News, reviews, features & guides

Pixies to play Glasgow in October

2 Jul 2009

American alternative rock legends Pixies have announced a date at the SECC, Glasgow, on Sun 4 Aug. Since reforming in 2004 after an eleven-year split, the Boston quartet - Frank 'Black Francis' Black, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and Kim Deal - have…

Interview: Anders Østergaard

1 Jul 2009

Danish filmmaker Anders Østergaard’s new documentary Burma VJ tells the story of the violent 2007 protests through smuggled footage. Here he explains how he did it.

Forest Publications seek submissions for new graphic anthology

30 Jun 2009

The Edinburgh-based Forest Publications are putting together a new graphic anthology named This Will Explain Everything, which is now open to submissions from comic artists and illustrators. Writer and publisher Ryan Van Winkle explains: 'This…

Dananananaykroyd

Nice'n'Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 23 Jun

29 Jun 2009

Playing a somewhat last-minute warm-up show at Sleazy's tonight before they take to nearly every European festival stage over the rest of the summer, Dananananaykroyd are joined by a modest gathering of die-hards in what appears to be a 16th birthday…

Dundee Literary Festival

29 Jun 2009

This Festival, which has just completed it’s fifth year, is thrusting through the crowded Scottish Festival scene – there are now at least 135 other festivals in Scotland. Dundee has focused on 2 strands, the quality of the writers and the Dundee…

T in the Park: Goes pop

25 Jun 2009

Nick Cave battered Kylie to death with a rock and in doing so resurrected pop. For when the implausible twain married larynxes – on 1995’s hit murder ballad, ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ – it caused a schism in the pop continuum. By 1996, the prince of…

T in the Park: Soundtrack to the weekend

25 Jun 2009

Friday The whole festival starts in considerable style with The Maccabees and ‘No Kind Words’ before shifting in gloriously mental fashion with ‘Roulette Dares’ by The Mars Volta so sing along now … ‘Exoskeleton, junction at the railroad delayed!…

Crying with Laughter

25 Jun 2009

The hot ticket among the Scottish films screening at the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival is Justin Molotnikov’s Crying with Laughter, a thriller starring Scotland’s Stephen McCole. Familiar from roles in Wes Anderson’s high school comedy…

Rudo y Cursi - Brothers beyond

25 Jun 2009

Mexican cinema took the world by storm at the turn of the millennium with the glorious hat trick of Amores Perros, The Devil’s Backbone and Y Tu Mamá También. Eight years after that last title – the hilariously raunchy sex comedy And Your Mother Too in…

Edinburgh International Film Festival highlights

25 Jun 2009

The Girlfriend Experience Steven Soderbergh’s dark and fascinating study of working girls and their credit-crunched clients. American adult film industry star Sasha Gray features. Cineworld, Wed 24 Jun, 9.30pm & Sat 27 Jun, 8.45pm. 35 Shots of Rum…

Glen David Gold interview - Post haste

25 Jun 2009

Glen David Gold is not a writer who likes to be hurried. The American author’s debut novel, Carter Beats the Devil, was a big commercial and critical success upon its publication in 2001. A fictionalised account of real-life American magician Charles…

Singin’ in the Rain - Long to rain over us

25 Jun 2009

Anna Millar looks forward to some old-school hoofing in Singin’ in the Rain

5 Reasons to go see: The Felt Tips

25 Jun 2009

1 They’re high flyers The Felt Tips met while enjoying a classic rock’n’roll past time – not freebasing cocaine at 10,000 feet, but flying a kite on Largs beach in 2006. 2 Big specs and cardigans are a must The jangly Glasgow quartet continue a long…

5 Things You Might Know About: Jan Ravens

25 Jun 2009

1 An esteemed alumni of Cambridge Footlights, Cheshire-born Jan Ravens was doing sketchy stuff for them in the years which included the likes of Clive Anderson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Douglas Adams. She clearly had something a…

AC/DC

25 Jun 2009

On paper the idea of AC/DC shouldn’t work. They’re Australian (well via Scotland); the lead guitarist is a fifty-something dressed in a velour school uniform, and their own brand of rock’n’roll remains as wantonly unsophisticated as it was 35 years ago.

Acoustic Ladyland - Living With A Tiger

25 Jun 2009

(Strong & Wrong) Acoustic Ladyland announced itself as something other than a jazz outfit with the release of its 2001 debut album inspired by the songs of Jimi Hendrix. The punk jazz label subsequently attached to the band confirmed founding members…

Affair of the art

25 Jun 2009

Every movement needs its muse. So it was with the surrealists’ boys club, whereby Picasso, Man Ray, Max Ernst and co turned the art world upside down while leading equally tempestuous private lives. Take poet and painter Paul Eluard, for instance, whose…

Also released

25 Jun 2009

Flipper Generic/Sex Bomb Baby!/Gone Fishin’/Public Flipper Limited (Domino) Welcome reissue of the 80s San Fran art punk nutjob’s back catalogue with the likes of Nirvana’s Kris Novoselic fawning in the liner notes. Various Black Rio 2…

Also Released - Film

25 Jun 2009

Blood: The Last Vampire (18) 91min Vampire hunter Saya (Gianna Jun) is unrivalled, but that’s because she is half bloodsucker herself – on her mother’s side. Will she go to the dark side or will she carry on fighting for the mortals? Popular anime gets…

Ancient Astronauts - We Are To Answer

25 Jun 2009

(ESL) This is an album that is very much a sum of its parts as Cologne duo Dogu and Kabanjak lay down some expansive instrumental head nodders and invite a host of collaborators to come throw in some general good vibery. Whether its hip hop legends…

Balgay Hill

25 Jun 2009

Simon Macallum’s Balgay Hill sets out to celebrate the life and work of the late Dundonian pop star Billy Mackenzie, but the Associates frontman actually remains pretty elusive throughout, and what emerges in the end is a well-intentioned, if somewhat…

Burlescape

25 Jun 2009

What is it about burlesque just now? There’s a new club or class popping up every day, hundreds of dancers queuing up for slots at nights like Club Noir and Rockaburley, and now here comes the Glasgow Cabaret Festival, a week-long festival all over the…

Chick Corea

25 Jun 2009

Chick Corea has been a fairly regular visitor to Scotland over the years, but I can’t recall him playing a solo concert here before now. It is a format that he has returned to periodically over the years, both live and in recordings, including an early…

Christine Jeffs interview

25 Jun 2009

Kiwi filmmaker Christine Jeffs (pictured centre right) wasn’t the obvious choice to direct the American indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Her previous two features, the New Zealand marital breakdown drama Rain and the British dead poet biopic Sylvia…

Clutch - Strange Cousins From The West

25 Jun 2009

(Weathermaker) Clutch are one of those bands who constantly find themselves outside the circle of mainstream music, and unfortunately, it seems they’ll never transcend the fringes. This is their ninth studio effort and, rather unspectacularly, keeps…