5 Reasons To Go See

5 Reasons To Go See - King Creosote

8 May 2008

1 He’s royalty Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote) is a local legend responsible, along with his label Fence Records, for a renaissance of Scottish folk, lo-fi, electronica and rock. All done from a bolthole in the East Neuk of Fife. Clever, eh? 2…

5 Reasons To Go See - Willy Vlautin

24 Apr 2008

He’s an amazing singer, songwriter and frontman For the last 14 years, Vlautin has fronted Richmond Fontaine, the alt.country outfit based in Portland, Oregon. Eight finely crafted albums have seen him evoke the ghost of Gram Parsons in telling intimate…

5 Reasons To Go See - Edwyn Collins

10 Apr 2008

The Scottish troubadour’s career has spanned 30 years, during which time he’s been a relentlessly original and innovative artist, redefining pop music first with his band Orange Juice and then as a solo artist of great renown. Three years ago Collins…

5 Reasons To Go See - Billy Joe Shaver

27 Mar 2008

1 He’s the real McCoy (and then some) The son of Texan cotton-pickers and moonshine-runners, BJS arrived in Nashville on the back of a cantaloupe truck after spells as a farmhand, sailor, rodeo bum, and lumber mill worker (he lost two fingers to the…

5 Reasons To Go See - Jean Michel Jarre

13 Mar 2008

He’s an Oxygenius - Sorry, terrible pun to start with. Jarre’s revolutionary album Oxygene changed the face of popular music (trust us, you’d know if you heard it) on its release three whole decades ago. To celebrate the 30-year anniversary, he’s gonna…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Cult

28 Feb 2008

The Cult might have a rather dubious legacy after more than a quarter of a century in the business, but they can lay claim to one of the finest rock’n’roll albums of the last 30 years, namely Electric, every inch of which is riff-drenched, wailing…

6 Reasons To Go See - Instal

14 Feb 2008

This three-day festival of left-field sound has consistently revisited ideas explored by the avant-garde half a century ago. This year Instal focuses particularly on attempted subversions of bog-standard us’n’them gig protocol in a multitude of…

5 Reasons To Go See - British Sea Power

17 Jan 2008

1 Do You Like Rock Music? British Sea Power do, so much so that the Brighton foursome have called their rambunctious third album Do You Like Rock Music? In the case of the album, the answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’. 2 You can wave a flag The band’s new…

5 Reasons To Go See - Nobody

4 Jan 2008

1 Indulge your musical whims indoors instead It’s January, you’re skint, it’s cold outside and there are hardly any decent bands playing at this time of year anyway (the ones worth seeing we’ve told you about elsewhere in the mag). You got some gift…

Big Country - 5 reasons to go see

13 Dec 2007

1 It’s been a long time since they rock’n’rolled In actual fact, it’s been seven years since the band hit a stage, and a full 25 years since the Dunfermline outfit formed from the ashes of The Skids. Based around singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, the…

5 Reasons To Go See - Ryan Adams

29 Nov 2007

1 He’s Ryan Adams not Bryan Adams One specialises in alt.country/americana of the highest order, switching between heart-wrenching ballads and some of the catchiest rock tunes you’ll ever hear. The latter does not. 2 He’s focussed, man! Ol’ Ryan’s…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Hives

15 Nov 2007

1 ‘Cos every girl crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man’ Sorry for starting with a ZZ Top quote, but it couldn’t be more apt for this impeccably attired Swedish five-piece garage rock behemoth. Every new record comes accompanied by a razor-sharp new look, and…

Hot Chip

23 Aug 2007

Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head. At least, that’s what they claim on The Warning, the title track of their magnificent second album. Apparently the London-based electro-pop duo of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard met at school, where they…

The Barfly’s Fifth Birthday

5 Reasons to go see

23 Apr 2007

1 Sergeant It’s a five-night celebration to celebrate five years of Glasgow’s favourite nationally-franchised rock and indie venue, featuring gigs from Wednesday to Sunday and club nights on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Fife indie-rockers Sergeant kick…

5 Reasons - Yann Tiersen

5 Reasons To Go See

9 Apr 2007

1 He plays the typewriter Chuffing on Gauloises and quaffing glass after glass of fine French wine, the 37-year-old’s live shows involve him hopping around variety of instruments, stopping off occasionally to bash away rhythmically at a typewriter like…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Sugarhill Gang

5 Reasons To Go See

27 Mar 2007

1 ‘I said a hip hop . . .’ Yep, that’s right. In 1979 the gang recorded ‘Rapper’s Delight’, the first (okay, second; but the first to hit the mainstream charts in America) rap single, and still one of the very best ever.

Lenny Henry

15 Jan 2007

5 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT... 1 After winning the New Faces TV show in 1975, 16-year-old Henry went on tour for eight weeks as part of the Black and White Minstrel Show. 2 He was the voice of the speaking clock for two weeks in 2003 in…

Willie Nelson

15 Jan 2007

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 He’s a country music legend Dozens of albums, a string of hit singles (he wrote ‘Crazy’, the Patsy Clyne one though not the Gnarls Barkley one, sadly), countless awards, half a century of outsider genius. The 73-year-old hippy…

Killswitch Engage

3 Jan 2007

5 REASONS TO SEE 1 They’re the illegitimate sons of Slayer They are leaders of the metalcore movement that take the blueprint of thrash as laid down by Slayer, but ramp it up with elements of their hardcore roots. In fact, their rock forefathers…

Aaron Barshak

19 Dec 2006

5 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT . . . 1 Most famous for donning a peach dress and a Bin Laden beard to gatecrash Prince William’s 21st birthday party and plant a smacker on the future King’s horsey lips, the self-styled Comedy Terrorist has also…

Iron Maiden

6 Dec 2006

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1. Over 70 million sales Humungous sales are often wrong - just look at Celine Dion - but not in this case. The legendary heavy metal outfit have shifted gargantuan numbers of albums, and are rightly considered the biggest metal…

Horrors, The

The Horrors

21 Nov 2006

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 They’re horrible The zombie garage goth rock dafties (Faris ‘Rotter’ Badwan, Tomethy Furse, Joshua von Grimm, Coffin Joe and Spider Webb, apparently) hail from Southend, but look and sound as if they’ve just climbed out of…

Italian Film Festival

The Italian Film Festival

13 Nov 2006

5 REASONS TO VISIT 1. The return of Nanni Moretti Five years after the Palme d’Or-winning The Son’s Room, Italian actor-writer-director Nanni Moretti returns with the multilayered The Caiman (pictured). Set in contemporary Rome, it’s the study…

Espers

11 Nov 2006

5 REASONS TO SEE 1 It’s folk rock, but not as you know it Actually, it’s folk rock exactly as you know it, if you remember the 70s, that is. Echoes of Fairport Convention, Pentangle and the Incredible String Band can be heard in the noodling…

Art Brut

26 Oct 2006

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 They formed a band Formed a band! They formed a band! Look at them! They formed a band! Well, of course they did, but the point is that English art-terrorist punk-popsters also wrote a song about it, called ‘Formed a Band’, in…