punk/indie rock bunch from East London, touring with their new album, Like I Belong.

SONIC TEMPLARS (OUTSTANDIFOLD AND THE WETTYGRIPPERS, JOHNNY JACK) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

Glasgow-based alternative rockers combining catchy tunes with near perfect harmonies, launching their new EP on the night. ANDY CAIRNS

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £11

The founding member of rock band Therapy? plays a stripped-back, acoustic set. ARIKA 13: SOULNESSLESS, CANTOS I-IV

TRAMWAY, 19:30–21:00, £14 FESTIVAL PASS (OR £6 EVENING PASS)

Starting from his notion of Soulnessless, Terre Thaemlitz introduces his time spent investigating a series of seemingly disjunctive events and contexts through video and audio, looking at gender cults, Catholicism, hauntings and more.

Sun 26 May A$AP ROCKY

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

NYC born-and-raised rap MC, selfproclaimed as Harlem’s ‘Pretty Motherfucker’. Ahem.

Wed 29 May

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00, £5 (£3)

Intimate gig showcasing a first listen to a suit of Turning Plates’ new music, accompanied by a set of haunting traditional songs by Admiral Fallow’s Sarah Hayes.

HOVERBOARDS (TWISTED RAINBOW, KUDOS, POLAR BEARS IN PURGATORY)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Glasgow-based rock-meets-punk lot, conceived back in late 2011.

Thu 30 May

THE COMPUTERS (THE DEAD POETS, CUDDLY SHARK)

BROADCAST, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Visceral and hardcore bluesy punk from the Exeter four-piece, touring with their new album, Love Triangles Hate Squares. STEVE EARLE

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

The stellar country-rocker tours his new album, Burnin’ It Down, backed by his electric live band The Dukes. DANNY SHAH (JEMMA TWEEDIE, CHLOE LATIMER)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The fledgling Glasgow singer/ songwriter does his pop-styled thing, whilst simultaneously worrying that his hair looks OK.

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £8

Fri 31 May

QUICKBEAM (FAKE MAJOR)

GOVANHILL BATHS, 20:00–00:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

The minimalist folksters launch their debut album in Govanhill’s beautiful disused Victorian swimming baths, collaborating with local artists Annie Crabtree and Becca Thomas to adorn the place with environmental artistry and projection. Pure magic. LOU HICKEY (SISA)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8

The ex-Codeine Velvet singer does her retro-pop thing, celebrating the release of her latest LP, True Love Ways. ELECTRIC HONEY RECORDS’ SHOWCASE (YOUNG AVIATORS, ALEX HYNES, HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS, ALBERT SHAKESPEARE, WAKE THE PRESIDENT) ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £6

Electric Honey host a special 20th Anniversary showcase, with Young Aviators, Alex Hynes, Harry and The Hendersons, Albert Shakespeare and Wake The President all on the bill. SPLASHH

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7

Australia, New Zealand and UKstraddling alternative dreamers.

THE DESERT WILLOWS (THE LITTLE ILLUSIONS, CRASH CLUB, GERRY CINNAMON)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Glasgow-based acoustic outfit of the alternative psychedelic persuasion.

Sat 01 Jun

THE PASTELS (THE WAKE)

SARAMAGO (CCA CAFE), 20:00–22:30, £12

Stephen McRobbie’s perennially adolescent outfit play a special set in the CCA’s Saramago cafe space, in support of their new album, Slow Summits.

Edinburgh Music Tue 30 Apr FOSSIL COLLECTIVE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7 ADV.

Bright young multi-instrumentalist duo from Leeds, made up of David Fendick and Jonny Hooker.

Wed 01 May TOM PAXTON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30, £24.50

Classic Americana folk singer/ songwriter, a stalwart on the scene since the early 60s Greenwich Village scene. ENUFF Z’NUFF (YOUNG LUST, GUTTERGODZ, MATTY JAMES) BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £12

Donnie, Chip and the boys bring their trippy hard rock to Edinburgh.

Thu 02 May DAVID MACGREGOR

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–22:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

The Scottish finger style solo jazz guitarist and composer plays as part of his 2013 European summer tour. VICTORIAN TROUT CONSPIRACY

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The lads from The Dark Jokes host a broken down set of original tunes.

LOVE MUSIC, HATE RACISM: BENEFIT NIGHT (YOUNG FATHERS, THE SPOOK SCHOOL, LAW)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–22:00, £5

Laying their focus firmly on the positives of a multicultural Scotland, the Love Music, Hate Racism lot host a special fundraiser night, headed up by local hip-hop trio Young Fathers (they of the DIY rap and synchronised dance moves).

Edinburgh Music REBECCA SHEARING

The Scottish YouTube popstess plays with full band support from Benny Monteux, The Cosmonauts and Stevie Adams.

THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH, 20:00–03:00, £5

The York heavy rockers kick off their new album tour in the ‘burgh.

Two-day chipmusic festival blasting oot the 8-bit, chip and retrotech, backed by a selection of live visuals and the 8 Bit Nights’ crew playing into the wee hours.

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 ADV.

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

THEFALLEN

BANNERMANS, 21:00–23:00, £5

ELECTRIC WONDERLAND (PLUM, FIONA SOE PAING, ELBI)

CURATORS (CANCEL THE ASTRONAUTS, MARIONETTES)

Energetic ‘burgh-dwelling pop ensemble formed in late 2008 from the ashes of various bands, back at their spiritual home of the Wee Red to launch their new album, The Cold In The Walls.

A whole night dedicated to celebrating female-fronted electronica, headlined by songwriter and producer Shona Maguire (aka Plum). SAM FORREST, VERSE CHORUS VERSE (GEORGIA GORDON)

5 SECOND WARNING (LOST IN AUDIO, THE SACCHARINES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Nine Black Alps frontman Sam Forrest and former member/founder of And So I Watch You From Afar, Tony Wright (aka Verse Chorus Verse), hit the road together.

Fri 03 May

SEASICK STEVE (DUKE GARWOOD)

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:00–22:00, £6

The fledgling Scottish quintet bring the rock riffs, huge drum beats and powerful bass lines.

DICK VALENTINE (MASSIVE HORSE)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–22:00, £10 ADV.

The frontman of Detroit underdogs Electric Six does his solo acoustic thing, all joyful hooks and mischievous wordplay. QUIET AS A MOUSE

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £3

Edinburgh indie-meets-country quartet riding along on mainman Alex Moran’s vocals, guitar and harmonica-playing.

Mon 06 May

RYAN MCGARVEY (SAFEHOUSE)

BANNERMANS, 19:30–23:00, £8

Passionate young bluesy rock guitar player. KATMEN (THE CAEZARS)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–22:00, £15 ADV.

Rockabilly powerhouse formed by Stray Cats’ Slim Jim Phantom and Rockabilly axe man Darrel Higham.

Tue 07 May

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING (EARLS OF CAITHNESS) THE CAVES, 19:00–23:00, £10

Experimental duo who sample old public information films and archive material and set them to new music, making for a pretty special live set. MOUNTAINS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

The New York-based lot bring the ambient drone waves, as per.

THE CRACKLIN’ VOID (HARVEY LANES, SPENT LAWRENCE, POCKET ROCKET)

Wed 08 May

HENRY’S CELLAR, 19:00–22:00, £4

All-rockin’ quartet driving along on a punk-fuelled and angular manifesto.

Edinburgh-based blues-meetsrock quartet, adept at sounding like there’s about 20 of ‘em on stage.

PICTURE HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £22 ADV.

The storytelling country-rockin’ bluesman showcases his new album, Hubcap Music, rich with his raspy vocals and personalised guitar.

THE SNEAKY TAKEOVER (KUNG FU ACADEMY, SHELF:LIFE, KIRSTY MARQUIS, IN MIRRORS, MONO SIX, KELI THOMSON, BACCHANAL PARTY) SNEAKY PETE’S, 16:00–22:00, £6

All-day mini festival of new talent, with post-punk Edinburgh quartet Kung Fu Academy amongst the live acts – all infectious funk rhythms, lush harmonies and poptastic hooks. Go find a new favourite band.

CODEJAK

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £4

TREETOP FLYERS (THE BOY WHO TRAPPED THE SUN)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7 ADV.

London-based quintet cruising along on their quintessential vintage West Coast sound.

Thu 09 May BAD SIGN

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £4

Classic rock trio hailing from Croyden, known for moving from melody to mosh in 4.3 seconds, or something like that.

COLIN HAY (KAT HEALEY, DOUGLAS KAY) THE CAVES, 19:15–22:00, £20

The Grammy Award-winning frontman of Men At Work gives his latest solo LP, Gathering Mercury, a live airing. ULTRACHIP 2013 (ULTRASYD, R10T33R, COMPTROLLER, GALAXY WOLF, ARCADECOMA, THE LAOHU)

The pirates of penzance

THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH, 20:00–03:00, £5

Two-day chipmusic festival blasting oot the 8-bit, chip and retrotech, backed by a selection of live visuals and the 8 Bit Nights’ crew playing into the wee hours. TRILOK GURTU, PAOLO FRESU. OMAR SOSA

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30, £17.50

A trio of talented and adventurous world jazz performers unite for a special collaborative project.

Glasgow • Aberdeen Edinburgh • Inverness

1 May-8 June

WITCH MOUNTAIN (BLACK MAGICIAN, JACKAL-HEADED GUARD OF THE DEAD)

WILLIAM TYLER, HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER

BANNERMANS, 19:00–23:00, £7

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–22:00, £9 (£8)

The rising stars of the west coast doom scene hit up Edinburgh.

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDES (ANTI VIGILANTE, THE BROTHEL CORPSE TRIO, FACEHANDLE, SHATTERHAND, CRIMEDESK, SPAT, THE STATIC)

HENRY’S CELLAR, 19:30–03:00, £8

Welsh street punk mob known for liking their rock’n’roll super charged.

Sun 05 May THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £12

JAMES GRANT

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30, £16

The Love & Money frontman performs an all-acoustic set cherrypicked from his acclaimed solo albums, alongside a smattering of old favourites. GRAMME (DIGITAL JONES)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £8 ADV.

Double headlining bill of Nashville guitarist William Tyler (of Silver Jews and Lambchop) and North Carolina songwriter Hiss Golden Messenger (aka. M.C. Taylor). DARWIN DEEZ

Sat 04 May

US-of-A indie-popsters fronted by curly-locked frontman Darwin Smith, touring in support of their new album, Songs For Imaginative People.

BIG DAY IN (DUTCH UNCLES, DISCOPOLIS, THE MACHINE ROOM, RIVER OF SLIME, LOMOND CAMPBELL, DEMS, JONNIE COMMON, MADE OF GLASS, MACHINES IN HEAVEN)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 14:00–01:00, £15 ADV.

After more than a decade of silence – no gigs, no music, no nothing – Gramme return with their debut album, Fascination.

Listen to music from the show online or try Pirates Unwrapped – a FREE hour-long taster.

May 2013

ULTRACHIP 2013 (JEROEN TEL, MEN OF MEGA, MATT NIDA, ASTRAL CAT, BIT FACE, KING KEYTAN, 100HANDSLAP)

THE CAVES, 19:00–23:00, £6 (£5)

Mini festival all-dayer, playing home to a hefty selection of local and touring acts – amongst them Manc indie-popsters Dutch Uncles, digital Edinburgh trio Discopolis, Glasgow indie-rock combo Machines in Heaven.

HOMEWORK (GARDEN OF ELKS) INSPACE, 19:00–22:00, £7.95

The Scottish synth-lovers celebrate the launch of their debut album, 13 Towers, with a special one-off show at Edinburgh’s Inspace laboratory. Complimentary beer provided!

SPARROW AND THE WORKSHOP (MAGIC ARM) THE CAVES, 19:00–01:00, £6 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

The electric and brooding countrytinged trio – led by the ethereal tones of Jill O’Sullivan – launch what will be their third album, Murderopolis, in full-on party stylee. FOLK ABOUT (DANNY MULLINS, ELYSSA VULPES, LAURA MARLOWE)

SOFI’S BAR, 19:00–21:00, £DONATION

One-off night of folk-inspired singer/songwriters, comics, poets and performers in the intimate surrounds of Sofi’s Bar. Pay what you can. LORDI

PICTURE HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £16.50 ADV.

The – let’s face it, slightly bizarre – Finnish hard rockers bring the mayhem, all monster masks and O.T.T. pyrotechnics.

scottishopera.org.uk Listings

Edinburgh Music RAT ATTACK ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 ADV.

Party punk four-piece from Exeter, out on tour with the new self-titled EP, Rat Attack – say it five times, fast.

Fri 10 May WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £6 (£5)

Sun 12 May

Bi-monthly music night, this time headed by Glasgow-based hardcore geek metallers The Mathletics Team.

PAPER AEROPLANES (ALEX CORNISH)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00, £9 ADV.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

Acoustic alternative folkies from Wales, led by vocalist and songwriter Sarah Howells.

THE DIDDUMS

The American singer/songwriter and onetime frontman of 90s act The Czars does his solo thing.

THIS FEELING

The favourited London rock’n’roll night takes a trip to Scotland, with a selection of live bands taking to the stage. BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

The famously reclusive and selfproclaimed ‘semi legendary’ trash lot return to a live setting.

DEAD SONS (ELECTRIC CLOWNS, THE DONS, THE CRACKLIN’ VOID)

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:00–22:00, £6

The Sheffield-hailing rockers continue to tirelessly explore all dimensions of songwriting and noisemaking. THREE DAYS FROM RETIREMENT

HENRY’S CELLAR, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£4)

Edinburgh post-rock lot on guitars (times two), drums and bass. ADRIAN CROWLEY (STAR WHEEL PRESS)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £8.50 ADV.

The Dublin-based singer/songwriter and Chemikal Underground signee plays a special set. BLACK INTERNATIONAL, CUT YOURSELF IN HALF

THE BREAKFAST CLUB, 19:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

The ‘burgh’s own pop-punk duo Black International square up to the crushing riffs of Bradford’s Cut Yourself In Half. AND THE MOOSE CAME IN SECOND

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based indie-rock trio taking in a bit of post-everything as the go. AVARUS

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–22:00, £5

Finish noise-folk ensemble made up of a ever-changing collective of performers, including The Anaksimandros and Pylon’s main men, and players from various other Finnish bands including Kiila, Munuaissymposium 1960 and solo performer Lau Nau.

Sat 11 May

THE STAGGER RATS (CARAVAN CLUB, CRAIG LITHGOW) ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 ADV.

More tight psychobilly indie-rock from the Edinburgh-based quintet, helping to raise funds for Link Community Development.

EDINBURGH SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF (HOOKERS FOR JESUS, WOZNIAK) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Fuzzy noise-pop from the Edinburgh gang formed from the ashes of St Jude’s Infirmary. SALSA CELTICA

SUMMERHALL, 21:30–22:00, £15

The Edinburgh-based ensemble play a trademark set of Scottish and Irish traditional music, premiering new material from their Tall Island Sessions. MAD NURSE

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based noisemakers who describe their thang as ‘post explosive’; basically, it’s a clatter of instruments, sonic arguments and noise-pop smacks to the face. LUGUBRUM (SLOTH HAMMER, HAAR, WRAITHS)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–23:00, £7

Belgium hellraisers who self describe their metallic melange as, er, ‘brown metal’. OVER THE SKYLINE (FALSE IMPRESSIONISTS, FALSE PRETENDERS, SHUDDER)

HENRY’S CELLAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based indie-rockers back on the literal bandwagon, playing their first shows of 2013. KITE AND THE CRANE

ST JOHN’S CHURCH, 19:30–22:00, £4

The Edinburgh indie-folk trio launch their new EP, joined on the night by extra brass and string players for a fine ol’ singsong.

Listings

THE BREAKFAST CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10

The Auld Reekie Roller Girls turns five as only they now how – with a big ol’ party, resplendent with live music, DJs, food and party games.

THE SOUND PROJECT

AULD REEKIE ROLLER GIRLS: 5TH BIRTHDAY (BLACKJACK, DJ BIRDHEAD)

JOHN GRANT (ÁSGEIR TRAUSTI)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:30, £16.50

NORTH WITH THE LIGHTS BY THE SEA (TALL TALES, CALVIN SCOTT)

OLD CHAIN PIER, 19:00–22:00, £4

Live and unplugged music showcase of the indie-folk variety, this time featuring Scottish/Swedish indie-pop from Tall Tales front woman, Lucy Cathcart Froden.

Tue 14 May THE ZOMBIES

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £20

The classic-styled English rockers play as part of their 50th anniversary tour.

Wed 15 May EDINBURGH QUARTET

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £15 (£12)

The Scottish string quartet return for the final concert of their 2012/13 season celebrating the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth. THE MAVERICKS

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £25

The country-steeped garage ensemble do what they do best (er, that’d be country-steeped garage). PEOPLE PLACES MAPS (COPPER LUNGS,SCOTIA)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £4 ADV.

Dunfermline-based lot riding along on their sometimes rock, sometimes folk, sometimes pop sound.

Thu 16 May MR MCFALL’S CHAMBER

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30, £12 (£10)

The intrepid musical explorers stage a complete concert performance of Astor Piazzolla’s short opera, María de Buenos Aires, backed by a selection of films by Argentine director Geraldine Comte. THE BEARDS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00, £8.50 ADV.

Fuzzy-faced folk from South Australia, responsible for such beard-loving anthems as ‘You Should Consider Having Sex With a Bearded Man’ and ‘If Your Dad Doesn’t Have a Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums...’. Nice. DUCKS DELUXE

BANNERMANS, 19:30–23:00, £14

Americana-styled London-based rockers who celebrated their 40th Anniversary last year.

Fri 17 May STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

PICTURE HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £16 ADV.

Original punk-pop four-piece par excellence, on the go now for over 35 years. MANRAN

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:30, £13.50

Traditional Scottish ensemble on driving accordion, fiddle, Highland pipes, Uilleann pipes and wooden flute. That do you? THE BIRTHDAY SUIT (DED RABBIT, DANTE) ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7 ADV.

Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones plays with his new band, The Birthday Suit – an ever-changing collective of musicians.

RBS MUSEUM LATES: DINO NIGHT NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND, 19:00–22:30, £10 (£8)

The museum’s regular late night happening, this time in celebration all things dinosaur – with music from Stirling-based lot Miniature Dinosaurs, plus a chance to view the museum’s collection of dino specimens. Jurassic Park fans unite. VONDELPARK (LAW)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

London-based young pups Lewis, Alex and Matt bring the ear-pleasing ambient, washed-out electronica. THE APPLE BEGGARS

THE CAVES, 19:30–01:00, £12

Collaborative songwriting project between Kenny Herbert and Rab Howat. RALLY & BROAD (CAROLINE BIRD, BRAM GIEBEN, SOPHIE COOKE, LOU HICKEY, LAKE MONTGOMERY) COUNTING HOUSE, 20:00–23:00, £5

The celebration of spoken word, music, and other such lyrical loveliness returns for its monthly outing, taking in spoken word from Caroline Bird, Bram Gieben and Sophie Cooke, plus live music from Lou Hickey and Lake Montgomery.

Sat 18 May JAKIL

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:00–22:00, £6

Edinburgh-born, London-living pop-rockers led by frontman Kieran O’Brien. JOHN COOPER CLARKE

PICTURE HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £16.50 ADV.

More satirical and biting political verse, delivered in Cooper Clarke’s rapid-fire performance style – aka punk poetry at its finest. ANTONIO FORCIONE

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:30, £15 (£12)

The Italian acoustic guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and composer weaves his usual concoction of world music, touring his latest album, Sketches of Africa. LIMBO (REVERIE, THE TIDE INSIDE, COLLAR UP)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, £7 ADV.

Beloved gig-in-a-club night, this time boasting a headline set from London-based lot Reverie – who’ll be playing tracks from their sophomore album and making their Limbo debut at the same time. THE SPOOK SCHOOL (OCCASIONAL FLICKERS)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £4

The indie-pop styled Edinburgh quartet play a hometown show, fresh from a jaunt to London recording new material.

WOODENBOX (NEIL MCSWEENEY, KING EIDER) ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 ADV.

Ali Downey’s Americana-styled folk ensemble play under their clipped back Woodenbox moniker, still imbued with the same propensity for full-on barn-raising anthems – playing tracks offa their second LP. BOOK GROUP

PILRIG ST PAUL’S CHURCH, 19:00–23:00, £6

The guitar’n’drums-styled Edinburgh ensemble launch their new EP, Homeward Sound, supported on the night be Campfires in Winter and Plastic Animals. BYOB church hall affair (aka bring all the supermarket cider you can carry).

Sun 19 May DODGY

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:15–22:00, £16.50

Reformed Britpop rockers made up of Nigel Clark, Andy Miller and Mathew Priest. SETH LAKEMAN

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £16

INSISION (TOMMY CONCRETE & THE WEREWOLVES) BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £10 (£8)

Old school Swedish death metal lot let by Carl Birath.

Tue 21 May

LARRY MILLAR (AGAINST THE GRAIN)

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Hard-rockin’ bluesman Larry Miller and his band share the bill with Scotland’s premier Rory tribute band, Against The Grain.

Wed 22 May DEAD BELGIAN

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £8

Female led ensemble singing the songs of Jacques Brel. CHRYSTA BELL

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00, £12 ADV.

Talented songstress/model who started her career in Texas as the lead vocalist for 8 1/2 Souvenirs, and went on to collaborate with David Lynch. JACK JONES

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £27.50

The American jazz singer plays as part of his official Farewell UK Tour, including tributes to Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams.

Thu 23 May BONOBO

PICTURE HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £15

Brighton’s Bonobo (aka Simon Green) tours his fifth LP, The North Borders, an atmospheric and patiently-honed gem of a thing drawing on elements of jazz, garage and shimmering dubstep. KID CANAVERAL, LAST BATTLE, RANDOLPH’S LEAP THE CAVES, 20:00–01:00, FREE

Affable indie-pop chaps and chapesses Kid Canaveral headline the bill at Dewar’s next firstcome-first-served free gig night, playing alongside Last Battle and Randolph’s Leap. Plus free drams ahoy.

Fri 24 May

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

Intimate show to launch the noisy, female-fronted Mancunian rockers second album. LE LOUVRE

WEE RED BAR, 18:00–22:00, £3

House concert-styled acoustic evening (based on the Le Louvre nights in Paisley), where punters are invited to sit on the floor and take in the intimate loveliness of myriad performers. BRUCE MOLSKY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £15 (£12)

VANTAGE POINT

BELUSHI’S, 22:00–00:00, FREE

The Edinburgh metallers celebrate the 5th anniversary of their debut album, Daredevil On The Shore, by playing it in its entirety for the first time since the launch gig in 2008. And all for gratis. THE EDINBURGH LIGHT ORCHESTRA

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £6.50

The Edinburgh concert orchestra take in a programme of easy listening favourites. SUMMER(BEER)HALL

SUMMERHALL, 12:00–16:00, FROM £5

Summerhall indulge our love of all things beer with a whole weekend of the stuff, with on-site brewer Barney’s Beer serving up a selection of guest beers, plus brewery tours, the obligatory bratwurst and live music from a selection of local acts.

Mon 27 May SULK

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £5 ADV.

London psych pop-styled quintet fuelled on a diet of joyful uplifting harmonies, giant psychedelic guitar riffs and, of course, tambourines. SLOW MAGIC, GIRAFFAGE, MISTER LIES SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Triple-header bill of shimmering low-end theory and chillwave.

Tue 28 May

NOMEANSNO (FAT GOTH)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £12 ADV. (£15 DOOR)

Progressive punk rock bunch from Canada with a loyal following over on this side of the pond.

Wed 29 May TUNE INTO AUTISM (PLUM, SOLAREYE)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–22:00, £7

A selection of talented musicmakers join forces to raise funds for Scottish Autism, amongst ‘em eclectic songwriter and producer Shona Maguire, aka Plum.

Thu 30 May

MARTIN TURNER’S WISHBONE ASH

BANNERMANS, 19:30–23:00, £13.50

HENRY’S CELLAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh’s own ascendant stars play a set of their trademark uncompromisingly fierce rock.

Cult Glasgow singer Monica Queen returns to the live scene, performing new material from her forthcoming album.

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Fri 31 May

VASQUEZ (ALRIGHT THE CAPTAIN, BILLY RAY OSIRIS, CRUSADES)

THE 10:04’S

Haddow Fest – Edinburgh’s multi-venue annual music festival – branch out with the second in a series of gig nights, with this edition headered by local indie-punk quartet The 10:04’s. BMX BANDITS (VERY WELL, JACK AND THE)

THE BREAKFAST CLUB, 19:30–22:30, £7

The favourited jangly guitar popsters play a rare Edinburgh date, previewing tracks form their new EP in the intimate surrounds of The Breakfast Club.

MONICA QUEEN (THE STORE KEYS)

THE BREAKFAST CLUB, 19:30–22:30, £5

BILLY LOCKETT

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 ADV.

Northampton singer/songwriter skilled on the ol’ piano, which he taught himself to play in a basement, aged 8. As you do. MATTHEW BARELY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £15 (£12)

Matthew Barley celebrates 100 years of Benjamin Britten with a solo show showcasing his virtuosity as a world-renowned cellist. RSNO: SEASON FINALE

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11.50

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £15

Peter Oundjian, Nicola Benedetti and the amassed RSNO choruses come together to end the RSNO season in glitzy fashion.

THE INDUSTRY

BANNERMANS, 19:30–23:00, £10

PHIL WICKHAM

Contemporary Christian vocalist, songwriter and guitarist hailing from San Diego. SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Mon 20 May

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £6

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £10 ADV.

Experimental hip-hip from the Mercury-nominated lisped Londoner, whose brand new track, MSI MUSMID, will be available as a free download after it gets 1000 Soundcloud reposts.

Founding original member Martin Turner performs a selection of Wishbone Ash favourites. Rescheduled date.

Energetic Edinburgh quintet firmly of the indie-rock variety... Ain’t they all?

The South London dream folksters do their thing in the suitably ethereal setting of The Caves, all hazy electronica, acoustic guitar and whisper-quiet harmonies.

GHOSTPOET

The American fiddler, banjo player, guitarist and singer continues with his exploration of traditional music.

The Devon folk singer/songwriter and virtuoso fiddler does his damned impressive thing, shredding strings as he goes. MT. WOLF (SHARFLA)

Sat 25 May

SUMMER(BEER)HALL

SUMMERHALL, 18:30–23:00, FROM £5

Dundee Music Tue 30 Apr DINOSAUR PILE UP

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30, £7.50 ADV.

Leeds-based alternative rock lot led by singer and guitarist Matt Bigland.

Thu 02 May

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDES (THE BROTHEL CORPSE TRIO, SALEMSTREET) BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30, £6 ADV.

Welsh street punk mob known for liking their rock’n’roll super charged.

Fri 03 May

LUCA (ACADEMY STRANGERS, THE BARENTS SEA, TERRAFRAID)

20 ROCKS, 19:30–22:00, FREE

Glasgow-hailing post-punk lot led by Mark Rankin, currently touting their wares around Scotland. THE MCMASH CLAN

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30, £10 ADV.

London-based three-man DJ team using four decks and FX to drop, scratch and re-edit their way through shades of dubstep, electro, drumstep, d’n’b, techno, jungle and the like.

Sat 04 May

FAT GOTH (INDICA, THE SPARROWHAWK, ORKESTRAL)

20 ROCKS, 18:00–23:00, FREE

Ex-Alamos members in a new alternative guise, still touring the hell outta their gem of a new(ish) album, STUD.

THE PRIMEVALS (THE CREEPING IVIES, THE RAG N BONE MAN, BLANK LODGE)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30, £5 ADV. (£6 DOOR)

Longstanding Glasgow psychedelic rockers on the go since 1983, built on swinging rhythm-tenacious beats.

Mon 06 May

DIRTY BEACHES (ELA ORLEANS)

SOUL CLUB, 21:00–00:00, £7 (£5)

Solo performer, sound-smith and trans-Pacific nomad Alex Zhang Hungtai plays under his Dirty Beaches moniker, all drum loops, yearning melodies and enchantment.

Thu 09 May NELL BRYDEN

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £10

New York singer/songwriter whose Americana-inspired sound takes in elements of soul, blues and folk.

Fri 10 May THE VIEW

20 ROCKS, 19:00–23:00, £18 ADV. (£20 DOOR)

The Dundee indie-pop scamps play a trio of consecutive hometown dates; don’t get too excited, now. ALTRES (ESPERI, SMALL FEET)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:30, £3

Dundee-based electronic tinkerers of the mostly instrumental and improvised variety (aka go with it).

Sat 11 May THE VIEW

20 ROCKS, 19:00–23:00, £18 ADV. (£20 DOOR)

The Dundee indie-pop scamps play a trio of consecutive hometown dates; don’t get too excited, now.

Sun 12 May THE VIEW

20 ROCKS, 19:00–23:00, £18 ADV. (£20 DOOR)

Hawkwind tribute act.

The Dundee indie-pop scamps play a trio of consecutive hometown dates; don’t get too excited, now.

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:00–22:00, £6

Tue 14 May

THE PSYCHEDELIC WARLORDS COSMIC RIOT (RECOVERY)

Edinburgh-based producer (aka Richard Kennedy) on the house and electro soundscapes. NEU! REEKIE! (KRYSTELLE BAMFORD, STEVIE JACKSON, ADMIRAL FALLOW) SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:15, £7

Stellar night of avant-garde poetry, music and film, this time taking in musical performances from Belle and Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson alongside the rousing collective rabble of Admiral Fallow, plus myriad other lyrical and literary lovelies.

COPPER LUNGS (VUKOVI, OUR FUTURE GLORY)

NON-ZERO’S, 20:00–22:00, £TBC

Dundee/Perth-based melodic alternative rock lot, recent winners of the Tay FM Under The Radar unsigned bands competition.

THE SKINNY

Fri 17 May

Three Blind Wolves (Gabriel Kelley, King Louie)

20 Rocks, 20:00–23:00, £6 adv. (£8 door)

More singalongable, dancealongable alternative countryesque tunes from the Glasgow lads.

Sat 18 May Culann

20 Rocks, 20:00–23:00, Free

Irvine-based rock quintet who’ve christened themselves as ‘folkressive’. Pretty much sums ‘em up.

Sun 19 May The River 68’s

20 Rocks, 20:00–23:00, Free

The Glasgow-based rockers perform a covers-heavy set, as per. John Cooper Clarke

The Gardyne Theatre, 19:30–22:00, £15 (£13)

More satirical and biting political verse, delivered in Cooper Clarke’s rapid-fire performance style – aka punk poetry at its finest.

Fat Sam’s Fridays Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £8

Party-styled Friday nighter soundtracked by beat-heavy house and electro playlists.

Sat 11 May Terry Farley

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £12

One of the quartet of cultural hooligans that brought you Boys Own, longstanding London DJ Terry Farley takes a wee jaunt to Dundee. Asylum

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Sun 12 May Fat Sam’s Saturdays

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £6

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Wed 15 May Friendzy

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Sun 26 May

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

20 Rocks, 20:00–23:00, Free

Fri 17 May

Fri 31 May

Party-styled Friday nighter soundtracked by beat-heavy house and electro playlists.

Ded Rabbit

Band of brothers playing an eclectic mix of indie and sax funk. The Rah’s

20 Rocks, 20:00–23:00, Free

Fat Sam’s Fridays

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £8

Edinburgh indie quartet deft at taking the genre into jangling, guitar-driven soundscapes.

Sat 18 May

Dundee Clubs

Gorilla In Your Car

Wed 01 May Friendzy

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Asylum

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative. Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Hardcore, emo, punk and scenester selections. Also perhaps the best-named club night in Dundee’s existence.

Sun 19 May Fat Sam’s Saturdays

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £6

Fri 03 May

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Wed 22 May

Ken Smith & DUNC4N

Likely lads Ken Smith & DUNC4N take control of the decks for their usual mix of house, hip-hop and anything else they fancy. Fat Sam’s Fridays

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £8

Party-styled Friday nighter soundtracked by beat-heavy house and electro playlists. Warped

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings, featuring additional live performances from a selection of choice noisemakers.

Sat 04 May

A Love From Outer Space

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £12

Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s rather ace London night makes its now regular trip north, with the mighty duo playing backto-back all night long. Asylum

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Sun 05 May

Dundee Dance Event 2013

Reading Rooms, 14:30–02:30, £tbc

Multi-venue annual gathering point for Dundee’s dancefloor dwellers, with over 60 DJs playing myriad venues over the course of the weekend. Fat Sam’s Saturdays

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £6

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Wed 08 May Friendzy

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Fri 10 May

Headway: 9th Birthday (PanPot)

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

Berlin-based techno duo par excellence Pan-Pot take to Headway for the night, ready to help ‘em celebrate their 9th birthday.

Friendzy

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Fri 24 May Dare Does Dundee

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

John Pleased Wimmin brings his night of eclectic electronic and disco-tinged delights Dundee-way. Fat Sam’s Fridays

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £8

Party-styled Friday nighter soundtracked by beat-heavy house and electro playlists.

Sat 25 May Asylum

Kage, 23:00–02:30, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative.

Sun 26 May

Spektrum (Dave Seaman)

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

Glasgow Clubs Tue 30 Apr Killer Kitsch

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Killer Kitsch residents take charge – eight years old and still offering up the best in house, techno and electronic. Voodoo Voodoo

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age. TV Tuesday

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems. Nightwalk SS2013

The Arches, 20:30–23:30, £10 adv.

Nightwalk present their celebration of fashion, electronic beats and dancing ‘til you drop, with a selection of local designers showcasing their Spring/Summer 2013 picks, backed by an electro soundtrack. i AM (Jackmaster)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa invite Numbers’ co-founder Jackmaster the the fore to round off their April dates.

Wed 01 May Octopussy

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all. Take It Sleazy

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

An unabashed mix of 80s pop, electro and nu-disco. They will play Phil Collins. Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Ray Vose and Desoto at the helm. Funk’d

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

All-new Wednesday nighter with Sean Chan playing bangin’ house only. Sesame Street Wednesdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee spins a selection of danceable tunes at The Garage’s new Sesame Street-themed night, jollied along by a cookie eating competition. Obvs. Two Zebras and a Giraffe

Saint Judes, 23:00–03:00, Free

All-new midweek party night filling yer ears full of garage, UKF, house, bass and bashment.

Thu 02 May Misbehavin’

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Monthly mish-mash of electro, dance and dirty pop with DJ Drucifer. Danse Macabre

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £4

Showcase night for electronic DJs and producers from across the globe, with somewhat of a legend of a guest in the form of dance maestro Dave Seaman.

The Danse Macabre regulars unite those two happiest of bedfellows, goth rock and, er, classic disco, in their new home of Classic Grand.

Fat Sam’s, 21:00–03:00, £6

Monthly dose of industrial, EBM and electronic. We hear it’s very danceable.

Fat Sam’s Saturdays

Massive Saturday night party spreading its wares over three floors and no less than six rooms.

Cryotec

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3

Jellybaby

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Coloursfest: Official Tour Night (Jon Mancini, Michael Paterson, Pip Lynch, DJ Fubu, Jason Cortez)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Fat Sam’s, 23:00–04:30, £8

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Shore

Something of a warm-up night for the hard-partyin’ Colours lot, before they take to Glasgow’s Breahead Arena for Coloursfest 2013 come June.

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

Wed 29 May

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Friendzy

Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £3.50

Messy student midweeker of party tunes and jelly shots.

Fri 31 May Fat Sam’s Fridays

Fat Sam’s, 20:00–03:00, £8

Party-styled Friday nighter soundtracked by beat-heavy house and electro playlists.

R.U.IN Thursdays

A floor of rock and metal, plus guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar. Hip Hop Thursdays

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Early weekend party starter, with Euan Neilson playing the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

Fri 03 May Old Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

May 2013

Damnation Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of the best in punk, metal and alternative tunes. Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. 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

Colours: May The 4th Be With You (Gareth Emery, Nervo, Craig Connelly) The Arches, 23:00–05:00, £24.50

The party-hard Colours crew step out in honour of official Star Wars Day, boasting the Scottish debut for Australian sister duo Nervo, amongst others. Cathouse’s Star Wars Night

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Star Wars-themed party where the residents celebrate official Star Wars Day. Half price entry in costume.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Magic Nostalgic: Glasgow

Jamming Fridays

All-new Glasgow outing for JP’s spinning wheel, playing anything from 90s rave to power ballads – and a whole lotta of one-hit wonders. Amen.

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms. Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. Liquid Sky

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Formed from the ashes of Pandemic, Chad Palestine plays everything from vintage rock’n’roll to soul, leftfield pop to the best in alternative indie. Yes!

The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

New gay indie night on the block, with a playlist that mixes classic Bowie, The Smiths, Blondie et al alongside new kids iike Django Djanjo and Grimes. John Digweed

SWG3, 21:30–03:00, £15 adv.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5 adv.

Subculture: 19th Birthday (DJ Sneak)

Sub Club, 23:00–04:00, £14 (£10)

The long-running house night celebrates a mighty 19 years of being, with residents Harri & Domenic joined by a celebratory guest set from Puerto Rican-born house music maestro DJ Sneak.

Barry Price and Junior provide the cutting edge electronic from across the globe, with special guest in the form of techy electronic lass Maya Jane Coles.

Sat 04 May Nu Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. Absolution

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors. The Rock Shop

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. Love Music

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests. I Heart Garage Saturdays

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart. Freakbeats

The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mod, soul, ska and groovy freakbeat 45s, with DJs Jamo, Paul Molloy and Gareth McCallum. Highlife (Auntie Flo)

La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Music from across the globe, with resident Auntie Flo unveiling an all-new live show. Supermax

The Berkeley Suite, 23:00–03:00, £5

A taste of the decadent sound systems of NYC’s disco era with yer main man Billy Woods. Strange Paradise

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

New night from Wild Combination man David Barbarossa, specializing in leftfield disco, post-punk and far-out pop.

Weirdo Wednesday

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Rock’n’roll party with live bands playing on the floor. Funk’d

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

All-new Wednesday nighter with Sean Chan playing bangin’ house only. Sesame Street Wednesdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee spins a selection of danceable tunes at The Garage’s new Sesame Street-themed night, jollied along by a cookie eating competition. Obvs. Two Zebras and a Giraffe

Saint Judes, 23:00–03:00, Free

All-new midweek party night filling yer ears full of garage, UKF, house, bass and bashment.

Thu 09 May Jellybaby

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Melting Pot

The Melting Pot crew host a May bank holiday special, with the residents taking centre stage for the night – aka Andrew Pirie and Simon Cordiner are off the leash for a rare residents-only outing. Thunder Disco Club

Shed, 22:30–02:00, Free (£3 after 12)

Sensu (Maya Jane Coles)

Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Ray Vose and Desoto at the helm.

The Admiral, 23:00–03:00, £8

La Cheetah Club, 23:00–04:00, £12

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Sun 05 May

Regular TDC night of disco-infused house.

La Cheetah Club pull out the big guns with a four-hour set from Sound Signature boss Theo Parish, who rocked it when he played almost exactly a year ago to the day.

Octopussy

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Global dance music royalty John Digweed plays an extended set, showcasing his Bedrock label. Theo Parrish

Wed 08 May

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Imported

The Shed open their doors on the day of the Lord once more, with an all-new global house night manned by DJs David Owens and Dave Space.

Pressure (Slam, Dubfire, Nicole Moudaber, Ivan Smagghe, Ambivalent, Shaded)

The Arches, 23:00–05:00, £18 adv.

Pressure pull out the stops for a Bank Holiday special, with inimitable residents Slam joined by an all-star international line-up of guests. Renegade: Cino De Mayo Party

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Rock, metal and punk playlists, this week with a special Mexicanthemed party in honour of Cinco De Mayo. With added tequila, as per the law.

Mon 06 May Burn

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/Free with wage slip)

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats. Space Invader

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

Tue 07 May Killer Kitsch

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Killer Kitsch residents take charge – eight years old and still offering up the best in house, techno and electronic. i Am

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, with some likely live guests in tow. Voodoo Voodoo

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age. TV Tuesday

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

Boom Thursdays

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive). Shore

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra. R.U.IN Thursdays

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

A floor of rock and metal, plus guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar. Hip Hop Thursdays

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Early weekend party starter, with Euan Neilson playing the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

Fri 10 May Old Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul. Damnation

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of the best in punk, metal and alternative tunes. Kino Fist

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Genre-spanning mix of 60s psych, leftfield pop and Krautrock with resident Charlotte (of Muscles of Joy). Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Pistols At Dawn (Tusk, Forever Sound) La Cheetah Club, 23:00–03:00, £8

Pistols At Dawn present a double headliner of guests, with shadowy Tusk Wax label boss, Tusk, playing alongside Berlin-based cosmicmeets-techno outfit Forever Sound.

The Pretty Ugly indie night – headed up by a trio of female DJs – this month pays tribute to the glitz of The Great Gatsby, slipping in a selection of tracks from the new film adaptation’s OST. Dress fancy.

Basura Blanca, 21:00–02:00, £5

Sun 12 May

ReFrame (Lo)

ReFrame returns to The Brunswick Hotel’s basement club for a night of electro, house and techno, welcoming Superfreq resident Lo for a guest set, with Joe Crogan providing the live visual accompaniment. Tribal Pulse (Robert Babicz)

Make Do, 23:00–03:00, £8 adv. (£10 door)

All-new record label and club night, Tribal Pulse, kick off their live outings by bringing German acid house and techno specialist Robert Babicz to their lair, with support from Glasgow-based producer Boom Merchant. San Soda (Matt Tolfrey, Wax Works) Saint Judes, 23:00–03:00, £12

Young Belgian producer San Soda (aka Nicolas Geysens) takes centre stage for the evening, playing his own inimitable take on the house genre. Huntleys and Palmers

Stereo, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Kilmarnock’s hairy disco legend, David Barbarossa, digs out some vinyl gems joined by Melting Pot’s Andrew Pirie and House of Honey’s Din Daa Daa. Common People

The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Celebration of all things 90s, with hits a-plenty and a pre-club bingo session. Booty Call

The Garage, 23:00–04:00, £7 (£5)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms. Jamming Fridays

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. Symbiosis

Audio, 23:00–03:00, Free

Innovative D’n’B beats in a relaxed, bass-rich environment.

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic. Imported

Shed, 22:30–02:00, Free (£3 after 12)

The Shed open their doors on the day of the Lord once more, with an all-new global house night manned by DJs David Owens and Dave Space.

Mon 13 May Burn

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/Free with wage slip)

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats. Space Invader

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Killer Kitsch residents take charge – eight years old and still offering up the best in house, techno and electronic.

The favourited rock’n’roll singalong comes to Glasgow for the first time, blasting oot the 80s and 90s indie-pop anthems alongside a live band set from The Parsonage. Return To Mono (Gary Beck)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Monthly night from Soma Records, with producer/DJ duo Slam (aka Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle) joined by hard-working techno chap Gary Beck.

Sat 11 May Nu Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. Absolution

Tue 14 May Killer Kitsch

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

i Am

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, with some likely live guests in tow. Voodoo Voodoo

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age. TV Tuesday

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £6

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

Cathouse Saturdays

Wed 15 May

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors. Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet. The Rock Shop

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5/£3 student after 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. Love Music

Back Tae Mine

Wild Combination

Renegade

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5 adv.

Friday I’m in Love (The Parsonage)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Berkeley Suite, 23:00–03:00, £4

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath.

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11.30)

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Sunday Roaster

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

More cosmic, kraut and disco picks, with guests Philipp Gorbachev (of Comeme) and the speciallyassembled Green Door disco band, Golden Teacher.

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. Cathouse Fridays

Pretty Great Gatsby The Admiral, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6/£5 student after 12)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests. The Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

House-party styled night with residents Gav Dunbar and Sci-Fi Steve. Plus free toast for all. I Heart Garage Saturdays

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart. Subculture (Harri & Domenic, Junior, Esa & Telford)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £12 (£8)

Long-running house night with all five residents hosting proceedings. Wrong Island

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics for your aural pleasure.

Octopussy

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all. Not Moving

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

South African house, grime, jungle, R’n’B and hauntology. A tropical mix, ayes. Sub Rosa

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Ray Vose and Desoto at the helm. Funk’d

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

All-new Wednesday nighter with Sean Chan playing bangin’ house only. Sesame Street Wednesdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee spins a selection of danceable tunes at The Garage’s new Sesame Street-themed night, jollied along by a cookie eating competition. Obvs. Two Zebras and a Giraffe

Saint Judes, 23:00–03:00, Free

All-new midweek party night filling yer ears full of garage, UKF, house, bass and bashment.

Blank Inside

Thu 16 May

Stereo, 23:00–03:00, £3

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 adv. (£5 door)

Monthly indie-styled night taking in house, disco, garage, techno, garage and R’n’B. Rubbed: 1st Birthday

Saint Judes, 22:00–03:00, £8 (£6)

The Rubbed lot turn the grand old age of, er one, with a double dose of guests in the form of Simon Stokes and Mr Copy, playing a back-toback live set.

Jellybaby

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer. Boom Thursdays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive). Shore

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

Listings

R.U.IN THURSDAYS

THE HOUSE SOUND OF CHICAGO (JACKMASTER B2B JD TWITCH)

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

A floor of rock and metal, plus guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Early weekend party starter, with Euan Neilson playing the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

Fri 17 May OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul.

Two of Glasgow ‘s finest go back to back, showcasing their choice cuts of Chicago wax over a fourhour set.

ANIMAL FARM (TRUNCATE, RØDHÅD)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 ADV.

Dancefloor-filling techno nuts Animal Farm take the reins at Subbie, boasting Scottish debuts for two biggies on the techno scene – LA’s Truncate and Berlin-born and bred Rødhåd. DANIEL AVERY VS JONNIE WILKES

DAMNATION

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 AFTER 12)

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of the best in punk, metal and alternative tunes. ARGONAUT SOUNDS REGGAE SOUNDSYSTEM

BLACKFRIARS BASEMENT, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Roots reggae, dancehall and rocksteady in original soundsystem stylee, with special guest selecta Earl Gateshead of Trojan Sound System. PROPAGANDA

Phantasy’s Daniel Avery plays back-to-back with Glasgow talent JG Wilkes (of Optimo) in support of the launch of his Fabric Live album.

Sat 18 May NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. BLACK TENT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

Indie, electro and anything inbetween with Pauly (My Latest Novel), and Simin and Steev (Errors). ABSOLUTION

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Rock, metal, punk and emo over two levels, with the residents manning the decks.

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors. SUBCULTURE

BOTTLE ROCKET

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £12

Indie dancing club, playing anything and everything danceable.

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

BOOTY CALL

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. SPANGLED CABARET

THE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, £5

Eclectic (read: chaotic) night of variety acts, live music and danceable beats from DJ Paul Puppet.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests.

The Burns an’ a’ that! Festival

Finale Gig Sunday 26 May

Justin Currie (ex Del Amitri)

with support from

Rachel Sermanni Burns an’ a’ that! Festival Live Music Tent, Belleisle Park, Ayr TiCkeTS £15 Box Office

01292 269793 / 617660 www.ticketweb.co.uk www.burnsfestival.com 66

Listings

I HEART GARAGE SATURDAYS THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart. SINGLES NIGHT

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

Andy Divine and Chris Geddes’ gem of a night dedicated to 7-inch singles from every genre imaginable.

WE LOVE DETROIT (DERRICK MAY, JIMMY EDGAR)

SAINT JUDES, 23:00–03:00, £18

Two generations of the Motor City – Derrick May and Jimmy Edgar – take charge for a one-off night of techno goodness, with support from locals Offbeat and Bigfoots Tea Party.

HOT CREATIONS SHOWCASE (JAMIE JONES, LEE FOSS, RICHY AHMED, ROBERT JAMES, RUSS YALLOP, BURNSKI, ALEX ARNOUT, THE SHIMMY)

THE ARCHES, 22:00–05:00, £18 ADV.

Hot Creations, the sunshinedrenched house label run by Jamie Jones and Lee Foss, descends upon the Arches with a hefty load of guests in tow. CODE (BAS MOOY)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Underground techno specialists Code bring Rotterdam’s Bas Mooy to La Cheetah, churning oot the deep and dark grooves from the get go. STAG AND DAGGER: OFFICIAL AFTER-PARTY (FACTORY FLOOR)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Official Stag and Dagger afterbash, headlined by Factory Floor with support from i Am’s resident young guns Beta & Kappa. ODDIO

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Wed 22 May THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Hip-hop and gangsta rap brought to you by the Notorious B.A.G and pals.

SUB ROSA

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

OCTOPUSSY

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all. SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Ray Vose and Desoto at the helm. SO WEIT SO GOOD

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

One-off free party featuring the party sounds of Ean, Smiddy and Kenny White on decks. FUNK’D

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

All-new Wednesday nighter with Sean Chan playing bangin’ house only. SESAME STREET WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee spins a selection of danceable tunes at The Garage’s new Sesame Street-themed night, jollied along by a cookie eating competition. Obvs. TWO ZEBRAS AND A GIRAFFE

SAINT JUDES, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new midweek party night filling yer ears full of garage, UKF, house, bass and bashment. MILK: 2ND BIRTHDAY

FLAT 0/1, 21:00–03:00, £4

The musical clubber’s delight pitches up for its second birthday celebrations, bringing with ‘em a ‘best of’ styled bunch of former guests in the form of Carnivores, Lady North and an extra-special headliner they’ve sworn us to secrecy on.

Thu 23 May JELLYBABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 ADV. (£5 DOOR)

New monthly residency manned by Weegie stalwart Jim Hutchison.

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Sun 19 May

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

SUNDAY ROASTER

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath. RENEGADE

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic. HISPANIC PANIC

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Hispanic Panic returns with a circus-themed party, transforming the Flying Duck into a tropical paradise of Latin American rhythms, circus props and ice cream. Crazy lot. IMPORTED

SHED, 22:30–02:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

The Shed open their doors on the day of the Lord once more, with an all-new global house night manned by DJs David Owens and Dave Space.

Mon 20 May BURN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats. SPACE INVADER

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

SHORE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Early weekend party starter, with Euan Neilson playing the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop. RUBIX (ANDREW ASHONG)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

The bass music special returns for another installment, this time joined by Forest Hill by way of Ghana chap Andrew Ashong and his unrivalled vinyl collection.

Fri 24 May OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul. THE HOT CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Tearin’ it up with 60s psych-outs and modern sleaze, provided by Rafla and Andy (of The Phantom Band). DAMNATION

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

PROPAGANDA

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. 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, 23:00–04:00, £7 (£5)

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

TV TUESDAY

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems.

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 ADV.

Having recorded some of the best house labels going – amongst ‘em Hypercolour, Needwant and Ellum Audio – Maxxi Soundsystem takes to Subbie’s basment, joined by Mash (himself no stranger to said basement).

ARIKA13: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT (DJ SPRINKLES, VJUAN ALLURE, BOYCHILD, THE LEGENDARY PONY ZION GARÇON) STEREO, 23:00–03:00, £4

Investigation of the kind of fugitive, semi-public space traditionally fostered by the club, featuring a selection of deep house and ballroom DJs and performers.

Sat 25 May NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

SUNDAY ROASTER

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Garry and Andrew Kilgour incite more mayhem than should really be allowed on the Sabbath. RENEGADE

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Rock, metal and punk playlists all night long, selected by yer man DJ Mythic. GBX SUNDAY

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £10

Glasgow DJing legend George Bowie brings his GBX club night to the southside for a special Bank Holiday Sunday outing.

ELECTRIC FROG MAY HOLIDAY WEEKENDER (EROL ALKAN, OPTIMO, MATIAS AGUAYO, OCTAVE ONE, HARRI & DOMENIC, THUNDER DISCO CLUB, VITAMINS, BEN MARTIN, JASPER & JOSH)

SWG3, 18:00–02:00, £18 (£15) OR £45 (£35) WEEKEND

May weekend edition of the favourited micro-festival – again in the suitably cool warehouse surrounds of SWG3 – featuring a mega five-hour set from David Morales (Saturday) and an all-disco set from yer man Erol Alkan (Sunday), amongst other treats.

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

A floor of rock and metal, plus guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

COMPACT DISCO (MAXXI SOUNDSYSTEM, MASH)

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £4

Monthly glam trash and sleaze tease party, with guest burlesque performers, magicians and a bit o’ belly dancing.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Mixed bag of indie, rock, underground hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms.

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age.

DUSKY (BEN MARTIN)

SAINT JUDES, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Rising stars, Beatport Chart toppers, Radio 1 darlings and allround club smash brothers – Dusky – take to Saint Judes, we’ll do the screaming.

TRASH AND BURN

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, with some likely live guests in tow. VOODOO VOODOO

MAKE DO, 23:00–03:00, £5

French-Canadian producer Jacques Greene brings his new label, Vase, to Glasgow for an exclusive showcase presentation – taking in a live analog performance from Greene himself, alongside Koreless’ deconstructed take on garage.

SLIDE IT IN

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Nicola Walker plays cult rock hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

R.U.IN THURSDAYS

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

I AM (TELFORD)

VASE SHOWCASE (JACQUES GREENE, KORELESS)

Sun 26 May

Mon 27 May

Tue 21 May BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

More 80s boogie and disco burners from the Work For Love Crew, bolstered by an appearance from West Norwood Soul Patrol.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

Special L.I.E.S Records showcase, featuring a double dose of producer talent in the form of Steve Summers, Delroy Edwards, with support from The Guild of Calamitous Intent.

Nick Peacock spins a selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Two floors of the best in punk, metal and alternative tunes.

The Killer Kitsch residents take charge – eight years old and still offering up the best in house, techno and electronic.

WORK FOR LOVE (WEST NORWOOD SOUL PATROL)

L.I.E.S RECORD SHOWCASE (STEVE SUMMERS, DELROY EDWARDS)

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra.

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic. KILLER KITSCH

HARSH TUG THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

JAMMING FRIDAYS

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. A LOVE FROM OUTER SPACE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £8

Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s rather ace London night makes its now regular trip north, with the mighty duo playing backto-back all night long.

ABSOLUTION

SUBCULTURE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £12

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

BURN

Long-running trade night with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats. SPACE INVADER

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays chart hits and requests past and present, with DJ Muppet holing up in The Attic.

Tue 28 May KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

The Killer Kitsch residents take charge – eight years old and still offering up the best in house, techno and electronic.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11.30)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

LOVE MUSIC

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and guests. I HEART GARAGE SATURDAYS

THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student superclub playing everything from hip-hop to dance and funk to chart. HOUNDIN’ THE STREETS

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

Resident DJs Jer Reid, Martin Law and guests play music from, and some music inspired by, 1970s and early 80s NYC. TRANSMISSION (RICHARD FEARLESS)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £8

I AM

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual mix of electronica and bass, with some likely live guests in tow. I AM: BOAT PARTY

GLASGOW SCIENCE CENTRE, 19:00–23:00, £17 (£15)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa set sail with mysterious Numbers affiliate Sophie in tow – playing via the beefed up soundsystem, followed by an after-bash at Subbie. Boat leaves from Glasgow Science Centre. VOODOO VOODOO

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

One half of Death in Vegas, Richard Fearless, pays another visit to Transmission – never failing to unearth some new sounds.

Duncan Harvey plays a mix of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, sleazy R’n’B, swing, soul, surf and pop from a bygone age.

O2 ACADEMY, 21:00–03:00, £15.50

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

CLUB NOIR: THE BLITZ

Glasgow’s burlesque star teasers step back in time for a WWIIthemed special, in honour of VE Day 2013.

TV TUESDAY

New Tuesday nighter with DJ Garry playing a selection of dancefloorfriendly anthems. REDLIGHT (BOBBY TANK)

SAINT JUDES, 22:00–03:00, £5 (STUDENTS FREE)

ELECTRIC FROG MAY HOLIDAY WEEKENDER (DAVID MORALES, DIMITRI FROM PARIS, CHEZ DAMIER, 6TH BOROUGH PROJECT, NICHOLAS, MELTING POT, KEV STEVENS & CRAIG MOOGROOVES)

The Bristol-based chappie brings the eclectic party soundscapes, pitched somewhere between house, breakbeats and dubstep.

SWG3, 18:00–02:00, £18 (£15) OR £45 (£35) WEEKEND

Wed 29 May

OCTOPUSSY

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, £5 (£4)

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Ray Vose and Desoto at the helm. FUNK’D

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

All-new Wednesday nighter with Sean Chan playing bangin’ house only. SESAME STREET WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Craig McGee spins a selection of danceable tunes at The Garage’s new Sesame Street-themed night, jollied along by a cookie eating competition. Obvs. TWO ZEBRAS AND A GIRAFFE

SAINT JUDES, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new midweek party night filling yer ears full of garage, UKF, house, bass and bashment.

Thu 30 May COUNTERFEIT

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

Full-on mix of nu-metal and hard rockin’ tunes, with yer man DJ Muppet. JELLYBABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £3 ADV. (£5 DOOR)

Edinburgh Clubs Tue 30 Apr ANTICS

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk. SOUL JAM HOT

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs. I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. HECTOR’S HOUSE

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Wed 01 May BANGERS & MASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, £1 (£3 AFTER 11)

Chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

BOOM THURSDAYS

Chart and indie anthems, plus a live Twitter feed where you can log tune requests (#Garagelive). FROGBEATS

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

The Frogbeats crew pump out the jungle and D’n’B beats a-plenty.

INDIGO

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings. WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

FROGBEATS: UNLEASH THE BEAST (PHARO, DENNEY, RIZE)

DJs Swank’n’Jams seamlessly mix tropical beats and swing rhythms, mashed up with some well-kent classics.

SHORE

Eclectic new party night playing everything from the electronic aquatic funk of Drexciya to the outer-space jazz of Sun Ra. SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Frogbeats and residents host their D’n’B and jungle showcase night, transforming Subbie into their own concrete jungle for the evening. R.U.IN THURSDAYS

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

A floor of rock and metal, plus guest DJs mixing it up in the Jager Bar. HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Early weekend party starter, with Euan Neilson playing the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

Fri 31 May

ZOOT

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, FREE

SUPERSUB

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Napier University student night, playing a fine mix of electro, dubstep and house across both rooms. CHAMPION SOUND

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Brand new midweek dub, jungle, reggae and dancehall happening at the all-new Bongo.

Thu 02 May FRISKY

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long.

DAMNATION

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

OLD SKOOL

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul. CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of the best in punk, metal and alternative tunes. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. 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 hip-hop and chart classics across four rooms. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to the 00s, with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. HARSH TUG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Hip-hop and gangsta rap brought to you by the Notorious B.A.G and pals. MISSING PERSONS CLUB

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Monthly evening of techno from the MPC crew and guests.

I AM EDINBURGH

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass. JUICE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped Thursday nighter playing a mighty mix of everything from Hud Mo to Fly Mo. NO GLOBE

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

World beats from the eponymous Edinburgh University-based party collective, taking in African house, kwaito, cumbia, Afrobeat and global bass.

Fri 03 May MISFITS

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms. FOUR CORNERS

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Soulful dancing fodder, from deep funk to reggae beats with your regular DJ hosts Simon Hodge, Johnny Cashback, Astroboy and Wee-G. A LOVE FROM OUTER SPACE

THE ANNEXE, 22:30–03:00, £12.50

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s rather ace London night makes its now regular trip north, with the mighty duo playing backto-back all night long.

DEADLY RHYTHM VS HIGHLIFE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 AFTER 12)

SUPERFLY

The legendary soul, funk and indie club of the Woodside Social fame’s returns to the Duck. SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

More ear-exercising house and techno from the Deadly Rhythm troublemakers, going head-tohead with that inimitable Highlife lot.

CREAM SODA

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

THE SKINNY

Edinburgh Clubs Jackhammer (Dave Clarke) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £12 adv.

The Jackhammer crew provide our regular dose of all things techno with a guest set from DJ, producer and radio presenter Dave Clarke. Unseen: 1st Birthday

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£8 after 11)

More stripped-down techno with a back-to-basics warehouse style, as Unseen celebrate turning the grand old age of one with a guest set from London-based producer Truss (aka MPIA3). FLY (Kottiz)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

A powerhouse of local residents take over Cab Vol for their all-new Friday nighter, with We Own’s Kottiz their special guest for the evening. Leftorium

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Terror (Ceephax Acid Crew, Fexomat, Beatwife, Anton Serra, Nico) The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Terror crew raid the underground for another genre-hopping night of hip-hop, hardcore, rave and punk, manned by a selection of international talent. DM Lovers

The Cabaret Voltaire, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£3)

New alternative monthly night taking its inspiration from the skinhead and punk movements, with discounted entry in Dr. Martens. Obviously.

Mon 06 May Mixed Up

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics. Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fortnightly genre-spanning meld of music, with residents Miller and Molecular dishing up slabs of hiphop, house, funk, soul and disco.

DJ Fusion and guests move from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5 (members free)

New weekly Monday nighter from new kids on the Edinburgh block, Young Team.

LuckyMe (Cashmere Cat, The Blessings)

The globetrotting music, art and all-round party crew return to Sneaky’s diminutive lair, celebrating the release of their new signing.

Sat 04 May The Egg

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. The Go-Go

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11)

Long-running retro night with veteran DJs Tall Paul and Big Gus. Bubblegum

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard.

The Basement Series

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Tue 07 May Antics

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk. Soul Jam Hot

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs. I Love Hip-Hop

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £2

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. Hector’s House

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Playdate

Wed 08 May

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

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

House specialists Stewart and Steven play, er, some special house. Propaganda

Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. Dr No’s

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and reggae. Speaker Bite Me

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

The Evol DJs worship at the alter of all kinds of indie-pop, as long as it’s got bite.

Bangers & Mash

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics. Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings. SuperSub

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Napier University student night, playing a fine mix of electro, dubstep and house across both rooms. Champion Sound

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 12)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Brand new midweek dub, jungle, reggae and dancehall happening at the all-new Bongo.

Musika (Maya Jane Coles, Dusky)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Thunder Disco Club

Regular TDC night of disco-infused house. The Liquid Room, 21:00–03:00, £15 earlybird

A double dose of talent take over Musika for the night, in the form of techy electronic lass Maya Jane Coles and the genre-straddling DJ duo that is Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman (aka Dusky). Big ‘N’ Bashy (DJ Spooky)

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£6 after 12)

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle, this month with a special guest slot from electronic and experimental hip-hop musician DJ Spooky.

Sun 05 May The Sunday Club

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Witness: 2nd Birthday (Groove Chronicles)

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular turns the grand old age of two, joined by garage pioneer Noodles (aka Groove Chronicles), e’er relied upon to up the party tempo.

Thu 09 May Frisky

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long. i AM Edinburgh (DRMC)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass. Juice

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

The glam techno and electro night takes over Bongo HQ for its usual themed shenanigans, this month in Hollywood Porn Party stylee. Discount in fancy dress. This Is Music

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs. Cosmic

Studio 24, 21:00–03:00, £3 (£6 after 10)

Monthly club bringing the spirit of the psychedelic trance dance ritual to the floor, with live acts, VJs and colourful fluoro decor. Cream Soda

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Invasion of the Jungle Soldiers

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

The Shake Yer Shoulders’ lot take y’all on a jungle bent for the evening. Jackhammer (Len Faki)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £8 adv.

The Jackhammer crew provide our regular dose of all things techno with a guest set from Podium and Figure label head Len Faki, known for his untamed DJ sets that meander in style and tone. FLY (Real Nice)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

A powerhouse of local residents take over Cab Vol for their all-new Friday nighter, with London’s Real Nice their special guest for the evening. TURNT UP

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Mikito Ramirez and Your Boy Blair serve up selections of futuristic R’n’B, rap, slow jamz, instrumental bangers and a fair few facemelters.

DJ Fusion and guests move from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs. The Basement Series

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

New weekly Monday nighter from new kids on the Edinburgh block, Young Team.

Tue 14 May Antics

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk. Soul Jam Hot

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs. I Love Hip Hop

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £2

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. Hector’s House

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Wed 15 May Bangers & Mash

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

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics. Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings. Witness

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house. Zoot

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJs Swank’n’Jams seamlessly mix tropical beats and swing rhythms, mashed up with some well-kent classics.

Bass Syndicate

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The regular Edinburgh breaks and bassline Manga crew takeover. Bubblegum

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard. Propaganda

Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. Soulsville

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5

Swinging soul spanning a whole century with DJs Tsatsu and Fryer, plus live dancers a-go-go. Beep Beep, Yeah!

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Brand new midweek dub, jungle, reggae and dancehall happening at the all-new Bongo.

Thu 16 May Frisky

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long. i AM Edinburgh

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass. Juice

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Pumped Thursday nighter playing a mighty mix of everything from Hud Mo to Fly Mo.

Fri 17 May The Revel

Edinburgh College of Art, 22:00–03:00, £15 adv. (£20 door)

Think Twice (Craig Smith)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £14

Two of Edinburgh’s biggest house and techno crews join forces, throwing up a headline set from Berlin-based techno duo par excellence, Pan-Pot.

Sun 12 May The Sunday Club

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Mixed Up

Mon 13 May The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics.

Leftorium

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Fortnightly genre-spanning meld of music, with residents Miller and Molecular dishing up slabs of hiphop, house, funk, soul and disco. Etiket (Junior)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5 (members free)

Laurence Nolan’s crew bring the deep house and vibes, with Sensu’s Junior joining ‘em to represent Glasgow’s techno scene. ETC17: Toon Town

Teviot Underground, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Edinburgh Tekno Cartel bring the sleazy bass and techno beats, this month with a cartoon theme (aka make like Thundercat) – bolstered by Audacious’ Ergonomic Management Keyboard playing a breakcore mash-up medley of all things toon-related.

Sat 18 May The Egg

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. Bubblegum

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard. The Green Door

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 student after 11)

Champion Sound

Annual art school piss-up with the usual themed shenanigans, live bands, DJs, and cans o’ Red Stripe.

Pulse Vs Karnival (Pan-Pot)

A powerhouse of local residents and guests take over Cab Vol for their all-new Friday nighter.

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music.

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s.

Resident Craig Smith brings a rotation of stand out guests from around the world to the dancefloor.

FLY

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Surf, blues and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake! Nuff said.

SuperSub

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 12)

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

The Bad Robot party lot invade once more, armed with an intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes.

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

The Egg

Fri 10 May Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms.

The Basement Series The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sat 11 May

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Misfits

Bad Robot The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 Students)

Napier University student night, playing a fine mix of electro, dubstep and house across both rooms.

Pumped Thursday nighter playing a mighty mix of everything from Hud Mo to Fly Mo.

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

May 2013

Confusion is Sex

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Misfits

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms. Animal Hospital

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Animal Hospital troops continue to medicate Edinburgh with their unique blend of techno, house and minimal. Qabalala!

Leith Cricket Club, 19:00–01:00, £4

The unique ‘maximalist qabaret’ party night returns featuring HRH, Mr Twonkey (aka Paul Vickers) and The Priscillas, plus live visuals from NUWANDA. Cream Soda

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Propaganda

Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Dr No’s

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and reggae. Gasoline Dance Machine

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Classic Italo and straight-up boogie allied with contemporary house and disco, played out under the legendary GDM neon. Messenger

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£7 after 12)

Sweet reggae rockin’ from the original sound system, plus MC Ras Ista Lion on special guest duty. Wasabi Disco

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Heady bout of cosmic house, punk upside-down disco and, er, Fleetwood Mac with yer man Kris ‘Wasabi’ Walker. Pop Rocks!

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£5 after 12)

Pop and rock gems, taking in motown, 80s classics and plenty danceable fare (well, the Beep Beep, Yeah! crew are on decks after all). Karnival (Felix Da Housecat)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £15

New weekly Monday nighter from new kids on the Edinburgh block, Young Team.

Tue 21 May Antics

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk. Soul Jam Hot

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs. I Love Hip Hop

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £2

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. Hector’s House

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats. Best Intentions

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Tuesday-bothering mix of house, nu-disco and techno.

Wed 22 May Bangers & Mash

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

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics. Indigo

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings. Witness

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house. Itchy Feet

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £tbc

Rock’n’roll, swing, blues and reggae night, making Edinburgh jive for years. SuperSub

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Napier University student night, playing a fine mix of electro, dubstep and house across both rooms. Champion Sound

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 12)

Brand new midweek dub, jungle, reggae and dancehall happening at the all-new Bongo.

Thu 23 May Frisky

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long. i AM Edinburgh (Mark Archer)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass. Juice

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Pumped Thursday nighter playing a mighty mix of everything from Hud Mo to Fly Mo.

Fri 24 May Misfits

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms. Xplicit

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Heavy jungle and bass-styled beats from the inimitable Xplicit crew and guests. Cream Soda

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Local house crew Karnival play host to a special guest slot from legendary Chicagoan electroclash DJ and producer Felix Da Housecat.

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old.

Sun 19 May

The Bad Robot party lot invade once more, armed with an intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes.

The Sunday Club

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of.

Mon 20 May Mixed Up

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics. Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Fusion and guests move from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Bad Robot

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Pop Yer Cherry: Part 2

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Minimal, techno and electro beats played out by a selection of brand new virgin DJs, hence the title. FLY (Eton Messy)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

A powerhouse of local residents take over Cab Vol for their all-new Friday nighter, with Eton Messy their guest for the evening.

Bixon (Prosumer)

I Love Hip Hop

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5 adv.

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Hip young party collective Bixon welcome Berlin Panorama Bar resident Prosumer to their lair, known for his eight-hour monster sets. Prepare thyself.

Sat 25 May The Egg

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£4 after 12)

Selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. Hector’s House

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£5)

Electronic basslines allied with home-cooked house beats.

Wed 29 May Bangers & Mash

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Paul playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk.

Midweek student rundown of chart and cheese classics.

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Mumbo Jumbo

Party soundtrack of funk, soul, disco and house with Trendy Wendy, Steve Austin and guests, jollied along by the techno-friendly Bubble DJs in room two and Bongo Dave on live congas and percussion duty. Bubblegum

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics as standard. Magic Nostalgic

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£7 after 12)

A hodgepodge of quality tracks chosen by JP’s spinning wheel. Expect anything from 90s rave to power ballads, and a lot of one-hit wonders. Ride

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Ride girls Checkie and Lauren play hip-hop and dance, all night long – now in their new party-ready Saturday night slot. Propaganda

Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £4

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie music. Madchester

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £6

Monthly favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. Betamax

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Monthly offering of new wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your hosts Chris and Big Gus. Pocket Aces (i AM)

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Dance-inducing party with an anything goes attitude and rotating rota of guest DJs, with I AM residents Beta and Kappa showing their versatility with a monthly appearance. Studio 24 Goes Metal

Studio 24, 20:00–03:00, £3

Studio 24 takes a foray into all things heavy and metal for their usual last Saturday of the month blow-out. Heavy Gossip Vs Ultragroove (Esa)

The Breakfast Club, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Heavy Gossip and Ultragroove take up residence in their new home of Lothian Street’s The Breakfast Club, with guest Esa Williams making the most of TBC’s brand new sound system.

Sun 26 May

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

Indigo

Indie, pop and alternative favourites with a danceable beat, from LCD Soundsystem to The Ting Tings. Witness

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house. SuperSub

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Napier University student night, playing a fine mix of electro, dubstep and house across both rooms. Champion Sound

The Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 12)

Brand new midweek dub, jungle, reggae and dancehall happening at the all-new Bongo.

Thu 30 May Frisky

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare, plus punter requests all night long. i AM Edinburgh

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £4 (free via iamclub.co.uk)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa make their now regular trip east, playing the usual fine mix of electronica and bass. Juice (Ikonika)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Pumped Thursday nighter playing a mighty mix of everything from Hud Mo to Fly Mo, with this edition featuring a guest slot from Hyperdub lady Ikonika – relied upon to take things to suitably glitchy and deep places.

Fri 31 May Misfits

The Hive, 21:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems over two rooms. Wonky

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

A cast of players take care of all your hardtek and breakcore needs, with full UV decor and, yes, glowsticks. Cream Soda

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

American Prom-styled fun night celebrating all that is great about pop, new and old. Defcon

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Jungle, jungle and, er, more jungle with a selection of the best modern Jungle best DJs. Bad Robot

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

The Bad Robot party lot invade once more, armed with an intergalactic mash-up of electro party tunes.

Mon 27 May

The Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Sunday Club

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of. Mixed Up

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Request-driven night of pop-punk, chart, indie and good ol’ 90s classics. Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

DJ Fusion and guests move from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs. The Basement Series

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

New weekly Monday nighter from new kids on the Edinburgh block, Young Team.

Tue 28 May Antics

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

FLY (ATLUS)

A powerhouse of local residents take over Cab Vol for their all-new Friday nighter, with ATLUS their guest for the evening. Leftorium

The Breakfast Club, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Fortnightly genre-spanning meld of music, with residents Miller and Molecular dishing up slabs of hiphop, house, funk, soul and disco. Zzzap Vs High Sheen

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5 (members free)

The Edinburgh art crew shares the deck duties with Ben Martin and Shaun Vitamins for what promises to be one mighty versus night.

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie and punk. Soul Jam Hot

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Fresh mix of funk, soul, disco and hippity-hop from the Soul Jam Hot DJs.

Listings

Comedy Glasgow Tue 30 Apr RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 01 May

WAVERLEY CARE BENEFIT (DES CLARKE, JO CAULFIELD, PAUL SNEDDON, KEIR MCALLISTER, JIM PARK) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£8)

Comedy fundraiser in aid of Waverley Care, for which 1 May marks the opening of the charity’s new Glasgow service centre.

Thu 02 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (REV OBADIAH STEPPENWOLF III, JANEY GODLEY, SIMON KING, LUKE GRAVES)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

WEST BREWERY COMEDY CLUB (RAYMOND MEARNS, CHRIS HENRY, JELLYBEAN MARTINEZ) WEST BREWERY, BAR AND RESTAURANT, 20:30–22:30, £7

Jamie Dalgleish hosts a night of live stand-up, headlined by Raymond Mearns. THE COMEDY EXPLORERS

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:00, £3

The all-new alternative comedy club pitches up at The Flying Duck, bringing with ‘em an off-beat selection of stories and jokes with a different theme each edition.

Fri 03 May

THE FRIDAY SHOW (REV OBADIAH STEPPENWOLF III, JANEY GODLEY, SIMON KING, LUKE GRAVES) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Sat 04 May MICKY FLANAGAN

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £22.50

The toustle-haired English comic draws on his East End background to ruthlessly deconstruct the Cockney myth with his usual razor sharp observational wit.

THE SATURDAY SHOW (REV OBADIAH STEPPENWOLF III, JANEY GODLEY, SIMON KING, LUKE GRAVES)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Sun 05 May

THE STAND’S BANK HOLIDAY SPECIAL (REV OBADIAH STEPPENWOLF III, JANEY GODLEY, SIMON KING, KATIA KVINGE) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9)

The Stand celebrate the coming bank holiday with a special Sunday show of laughs.

GARY’S CHUCKLE HUT THE ARCHES, 21:00–22:00, FREE (BUT TICKETED)

Gary McNair’s pop-up comedy club, for trying and dying and facing fears (aka be gentle on ‘em). Part of Behaviour Festival. THE GREATER SHAWLANDS REPUBLIC

THE BUNGO, 20:00–22:00, £7

Regular comedy night, with comics Bruce Morton and Andrew Learmonth joined by magic from Stuart Thomson and music from Tales of Jakes – all playing in aid of a southside free from Glasgow City Council.

Mon 06 May IMPROV WARS

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – just how we like it.

Tue 07 May RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 08 May

WICKED WENCHES (TARA FLYNN, KATIE MULGREW, NATASHA YAPP, ELAINE MALCOLMSON) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 MEMBERS)

All-female stand-up, with a suitably varied mix of headliners and newcomers taking to the stage.

Thu 09 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (IAN COGNITO, TARA FLYNN, STUART MITCHELL) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THE COMEDY EXPLORERS

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:00, £3

Sat 11 May

Mon 20 May

THE PAVILION THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £25

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

BILL BAILEY

The ever-funny Bill Bailey tours his new show, Qualmpeddler, in which he confronts such qualms as Living in a Time of Spectacular Ignorance... and muses on ‘one amazing owl’.

THE SATURDAY SHOW (IAN COGNITO, TARA FLYNN, STUART MITCHELL)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Sun 12 May

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 MEMBERS)

IMPROV WARS

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – just how we like it.

Tue 14 May RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 15 May

LEE FURY AND NICK REVELL: TRANSATLANTIC FURY

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10

Double header outing of poiliticised comedy, from messieurs Lee Camp and Nick Revell.

Thu 16 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (ALISTAIR BARRIE, JACQUES BARRETT, CHLOE PHILIPS)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THE FRIDAY SHOW (ALISTAIR BARRIE, JACQUES BARRETT, CHLOE PHILIPS)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Sat 18 May

Fri 10 May

THE SATURDAY SHOW (ALISTAIR BARRIE, JACQUES BARRETT, CHLOE PHILIPS)

THE PAVILION THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £25

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

The ever-funny Bill Bailey tours his new show, Qualmpeddler, in which he confronts such qualms as Living in a Time of Spectacular Ignorance... and muses on ‘one amazing owl’.

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Crude comic par excellence, Rob Rouse is back on the road following the birth of his second child, for which the majority of his chat centres around, well... pretty much crapping and peeing.

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Thu 23 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (JEFF INNOCENT, SUSIE MCCABE, EDDIE O’DWYER)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Fri 24 May

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE FRIDAY SHOW (IAN COGNITO, TARA FLYNN, STUART MITCHELL)

RED RAW

Mon 13 May

THE ARCHES, 21:00–22:00, FREE (BUT TICKETED)

BILL BAILEY

Tue 21 May

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase with resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and guests.

Fri 17 May

Gary McNair’s pop-up comedy club, for trying and dying and facing fears (aka be gentle on ‘em). Part of Behaviour Festival.

Improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – just how we like it.

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

The all-new alternative comedy club pitches up at The Flying Duck, bringing with ‘em an off-beat selection of stories and jokes with a different theme each edition. GARY’S CHUCKLE HUT

IMPROV WARS

Sun 19 May

ROB ROUSE: LIFE SENTENCES

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10)

THE FRIDAY SHOW (JEFF INNOCENT, SUSIE MCCABE, EDDIE O’DWYER)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Thu 30 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (OWEN O’NEILL, DANNY WARD, RONAN LINSKEY)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Fri 31 May

GARY DELANEY: PURIST

THE FRIDAY SHOW (OWEN O’NEILL, DANNY WARD, RONAN LINSKEY)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Edinburgh Tue 30 Apr

COMMANDO SPIRIT APPEAL BENEFIT

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £7

SHED, 19:30–22:00, £6

Wed 01 May

Sat 25 May

THE SATURDAY SHOW (JEFF INNOCENT, QUINCY, SUSIE MCCABE, EDDIE O’DWYER)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Sun 26 May

THE STAND’S BANK HOLIDAY SPECIAL (JEFF INNOCENT, SUSIE MCCABE, EDDIE O’DWYER)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9)

The Stand celebrate the coming bank holiday with a special Sunday show of laughs.

Mon 27 May IMPROV WARS

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – just how we like it.

Tue 28 May RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 29 May BEST OF IRISH COMEDY

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£6/£3 MEMBERS)

A selection of top comics from the contemporary Irish circuit do their thing.

BROKEN WINDOWS POLICY

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

More fast-paced and anarchic skits and character comedy from The Stand’s resident sketch comedy troupe.

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£8)

Writer and stand-up comic Gary Delaney continues with his quest to tell as many jokes as possible, because apparently most shows simply don’t contain enough for his liking.

Thu 09 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (NEIL DELAMERE, KATIE MULGREW, ROBIN GRAINGER) THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THURSDAY NOTEBOOK

BEEHIVE INN, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

A mixed batch of stand-up rookies take to the stage to cut their teeth. Be gentle on ‘em.

Fri 10 May IMPROVERTS

BEDLAM THEATRE, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5 MEMBERS)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe fae Edinburgh, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions. THE FRIDAY SHOW (NEIL DELAMERE, KATIE MULGREW, ROBIN GRAINGER)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE THURSDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN, SUSAN MURRAY, ALAN SHARP)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THURSDAY NOTEBOOK

BEEHIVE INN, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

A mixed batch of stand-up rookies take to the stage to cut their teeth. Be gentle on ‘em.

Fri 03 May

THE FRIDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN, SUSAN MURRAY, ALAN SHARP)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Sat 04 May

THE SATURDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN, SUSAN MURRAY, ALAN SHARP)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups. JIMMY CARR: GAGGING ORDER

EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £26

Carr tours his new solo show, packed with one-liners, stories and jokes done in his own admitted ‘sick’ sense of humour. THE STAND’S BANK HOLIDAY SPECIAL (STEVE GRIBBIN, SUSAN MURRAY, ALAN SHARP)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9)

The Stand celebrate the coming bank holiday with a special Sunday show of laughs.

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Sat 11 May

THE SATURDAY SHOW (NEIL DELAMERE, KATIE MULGREW, ROBIN GRAINGER) THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

A mixed batch of stand-up rookies take to the stage to cut their teeth. Be gentle on ‘em.

Fri 17 May

THE FRIDAY SHOW (ROB ROUSE, PAUL CURRIE, SUSIE MCCABE, BOB GRAHAM)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Sat 18 May

THE SATURDAY SHOW (ROB ROUSE, PAUL CURRIE, SUSIE MCCABE, BOB GRAHAM)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

Mon 13 May RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 14 May

LEE FURY AND NICK REVELL: TRANSATLANTIC FURY

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10

Double header outing of poiliticised comedy, from messieurs Lee Camp and Nick Revell.

Wed 15 May THE MELTING POT

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4/£2 MEMBERS)

Comedy sketches picked by the audience and performed by a troupe of actors and musicians.

Thu 16 May

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Sat 25 May

DANIEL KITSON: AFTER THE BEGINNING. BEFORE THE END

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Daniel Kitson returns with something like a stand-up show about a very specific point in time; aka good luck trying to second guess this one. THE SATURDAY SHOW (BOOTHBY GRAFFOE, JARLATH REGAN, CHLOE PHILIP, DAVEY STRONG)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

THE TRON, 20:00–22:00, £5 (£4)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £15

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Sun 19 May

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

Mon 20 May

ABSOLUTE IMPROV

Monthly improv-styled comedy show in the vein of Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Sun 26 May

THE STAND’S BANK HOLIDAY SPECIAL (BOOTHBY GRAFFOE, JARLATH REGAN, CHLOE PHILIP) THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£9)

The Stand celebrate the coming bank holiday with a special Sunday show of laughs.

Mon 27 May PANDAMONIUM COMEDY

THE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:30–23:00, £4

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Brand new platform for new comedians, with an additional featured headliner each edition.

Tue 21 May

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

RED RAW

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material. DIABETES UK BENEFIT

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £9 (£8)

Comedy fundraiser in aid of the Diabetes UK, with Fred MacAuley, Keir McAllister, Eleanor Morton and Becky Price amongst the live guests. Hosted by Sian Bevan.

Wed 22 May

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNEXPECTED

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £5

Occasional Tuesday comedy event with resident host Rick Molland introducing a variety of stand-up comedians and comedy acts.

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Sun 12 May

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£1 MEMBERS)

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

A bright collective of comedians experiment with the medium of stand-up, under the ever-watchful eye of Jo Caulfield.

THE THURSDAY SHOW (ROB ROUSE, PAUL CURRIE, SUSIE MCCABE, BOB GRAHAM)

RED RAW

THURSDAY NOTEBOOK BEEHIVE INN, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

Mon 06 May Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Listings

Wed 08 May

Thu 02 May

Sun 05 May

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 MEMBERS)

All-female stand-up, with a suitably varied mix of headliners and newcomers taking to the stage.

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. Jolly set of sketches, skits, games and general improvised shenanigans from The Improv Dogs. Part of Glasgow Southside Fringe.

WICKED WENCHES (TARA FLYNN, KATIE MULGREW, NATASHA YAPP, ELAINE MALCOLMSON)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Comedy fundraiser in aid of the Commando Spirit Appeal, with Andy Sir, Wayne Mazadza and Natasha Yapp amongst the live guests. Hosted by Sian Bevan.

THE IMPROV DOGS

Tue 07 May

BELUSHI’S TUESDAY NIGHT COMEDY JAM

BELUSHI’S, 20:00–22:30, FREE

Thu 23 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (BOOTHBY GRAFFOE, JARLATH REGAN, CHLOE PHILIP, DAVEY STRONG) THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THURSDAY NOTEBOOK

BEEHIVE INN, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

A mixed batch of stand-up rookies take to the stage to cut their teeth. Be gentle on ‘em.

Fri 24 May IMPROVERTS

BEDLAM THEATRE, 22:30–23:30, £5.50 (£5 MEMBERS)

Long-standing improv comedy troupe fae Edinburgh, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions. THE FRIDAY SHOW (BOOTHBY GRAFFOE, JARLATH REGAN, CHLOE PHILIP, DAVEY STRONG) THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

RED RAW

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £2

Tue 28 May BRIGHT CLUB

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £5

A selection of comedic academics do a stint of stand-up for your entertainment and enlightenment. Laughs and learning in one neat package: tick.

Wed 29 May

BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY (KEIR MCALLISTER, RAY BRADSHAW, SUSIE MCCABE)

THE STAND, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5/£3 MEMBERS)

A selection of top comics from the contemporary Scottish circuit do their thing, aye.

Thu 30 May

THE THURSDAY SHOW (GARY LITTLE, JOHNNY CANDON, ADAM STAUNTON, BEN VERTH) THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. THURSDAY NOTEBOOK

BEEHIVE INN, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

A mixed batch of stand-up rookies take to the stage to cut their teeth. Be gentle on ‘em.

Fri 31 May

THE FRIDAY SHOW (GARY LITTLE, JOHNNY CANDON, ADAM STAUNTON, BEN VERTH)

THE STAND, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £7

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts fom Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. Check their Facebook page on the day for line-ups.

THE SKINNY

Art Glasgow CCA

Mariana Castillo Deball

23 Apr – 18 May, not 28 Apr, 5 May, 12 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

The Berlin-based artist presents the result of research conducted at the British Museum (and residencies at Cove Park), guiding viewers through the work of explorer/ archaeologist Alfred Maudsley, artist Eduardo Paolozzi and anthropologist Alfred Gell.

Glasgow School of Art MFA Interim Show 2013

26 Apr – 4 May, times vary, Free

Annual exhibition of new work by 26 students in their first year of Master of Fine Art, comprising of a variety of works across a wide range of media – including painting, drawing, sculpture, video, performance and installation. In the Mackintosh Museum.

Glasgow Sculpture Studios @ The Whisky Bond Peles Empire: F X G

various dates between 4 May and 22 Jun, 11:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Harry Meadley: Play It as It Lies

Exhibition of new work by Londonbased artist duo Peles Empire, with the newly commissioned work forming a new chapter in their ongoing investigation into the process of continual representation.

26 Apr – 4 May, not 29 Apr, 30 Apr, 1 May, 2 May, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

Kendall Koppe

David Dale Gallery and Studios

For his first exhibition in Scotland, Leeds-based artist Harry Meadley will exhibit every work conceived between receiving the invitation to exhibit, and the shipping date, taking in around 50 works in an eclectic mix of style and media.

Gallery of Modern Art

Tales of the City (Gallery 2)

23 Apr – 23 Jun, times vary, Free

As part of the gallery-spanning Tales of the City exhibition, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art display a selection of mixed media objects in Gallery 2, encompassing work from Alex Frost, David Hockney, Scott Myles, David Sherry and Simon Starling. Niki de Saint Phalle: The Eric and Jean Cass Gift

23 Apr – 16 Nov, times vary, Free

Exhibition of 13 sculptures, one lithograph and other related ephemera by French sculptor, painter, and film maker Niki de Saint Phalle, gifted to Glasgow Museums through the Contemporary Art Society. Rachel Mimiec: Plough

23 Apr – 27 May, times vary, Free

Glasgow-based artist Rachel Mimiec presents her current installation – working with paint and appropriated images to document landscapes and nature, including works made by children during workshops at the Red Road Family Centre Nursery. Everyday

23 Apr – 1 Sep, times vary, Free

Collective exhibition bringing together works by six Glasgowbased artists who all use sculpture in their practice – selected for their use of everyday materials and their reference or resemblance to everyday places or events.

Glasgow Print Studio Calum MacKenzie: Tableau Vivant

23 Apr – 5 May, not 29 Apr, times vary, Free

Showcase exhibition of digital prints by late artist, printmaker and raconteur Calum MacKenzie, a former director of Glasgow Print Studio. Sarah Wright

2 May – 2 Jun, not 6 May, 13 May, 20 May, 27 May, times vary, Free

The Glasgow School of Art Painting and Printmaking graduate takes over GPS’s lower gallery space with a selection of work, focused predominantly on printmaking. Glasgow School of Art: MLitt Fine Art Practice Showcase

various dates between 10 May and 23 Jun, times vary, Free

Showcase of work from the students on the recently established MLitt in Fine Art Practice at GSA, an intensive one year post graduate programme taking in four pathways: painting, printmaking, sculpture and fine art photography.

May 2013

Ella Kruglyanskaya

various dates between 24 Apr and 11 May, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

Showcase collection of paintings from the Latvia-born, NYC-based artist, depicting women in unresolved, sometimes combative situations – marking her first solo exhibition in Europe.

Mary Mary

Alexis Marguerite Teplin: He, Ho, HA, hmmm…

23 Apr – 4 May, not 28 Apr, 29 Apr, 12:00pm – 6:00pm, Free

The California-born, Londonliving artist – best known for her abstract, visually-arresting paintings – takes over the gallery space with a new selection of solo paintings and sculptures.

Street Level Photoworks

Willy Römer: Life in the City of Berlin (1919-1933)

23 Apr – 19 May, not 29 Apr, 6 May, 13 May, times vary, Free

International touring exhibition of historic photographs by Berlin-based photojournalist Willy Römer, whose work is noted for documenting the tumultuous political events of his era, as well as everyday life in the streets of Berlin.

The Briggait Fallow Ground

13–31 May, weekdays only, 12:00pm – 5:30pm, Free

Showcase collection of sculpture, print and photography work by Andrea Geile, taking a positive approach to questions about the beauty, use and sustainability of man-made structures in the landscape.

The Common Guild

Carol Bove: The Foamy Saliva of a Horse

various dates between 23 Apr and 29 Jun, times vary, Free

Solo exhibition by New York-based artist Carol Bove – marking the first presentation of her work in Scotland – comprising of the re-arrangement of her acclaimed installation, The Foamy Saliva of a Horse, which was presented at the 54th Venice Biennale.

The Duchy Zara Idelson

26 Apr, 27 Apr, 3 May, 4 May, 10 May, times vary, Free

The Virginia Gallery Wallflowers

23 Apr – 3 May, not 28 Apr, 29 Apr, 11:00am – 4:30pm, Free

A showcase collection of botanical images by photographer Simon Robinson, shown alongside quirky observations from the perimeter by illustrator and printmaker Jenny Rose.

Tramway To Gypsyland

26 Apr – 19 May, not 29 Apr, 6 May, 13 May, times vary, Free

Project by Delaine Le Bas exploring ideas and myths of gypsies and travellers, featuring site-specific re-enacted performances presented as video and photographs, alongside archival material from the artist’s collection. Stephen Sutcliffe: Outwork

various dates between 3 May and 30 Jun, times vary, Free

Glasgow-based Stephen Sutcliffe displays a selection of old and new film collages generated from his extensive archive of British television, film sound, broadcast images and spoken word recordings – collected over the last 25 years. Costume Written Clothing

various dates between 3 May and 16 Jun, times vary, Free

Showcase of costumes exploring Barthes notion of ‘written clothing’ and the role of costume and associated themes of appropriation and representation, with many of the costumes created for specific performances, or specially for the exhibition.

Transmission Gallery

Stations of the Green

All-new selection of solo work from the London-based former GSA graduate, presenting new egg tempera paintings and ink drawings. Also marking the last ever exhibition at The Duchy, before their closure on 27 May. Go bid a fond farewell.

26 Apr – 17 May, not 28 Apr, 5 May, 12 May, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

The Lighthouse

Trongate 103

23 Apr – 30 Jun, times vary, Free

10–15 May, not 12, 13, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

New Glasgow Society Multimedia exhibition on an unsafe and dangerous artwork, focussing on Turner Prize-winning GSA alumnus Douglas Gordon’s demolished work, Proof, at Glasgow Green Station.

RGI Kelly Gallery The Conveners

23 Apr – 4 May, not 28 Apr, times vary, Free

Exhibition of work from RGI Conveners and Honorary Secretaries past and present, including works by Norman Kirkham, Christine McArthur, Gordon K Mitchell, Simon Laurie and Hazel Nagl. Erlend Tait and Pamela Tait: Duologue II

9–25 May, not 12, 19, times vary, Free

Double-header exhibition by internationally exhibiting Scottish artists Erlend Tait and Pamela Tait, featuring pieces the artists have worked on collaboratively to develop a shared visual language and style.

Roger Billcliffe Gallery Fresh

23 Apr – 15 May, not 28 Apr, 5 May, 12 May, times vary, Free

Collective exhibition bringing together a group of talented jewellers and silversmiths, each exhibiting their new design collections for the first time in a gallery setting. Liz Ellis: A Shared Landscape

26 Apr – 22 May, not 28 Apr, 5 May, 12 May, 19 May, times vary, Free

Cheshire-born artist known for her figurative and bird sculptures, with her latest batch of work combining a mixture of both.

St Mungo Museum

Under Gods: Stories from the Soho Road various dates between 23 Apr and 27 Jul, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Unique photograph project by artist Liz Hingley exploring everyday religious experiences of the different communities that live around a single road in Birmingham, home to people from more than 90 countries.

Wim Crouwel: A Graphic Odyssey

Retrospective exhibition spanning Dutch graphic designer and typographer Wim Crouwel’s career – known for embracing a new modernity to produce typographic designs that captured the essence of the emerging computer/space age of the early 60s. AS 02: Review Gallery

23 Apr – 12 May, times vary, Free

Analogue Social stage a unique collaboration with The Lighthouse of works based around a single material – Paper – for which the Scottish design community was invited to interpret ‘paper’ in any way they choose, with the eight winners chosen to exhibit. Kyla McCallum: Foldability

Between The Waves

various dates between 14 May and 8 Jun, 11:00am – 5:00pm, Free

New exhibition by Indian artist Tejal Shah, featuring a multi-channel video installation commissioned for Documenta(13). 18

Collective exhibition by the HND Contemporary Art Practice students at City of Glasgow College, featuring new contemporary works from 18 different female artists – taking in painting, sculpture, film and more. In the Glasgow Projects Rooms space.

scotlandart.com Sound of the Sea

2 May – 5 Jun, times vary, Free

Themed exhibition in which the sea is illustrated in its most diverse forms with a variety of media – from charcoal drawings to oil paintings – by seven different artists.

16 May – 30 Jun, times vary, Free

Kyla McCallum – who runs multi-disciplinary design studio Foldability, using origami to create products, packaging and bespoke pieces – showcases a new lighting installation, with each light made from a number of hand-folded modules.

The Modern Institute Nicolas Party

23 Apr – 8 May, not 28 Apr, 5 May, times vary, Free

First major solo exhibition of Swiss artist Nicolas Party’s work in the UK, known for his application of colour to a variety of surfaces – paper, canvas, walls and objects – exploring the possibilities of paint as a medium, creatively and conceptually.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane William E. Jones

various dates between 25 Apr and 15 Jun, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

The LA-based artist, filmmaker, photographer and writer takes to Aird’s Lane for his first major exhibition in Scotland – presenting a three-way film installation calling upon moments of political and cultural upheaval in America during his childhood.

Edinburgh Castle Fine Art

The Rock Trust‘s Postcard Art Exhibition 2013

9 May – 13 Jun, times vary, Free

Annual exhibition featuring over 200 original pieces of postcardsized artwork donated by 140 artists, all up for auction to help raise funds for local youth homeless charity, The Rock Trust.

Collective Gallery

New Work Scotland Programme: Shona Macnaughton and Tom Varley

23 Apr – 5 May, not 29 Apr, 11:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Double-header exhibition of allnew work from Shona Macnaughton and Tom Varly, as part of the New Work Scotland Programme – giving Scottish-based graduates their first significant project or commission.

New Work Scotland Programme: Rachel Maclean 18–26 May, not 20, 11:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Glasgow-based artist Rachel Maclean – known for her green screen composite video and digital prints – showcases a new body of work, as part of the New Work Scotland Programme, giving Scottish-based graduates their first significant project or commission.

Dovecot

Julie Brook: Made, Unmade

various dates between 26 Apr and 1 Jun, 10:30am – 5:30pm, Free

British artist Julie Brook displays her first solo work since the return from her travels in Libya and North West Namibia, taking in a series of document-style films, drawings and a specially-commissioned rug produced by Dovecot weaver Jonathan Cleaver.

Edinburgh College of Art ECA Degree Show 2013

1–9 Jun, times vary, Free

Edinburgh College of Art present their annual graduate student round-up, showcasing the fruits of a new crop of budding artists’ endeavours.

Edinburgh Printmakers

Marilène Oliver: Confusao

23 Apr – 11 May, not 28 Apr, 29 Apr, 5 May, 6 May, 10:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Having worked for many years with medical imaging data to create sculptures and installations, Marilène Oliver showcases her first solo exhibition since moving to Sub Saharan Africa – taking in a new series of dark and haunting etchings. Bronwen Sleigh

various dates between 25 May and 20 Jul, 10:00am – 6:00pm, Free

After her residency at The Scottish Sculpture Workshop, printmaker Bronwen Sleigh showcases sculptural work for the first time since graduating in 2008 – with the pieces exploring, abstracting and reinterpreting industrial and architectural spaces.

Fruitmarket Gallery David Batchelor

4 May – 14 Jul, times vary, Free

The Fruitmarket mark the first in-depth survey of drawings, paintings and photographic work from the Dundee-born artist – best known for his vividlycoloured sculptural installations of illuminated lightboxes, dollies and found objects.

Ingleby Gallery

Garry Fabian Miller: The Middle Place

various dates between 1 May and 13 Jul, 10:00am – 6:00pm, Free

The Bristol-born artist continues his preoccupation with the horizon, exhibiting his forty Sea Horizon images, alongside a group of new, large format, camera-less works – titled The Middle Place – exploring the meeting of earth and sky.

Inverleith House Ciara Phillips

various dates between 4 May and 23 Jun, 10:00am – 5:30pm, Free

Specially-commissioned exhibition of new prints by Ciara Philips, made in response to (and be shown alongside) some of the finest and rarest nature-printed books on loan from the Library Archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.

Napier University (Merchiston Campus)

Edinburgh Napier Degree Show 2013 24 May – 2 Jun, times vary, Free

Annual School of Arts and Creative Industries student showcase – taking in the over 300 new and emerging designers, photographers, film makers, art directors, advertising directors, journalists, creative writers, television programme makers and actors.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall Place: Part Two

29 Apr – 3 May, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Two-part photography exhibition from the students at Napier University, with exhibitors exploring the themes of identity, time and place.

Rhubaba

It’s a Beautiful World

various dates between 18 May and 2 Jun, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

Group show bringing together artists who highlight moments of mystery and joy found within their immediate surroundings, with each exploring personal experience with a fascination towards existing objects and situations.

Royal Scottish Academy (RSA)

RSA New Contemporaries 2013

23 Apr – 8 May, times vary, £4 (£2)

Now in its fifth year, New Contemporaries offers up the pick of last year’s degree shows, with works from promising graduates in fine art and architecture jostling for attention in the grand neoclassical gallery. And we’ll pick our very own Skinny winner! EGO

various dates between 29 Apr and 30 Sep, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Interactive exhibition of selfportraits from the RSA collections, designed to tie in to the 187th RSA Annual Exhibition and its theme – celebrating works of art that inhabit the gap between perceived and imagined realities. Open Mondays only. RSA 187th Annual Exhibition

25 May – 2 Jul, times vary, Free

Annual highlight featuring RSA Academicians and invited submissions from leading and emerging Scottish artists, plus invited artists including BAFTA awardwinner John Maclean and Gabriela Fridriksdottir, who’ve collaborated extensively with Bjork.

Scottish National Gallery Ink

23 Apr – 9 Jun, times vary, Free

Mini exhibition exploring the versatile drawing medium of ink, comprising 35 works from the Gallery’s world-class collection of artists – including Rembrandt, Tiepolo and Poussin – with a number of drawings being exhibited for the very first time. Through American Eyes: Frederic Church and the Landscape Oil Sketch

11 May – 8 Sep, times vary, Free

Exhibition celebrating 19th century American painter Frederic Church, renowned for his impressive landscapes combining dramatic compositions with carefully-observed light effects.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish Colourist Series: SJ Peploe

23 Apr – 23 Jun, 10:00am – 5:00pm, £7 (£5)

The second in the Scottish Colourist Series of exhibitions takes in a retrospective of Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), the eldest of the four artists popularly known as The Scottish Colourists. From Death to Death and Other Small Tales

23 Apr – 8 Sep, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Selected masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, taking in some 130 works that each highlight the significance of the body as a theme in 20th and 21st century art practice.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery Tickling Jock

23 Apr – 25 May, times vary, Free

Photography showcase featuring key figures of 20th-century Scottish comedy, bringing together images of over 50 stars including Sir Harry Lauder, Rikki Fulton, Stanley Baxter, Ronnie Corbett and Billy Connolley.

Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny 23 Apr – 26 May, times vary, Free

Retrospective showcase of the Austrian-British photographer, communist-sympathiser and Soviet Union spy – taking in black and white images of a politicallycharged interwar Vienna and penetrating imagery of children during the post-war years. Migration Stories: Valentina Bonizzi

23 Apr – 22 Sep, times vary, Free

Having lived in Scotland for eight years, Italian-born artist Valentina Bonizzi uses photography and video to create what she terms the ‘image document’, exploring migrant experiences from 1850 to today. Minette: The Life and Letters of a Stuart Princess

23 Apr – 5 Jan, times vary, Free

The youngest sister of Charles II comes under the spotlight, with a mini exhibition centred around a full-length portrait of Henriette Anne (aka Minette) by the French artist Jean Nocret. The House of Annie Lennox

23 Apr – 30 Jun, times vary, Free

Talbot Rice Gallery

Drawn Away Together

23 Apr – 4 May, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Group exhibition featuring work by 11 different Scottish artists: Rachel Barron, Miranda Blennerhassett, Kevin Henderson, Paul Keir, Lorna Macintyre, Andrew Mackenzie, Jo Milne, Neil Nodzak, Malcolm O’Connell, Eric Schumacher and Alan Shipway. Anthony Hatwell: Sculpture and Drawing

23 Apr – 4 May, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Free

Talbot Rice play host to the first solo exhibition from Scottish sculptor Anthony Hatwell, containing a selection of works never (or rarely) seen before by public eyes.

The Old Ambulance Depot

Technopolis: The Island Resort

23–30 May, times vary, Free

New collaboration by artist group Offshore Rendering Incorporation – known for blurring the physical and digital, ritual and event – with their individual practices merging in unusual and spontaneous forms.

Curated in partnership with the V&A, Annie Lennox presents a three decade-spanning review of her work as a performer, singer/ songwriter, recording artist and political activist, taking in an array of photographs, videos and costumes.

Dundee

Stills

25 Apr – 26 May, not 29 Apr, 6 May, 13 May, 20 May, 12:00pm – 4:00pm, Free

Second Sight

27 Apr – 21 Jul, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Collective exhibition of newly commissioned works and archival photographs that explore the transformation of the lives of people from rural Italy who, after 1940, emigrated to urban communities throughout Europe.

Summerhall

Agnieszka Polska: Sensitisation To Colour

23 Apr – 18 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

The Polish video and animation artist – known for using appropriation and found film footage in her work – presents a series of photography and sound installations, alongside a new in-situ work. Karen Lauke: Re/Sonant

23 Apr – 15 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Composer, sound artist and sound designer Karen Lauke uses Summerhall’s former large mammal demonstration room (where cows and horses were dissected) as the setting and inspiration for a new series of site-specific noisescapes. Jack Smith: The Beautiful Book

23 Apr – 18 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Exhibition of influential late American filmmaker, actor and photographer Jack Smith’s one-and-only photographic book, The Beautiful Book, displaying a very rare first edition of the book alongside reproductions of all the pages. Graham Miller: 6% Down’s Syndrome – My Photographs, Their Words

23 Apr – 18 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Graham Miller presents his documentary photography project – completed over two years in partnership with Down’s Syndrome Scotland – providing insight into the diagnosis, birth and experience of living with the condition. Flickering Lights

23 Apr – 18 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

Summerhall showcase a selection of looped films from a trio of British artists – David Bellingham, Maris and Rachel MacLean – with various loops being shown in different rooms across the venue. Julie Duffy: Coral Canyon

23 Apr – 18 May, 11:00am – 6:00pm, Free

First solo show from artist Julie Duffy since graduating from DJCAD in 2011, bringing together a sculptural new body of work exploring the poetics of how we engage with the space around us.

Centrespace

a book is a performance

Group showcase of artists’ books and multiples, aiming to explore and expand the twin concepts of performance and performativity – revealing how a turned page can lead into an encounter with performative acts, gestures and beautiful subversions.

DCA

Johanna Basford: Wonderlands

various dates between 4 May and 7 Jul, times vary, Free

Showcase of work from artist and illustrator Johanna Basford, taking a journey into the Textile Design graduates’ fantastical imagination – featuring a monochrome menagerie of hand-drawn wonderbeasts, each suggested by one of over 150 co-creators.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Dundee Degree Show 2013

17–26 May, times vary, Free

Annual degree show from the graduating students at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art and Design, with exhibiting programmes including Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Animation, Textile Design, Jewellery and Metal Design, and Product Design.

Generator Projects

They Had Four Years 2013

various dates between 19 May and 9 Jun, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, Free

Annual exhibition featuring new works by recent graduates selected from across Scotland, with this year’s showcase featuring GSA graduate Hans Peter Auken Beck, ECA graduate William Darrell and DJCAD graduates Eilidh McKay and Craig Thomson.

The McManus Reflections from the Tay

23 Apr – 13 Aug, times vary, Free

New exhibition focusing on artists with links to Dundee – artists who were born there, worked locally or were associated with the Dundee College of Art. What Presence!: The Rock Photography of Harry Papadopoulos

3 May – 11 Aug, times vary, Free

Showcase exhibition of legendary Scottish music photographer Harry Papadopoulos, taking in more than 300 images from between 1979 and 1984 – with his guerilla-style lensmanship taking in the likes of Bowie, Blondie and, yes, Spandau Ballet.

Listings

Theatre Glasgow CCA

Cryptic: The Embassy

2–4 May, 8:00pm – 9:00pm, £15 (£12)

The Cryptic lot invite y’all to The Embassy of New Great Britain, a fictional reality where the senses are stimulated via tastings, live music, cocktails and live performance (aka creating a theatriacal wonderland where anything can happen).

Citizens Theatre The Seagull

1–11 May, not 5, 6, times vary, From £12

Innovative re-imagining of Chekhov’s first major play, intimately exploring emotion, creativity and romantic conflict.

Govanhill Baths Steaming

10–17 May, not 12, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, £8 (£6)

Set in a dilapidated Turkish baths (for which Govanhill Baths will be transformed for the occasion), six woman seek a haven provided by the steam room and each other. Part of Glasgow Southside Fringe.

The Arches Shadowlands

30 Apr – 2 May, 6:45pm – 9:00pm, £8 (£6) or £45 (£35) festival pass

New site-specific work from Nic Green exploring our relationship with waste and what we throw away (i.e. too bloody much). Leaving from The Arches, where punters will then be transported to a secret location. Part of Behaviour Festival. Taylor Mac

4–5 May, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, £12 (£10) or £45 (£35) festival pass

Sequin-swathed, ukulele-playing poet, theatre-maker and full-time drag queen Taylor Mac performs a selection of political songs from the 20th century in his own inimitable style. Part of Behaviour Festival. All The Sex I’ve Ever Had

9–11 May, times vary, £12 (£10) or £45 (£35) festival pass

Innovative Canadian company Mammalian Diving Reflex invite a selection of senior citizens from Glasgow to talk about the evolution of their sexuality; sure to be more than a little illuminating. Part of Behaviour Festival. Angels Among Us

25 May, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, £4

Writer and director Lawrence Crawford tells the fictional tale of the angels that guard the Dear Green Place, shaken up when a new batch of angels come to take over.

The Glad Cafe #TORYCORE

11 May, 9:00pm – 10:00pm, £5 or (£45 (£25) festival pass

Lucy Ellinson, Chris Thorpe and Steve Lawson perform George Osborne’s 2012 budget speech in death metal band stylee, which pretty much sounds uh-mazing. Part of Behaviour Festival.

The King’s Theatre Hairspray

various dates between 7 May and 18 May, times vary, prices vary

Toe-tapping musical based on the film by John Waters, following the tale of a girl with big hair and an even bigger heart. The Sash

various dates between 21 may and 25 May, times vary, prices vary

Celebration of the 40th anniversary of Hector MacMillan’s political comedy, telling of the comic chaos and dramatic conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Glasgow on the day of an Orange Walk. Noises Off

27 May – 1 Jun, times vary, From £10

Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning farce of a play within a play, following the backstage antics of a touring theatre company.

Listings

The S.P.A.C.E.

Unusual Places to Dance: Part 2

8–9 May, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, prices vary

Honest and oft beautiful portrayal of older people’s lives, drawing from real life experiences to explore what growing older in Scotland looks and feels like today – told via the use of drama, dance, digital art and music.

Theatre Royal

Scottish Opera: The Pirates of Penzance

various dates between 15 May and 1 Jun, times vary, prices vary

Scottish Opera join forces with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company to stage an all-new production of the Gilbert and Sullivan’s favourite. Avast, me hearties, etc.

Arika 13: Suspended Closure, Suspended

All-new version of Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller following the adventures of dapper hero Richard Hannay, complete with the obligatory pencil moustache.

Arika 13: My Dog is my Piano

various dates between 30 Apr and 4 May, times vary, prices vary

With subtle mimicry and quotation, restrained gestures and language, Jimmy Roberts makes visible the vulnerability of bodies in a intimate performance piece. 25 May, 9:30pm – 10:30pm, £14 festival pass (or £6 evening pass)

Antonia Baehr presents a audio/ video, lecture/performance exploring the queer and companionly inter-activity of human-animal relations. Arika 13: untitled lipsync 3

25 May, 10:45pm – 11:00pm, £14 festival pass (or £6 evening pass)

Young, black, transgender artist boychild presents a lip-sync drag performances re-appropriating fashion, Butoh and mainstream hetro-pop, locating the body as a site for the negotiation of sexuality and blackness.

Tron Theatre

28–29 May, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £10.50

5 May, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, £10 (£7)

Tramway

17–19 May, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, £10

Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good)

3 May, 7:30pm – 9:15pm, £18 (£12) day pass

Inspired British-German performance collective Gob Squad reconstruct a selection of Andy Warhol films, including Kitchen, whilst taking a trip back to the underground cinemas of NYC. Part of Behaviour Festival. The Riot of Spring

10–11 May, 7:00pm – 8:00pm, £12 (£10) or £45 (£35) festival pass

Some 100 years on from Igor Stravinsky’s premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris, Rob Drummond works with a dancer and a musician to create a new fusion piece inspired by the riots the original work encited. Part of Behaviour Festival. Arika13: Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church

24 May, 8:30pm – 10:00pm, £14 festival pass (or £6 evening pass)

Choreographic collaboration authored in response to the question: What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene going on in Harlem had travelled downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church? Arika 13: We have something to say about... Pt 1

25 May, 1:30pm – 3:30pm, Free

Historical narrative of the black and Latino/a transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay house and ballroom scene in relation to its artistic practices, presented by Vogue’ology. Arika 13: No Church in the Wild

25 May, 5:30pm – 6:30pm, Free

Jack Halberstam asks whether we can find ideas of queer anarchism, failure and low theory in popular culture, using Jay Z and Kanye West’s No Church in the Wild to point to an emergent cultural idiom that speaks in the language of anarchistic revolt. Arika 13: untitled lipsync 2

25 May, 9:15pm – 9:30pm, £14 festival pass (or £6 evening pass)

Arika 13: Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (Solo) 25 May, 9:45pm – 10:45pm, £14 festival pass (or £6 evening pass)

Solo performance of Twenty Looks... Taken together with the main performance, they create an imaginary space to examine fashion and the evolution of cool; race, gender and class; and dance history’s canonisation of Judson and neglect of voguing.

20–25 May, times vary, From £14

25 May, times vary, prices vary

Scottish Dance Theatre: Double Bill

Double dose of bold new works by internationally acclaimed Montreal-based urban dance choreographer Victor Quijada and Norwegian choreographer Jo Stromgren.

39 Steps

The Price of Everything

Daniel Bye’s whistle-stop tour of bizarre facts and impassioned arguments, told in performance lecture style... with a free glass o’ milk! The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

A both funny and harrowing tale concerning Steve Jobs and Chinese workers toiling to make our beloved iPhones (as in, prepare to feel very guilty). Flaneurs

1–4 May, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £7 (£5)

Fringe award-winning piece by Edinburgh-based live artist and director Jenna Watt, seeking to explore the oppressive nature of violence in public spaces. Bandages

3–4 May, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, £10

Thought-provoking tale of two sisters who build a fragile and fantastical web of stories in order to keep the dangers outside at bay. Over The Wire

8–11 May, times vary, £10

New play by multi award winning writer Seamas Keenan, following five rioting prisoners pitched into a world of violence, paranoia and hunger. As It Is

14–16 May, 7:45pm – 10:00pm, £10

New work from acclaimed theatre company Vanishing Point’s Artistic Associate, Damir Todorovic, examining the categories of true and false as important social issues.

The Sash

13–18 May, times vary, From £14

Festival Theatre Sutra

17–18 May, 7:30pm – 9:00pm, From £12.50

Dancer/choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Turner Prize-winning sculptor Antony Gormley and 17 practicing Buddhist monks from the Shaolin Temple in China collaborate on a unique and downright enchanting new movement piece. Scottish Ballet: Highland Fling

22–25 May, times vary, From £12.50

Romantic ballet outing choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Matthew Bourne, following the antics of James – a young Scot with sex, love and rock’n’roll on his mind. Scottish Opera: The Pirates of Penzance

various dates between 28 May and 1 Jun, times vary, prices vary

Scottish Opera join forces with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company to stage an all-new production of the Gilbert and Sullivan’s favourite. Avast, me hearties, etc.

King’s Theatre La Traviata

8–11 May, 7:30pm – 10:00pm, From £10

Edinburgh Grand Opera present Verdi’s interpretation of one of the most popular love stories of the 19th century, La Dame aux Camelias, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth.

A ten-track selection from veteran MC, Big Daddy Kane, taking us back to the all-star golden age of the Queensbridge Juice Crew and Cold Chillin’ Records

Lee Hall-penned play based on the Ashington Group of painters; a group of miners who hired a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class.

Royal Lyceum Theatre A Doll’s House

23 Apr – 1 Jun, not 28 Apr, 29 Apr, times vary, prices vary

Henrik Ibsen’s inspired piece – which caused outrage both in its style and content when first staged in 1879 – is given a reworking, telling the story of a ‘perfect’ marriage that unravels as a series of lies are exposed.

Summerhall Invisible Empire

10–11 May, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, £10 (£8)

First ever performance by Glasgowbased physical theatre ensemble Company of Wolves, told through voice and word, movement and song. Be Silent or Be Killed

15 May, times vary, £14 (£10)

Right Lines Productions return with a new performance based on Roger Hunt’s book, Be Silent or Be Killed, a true story telling of Hunt’s experience trapped in a Mumbai hotel bedroom during a terrorist attack.

Traverse Theatre Flaneurs

23–24 May, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £15.50 (£11.50/£6 unemployed)

Fringe award-winning piece by Edinburgh-based live artist and director Jenna Watt, seeking to explore the oppressive nature of violence in public spaces.

Why Do You Stand There in the Rain?

31 May – 1 Jun, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £15.50 (£11.50/£6 unemployed)

Retelling of the story of the first Occupy Protest in 1932 in Washington DC by the Bonus Army; a national campaign for food, work and justice. Wuthering Heights/Poke

Edinburgh

Under The Influence: Big Daddy Kane

1–3 May, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, £15.50 (£11.50/£6 unemployed)

Platform 18 double bill, taking in Peter McMaster’s all-male take on the landscapes and lives of the characters from Emily Bronte’s classic novel, Wuthering Heights, and Amanda Moonfrooe’s allegorical new performance project, Poke. The Bear

16–18 May, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, £15.50 (£11.50/£6 unemployed)

Taut and humourous noir thriller about an everyday murder and a mythic bear, based on a short story by Angela Clerkin and Lee Simpson. The Poor Mouth

30 May – 1 Jun, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, £15.50 (£11.50/£6 unemployed)

Flann O’Brien’s gloriously wicked satire on the Irish, their language and their culture, acting as the completion of Blue Raincoat’s trilogy of adaptations for the stage.

Dundee Dundee Rep

The Importance of Being Earnest

23–25 May, times vary, From £13

Oscar Wilde’s theatrical classic comedy is given a reworking by London Classic Theatre. National Dance Company of Wales

3 May, 8:00pm – 10:00pm, £16

The National Dance Company Wales presents a triple bill of world class dance. Love Letters

7–11 May, times vary, prices vary

A.R. Gurney’s Pulitzer Prizenominated drama mapping a love story across 50 years.

1. Big Daddy Kane – Set It Off [from Long Live the Kane, 1988] This track gets me amped. Set It Off was recorded in 1988. I was in the middle of recording Long Live The Kane when we made this track. We recorded it at Marley Marl’s house, in his home studio.

rapping about gangster stuff, or they’re rapping about popping pills, getting high. It’s more trendy now – nobody’s taking the time to separate themselves from the pack, as individuals.

7. Masta Ace – Music Man [from Take A Look Around, 1995] Ace was one of those artists who, ever since we 2. Biz Markie – Nobody Beats The Biz made The Symphony, I saw him gradually growing, [from Goin’ Off, 1988] lyrically. On Music Man, I felt he really sounded I just love the Marley Marl beat to this record, and comfortable and confident, like: ‘Yeah, this is that little style that Biz was using. He was having what I do.’ Sometimes it takes a minute to get really settled in. fun being himself, but at the same time it was a really slick style. I still see Biz Markie from time to time – we spend the day together every so often. 8. MC Shan – I Pioneered This [from Born to Be Wild, 1988] We sit and kick it, have some laughs. That was my favourite MC Shan record. I thought 3. Kool G Rap – Kool Is Back Shan made some dope songs, but I Pioneered [from Wanted: Dead or Alive, with DJ Polo, 1990] This was the first time that he really got lyrical. This was one of those real lyrical songs that Kool Where I felt like he was at on this song was, like: G Rap made, it was just one long verse. He writes ‘Yo, everybody screamin’ Kane and G Rap’s name, great rhymes, he knows how to put a lot of words I gotta let ‘em know that I still do this for real.’ into one sentence. He’s very clever and witty – 9. Kool G Rap – Talk Like Sex just a dope emcee. [from Wanted: Dead or Alive, with DJ Polo, 1995] 4. Marley Marl feat. Craig G – Droppin’ Science This was just a really funny record where Kool G [from In Control, Volume 1, 1988] Rap was saying a bunch of hilarious stuff. Bustin’ Craig had done several songs that I thought were stuff like ‘I’mma get up and wipe my dick on your cool, but they didn’t make it over the hump. But curtains.’ It was basically a Richard Pryor standwhen I heard Dropin’ Science, we were like ‘Oh up on wax. yeah, this is the one right here.’ When it was 10. Roxanne Shanté & Biz Markie – The Def played in the clubs, people would run to the Fresh Crew dancefloor. [single, 1985] 5. Big Daddy Kane – The Wrath of Kane When I first heard this record, that was the [from It’s A Big Daddy Thing, 1989] first time I met Roxanne Shanté, Marley Marl, This was a super fast tempo song; extremely fast. MC Shan... my first time meeting all of them, Staying on beat, but still saying slick stuff – I up at Power Play Studios in New York. I found thought that was interesting. People took to it. out something that day that I never knew – that It’s really my thing – I’ll always take an uptempo from Roxanne’s Revenge up to Def Fresh Crew, beat over a slow one, any day. Roxanne Shanté had never written a rhyme. I was sitting there watching her run through an entire 6. Biz Markie – Vapors song, just sayin’ the first thing that came to mind. [from Goin’ Off, 1988] When she got done, they said ‘Let’s do another This is the track that introduced me to the world. take,’ and she ran through it again sayin’ completely different rhymes. And it was dope! Right Biz is telling a story about me and the ‘vapors,’ and about Kool V, who was a close friend of mine. off the top of her head, she did the whole song like that. Biz bigged us up on Vapors, it had verses about us, so it let the world know who we were before Big Daddy Kane and Masta Ace play O2 ABC, Glasgow, on 6 May we had music out. It was the thing that helped jumpstart my career. Nowadays in hip-hop, www.officialbigdaddykane.com cats are really stuck in one zone. They’re either

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