Issue 567

Working lunch

It’s New Year. Time for a lunchtime revolution. Le

17 Jan 2007

Lunch can be a rushed affair, that precious hour or half hour of down time all too often descending into a mad dash to the local supermarket or chemist chain to shell out cash you can ill afford on unpleasant meal deals, composed of chilly sandwiches…

Good food - fair price

Dining on a budget

16 Jan 2007

Dining on a budget should not be limited to eating cheap food amid dire surroundings. Restaurateur David Ramsden, formerly of (fitz)Henry and Rogue, and now working with The Outsider and Apartment restaurants in Edinburgh, sees value for money options…

Ethical chic

What’s the human cost of your £10 catwalk-copy

16 Jan 2007

The backlash against cut-price clothing starts here. Bin your £2 T-shirts and call off the search for the low-budget version of Kate Moss’ latest tote, because fashion just got serious.

Rome on a budget

The cheap life

16 Jan 2007

The Romans have a saying: ‘you’d need a lifetime to see all that Rome has to offer’. This seemed a laughable notion as my partner and I only had a few days in Italy’s capital. After not having taken a holiday in over three years, I was determined to…

Rage - A good deal these days is hard to find

A good deal these days is hard to find

16 Jan 2007

RAGE Departs Newcastle, 20:40, say the tickets. I glance up at the departure board. Newcastle, 20:40, platform two, it says. Five minutes before, we shuffle up to the tracks. A train arrives at 20:38 - destination Edinburgh - and three weary…

Remote Control - TV round-up

Remote Control

16 Jan 2007

So British dramas don’t hold a candle to their American counterparts, huh? We may have taken this as read for years but could a seismic shift be happening. Not that our home-grown shows are lifting themselves up to a higher plane, but our pals across…

All My Sons

Sons and slaughters

16 Jan 2007

A brilliant, but profoundly uneasy evening awaits the ‘Well, Saddam was a son of a bitch, so the war was justified’ school of thought at the Lyceum. So, too, the ‘we can only vote for the Tories in power or those awaiting power’ mindset will face some…

Julie Roberts

A woman's work

16 Jan 2007

After a century of feminism and post-feminisms, the word ‘woman’ has been constructed and deconstructed in such an enormous collection of philosophical and psychoanalytic tomes by some of the world’s greatest minds (Freud, de Beauvoir, Lacan, Kristeva…

Authentic Bangladeshi food

Naan finer

16 Jan 2007

Don’t let the celebrity TV chef con you. Cooking at a restaurant is barely comparable to cooking at home.

Leech - sucking the blood of popular entertainment

Leech

16 Jan 2007

So, farewell then, Magnus Magnusson. You started, you finished and somewhere inbetween you delivered the finest reading of Flaubert this literary Leo Sayer ever heard. ‘Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to…

News extra

16 Jan 2007

Terry Riley is to make three rare appearances at the Usher Hall this year as part of Triptych. The minimalist pioneer will perform his groundbreaking composition ‘In C’ at the Edinburgh Usher Hall on Wednesday 25 April and a reworking of his electronic…

There’s No V In Gaelic

Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow. Thu 25-Sat 27 Jan

16 Jan 2007

New Work People can be curiously disparaging about Gaelic as a cultural force for anything larger than localised music events, often with little personal experience on the topic beyond the odd maligned episode of Dotaman. The news that £1.3m worth of…

Stage Whispers - theatre news

Stage Whispers

16 Jan 2007

As New Year hangovers begin to lift, the theatre often stirs, slowly, to life in January, shaking off the grip of panto season with the first halting steps of a restarted season proper. Whispers finds no exception this year, with things not yet entirely…

Aye Write!

The write stuff

16 Jan 2007

Aye Write!, the west coast festival which celebrates Glaswegian writing and the best of Scottish and international literature, has cut the red ribbon on its 2007 programme.

Grapevine - showbiz news

Grapevine

16 Jan 2007

Worst casting decision of the fortnight (month/year/decade/trillennium) must be the one which has placed Mike Myers in the plum role of Keith Moon for the 2009-bound biopic of the Who drummer See Me Feel Me... That crazy blazing squad Arcade Fire are…

Aggregate, Jamie Shovlin

Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh

16 Jan 2007

PAINTING, FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY, INSTALLATION Museological stirrings are already afoot at the Talbot Rice Gallery. London-based artist Jamie Shovlin has pulled out multiple dusty copies of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species from the University of…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

16 Jan 2007

Julie Roberts - The New Woman Artist Roberts’ paintings manage to bring feminist politics into the gallery and kick centuries of misogyny in the head, in images that revisit and reinterpret early archival photographs of women artists working in the…

Metal Bridge, The

Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow, until Sat 20 Jan

16 Jan 2007

DRAWING, FILM, INSTALLATION. The Metal Bride - Group Show This small group show brings together the work of four artists - Steven Claydon (London), Thomas Helbing (Berlin) Craig Mulholland, and Duncan Marquiss (who both live in Glasgow). The…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

16 Jan 2007

C-90 by Daniel Kitson Daniel Kitson returns with his Fringe hit of 2006. A warm, cuddly kind of monologue, it tells the story of a man who archives old cassette tapes sent by lovers and hopeful amours to their muses over the years. The curator himself…

Comedy Cuts

ITV2, Thu 18 Jan, 10.55pm

16 Jan 2007

COMEDY Some people hold the view that since the demise of The Tube, TV’s commissioning heads haven’t really taken live music seriously. Well, what of live comedy then? Apart from the Stand-Up Show, Scotland’s Live Floor Show, and the odd bonanza on…

Arts intervention

Artists take an academic approach to their work

16 Jan 2007

A trio of leading Scottish artists is crossing over into the world of academia in a bid to reinvigorate the way in which the arts are taught at higher education institutions.

Tartan Turns

The Jam House, Edinburgh, Sun 21 Jan, 6.30pm

16 Jan 2007

CHARITY EVENT There’s a certain appeal to a night of variety entertainment that many in the cognoscenti don’t really like to admit to. For this reason, it’s great when someone gives you an excuse to go by making it a charity night. So it is that we…

X Factor Dance

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 1 & Fri 2 Feb

16 Jan 2007

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Arriving in Edinburgh to work with X Factor Dance, Philippe Decouflé was faced with an unexpected array of talent. ‘I was surprised at how good the dancers are,’ says the legendary French choreographer. ‘They’re very experienced…

Scrooge

16 Jan 2007

There’s no doubt that Michael Barrymore has had his share of troubles over recent years, but he’s shown resilience and a good deal of talent in his riposte to the travails that have beset him. In this adaptation of Dickens, his performance as the…

Bobby - Martin Sheen interview

Love and a bullet

15 Jan 2007

‘Emilio told me the concept that he wanted to take fictional characters and mix them with the reality of Bobby Kennedy’s campaign footage. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I encouraged him as much as I could. It was a long journey. He started it in…

Celtic Connections Americana

The new world

15 Jan 2007

Is Scotland slipping across the ocean. Are young Scots morphing into Americans? The broad church of Celtic Connections has from its inception flown performers across the Atlantic, to audiences who might make the delighted discovery of a new musical…

DVD Round-up

15 Jan 2007

‘January, sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me.’ Yes, it’s that cruelest of months where our bank accounts are empty and the sofa becomes our best friend. Good thing really because it turns out there are actually some superb DVD releases and…

Bollywood Round-up

15 Jan 2007

Director Priyardashan’s Bhagam Bhag (PG) 157min (2 stars) has all the boisterous energy of his previous work (Hera Pheri, Hulchul). It’s based on the innocuous premise of an Indian theatre group embarking on a London tour minus Anjali (Tanushree Dutta)…

Black Book - Paul Verhoeven interview

15 Jan 2007

Dutch master Two decades after he left Holland for Hollywood’s dream factory, Paul Verhoeven has gone home to make his first Dutch film in 24 years. Having established himself as a critically and commercially successful maverick talent in Tinseltown…

Norma Jean

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Fri 19 Jan

15 Jan 2007

HARDCORE Let’s blame it on Sir Cliff. But the perception of Christian music is of something rather dull. Strange, considering musical greats and notorious hellraisers, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis had such strong ties to the…

Babel

15 Jan 2007

Somewhere down the crazy river there’s a little shack where screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) churns out his indentikit scripts. This is how he does it. He looks at his holiday snaps, and then he imagines a catastrophic event, say…

Dispatch - Vic Galloway

The Dispatch

15 Jan 2007

In my first column of 2007, it seems only right to join the tipsters of the world and look forward to the remaining 11 and a half months with a selection of ‘ones to watch’. The Scottish music scene is in extremely good health, and as usual, away from…

L'Occidentale Dr Fanfare

Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Tue 30 Jan

15 Jan 2007

CELTIC CONNECTIONS First, a credo. ‘We have arrived at the time of Fusion. The era of conventional folk music had to travel through the social and cultural storms of the 20th century in order to emerge fully in the 21st. Some medievalists claim that…

Gianni Schicchi/L’heure espagnole

RSAMD Opera, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Fri 19 &Sat 2

15 Jan 2007

OPERA DOUBLE BILL USA and Canada, England and Wales, Sweden, Iceland, Singapore and Brazil are all countries that are fielding singers in the RSAMD’s comedy double bill of operas from Italy and France. Although a one-off blip means that Scotland is…

Wil Hodgson

15 Jan 2007

STAND-UP Bespectacled John Peel impersonator Robin Ince has been known to tell a story about how his pal Wil Hodgson was verbally abused by some blokes in the street. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carr was one of the experienced comics who offered the mohicaned…

Fit for 2007

All venues, all year, times vary

15 Jan 2007

HEALTH AND WELLBEING As I write, the sun kisses rain-damp pavements outside my window, but it’s likely to be only a respite in a month of cashless gloom and bad weather-induced misery. Indeed, University of Cardiff psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall…

Rocky Balboa

15 Jan 2007

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) hits the nail on the head when he answers the put down ‘Was that something from the 80s?’ fired by his foe Mason Dixon (real life light heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver) with the retort ‘More like the 70s, actually.’ Forget…

World Beneath my Feet

Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 19-Fri 26 Jan

15 Jan 2007

EXHIBITION Where we grow up, and the landscape that surrounds us, plays a big part in who we are. Putting that into words, however, isn’t always easy. Which is why Giant, the Glasgow-based art organisation, gave children another way to express…

Ghosts

15 Jan 2007

Documentary-maker Nick Broomfield’s first dramatic feature since his ill-fated toff murder tale Diamond Skulls some 17 years ago, Ghosts traces the events leading up to the drowning of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers in February 2004 off Morecambe Bay. Like…

Aereogramme - album review

Aerogramme

15 Jan 2007

INDIE The sound of a band fulfilling their potential is always a heart-warming thing, and so it is with Aereogramme. This third full-length album sees the band moving onto a whole new level of accomplishment, transforming them in the process from…

Black Book

(15) 145min

15 Jan 2007

With his creativity curtailed by Hollywood’s dream factory since 2000’s underwhelming Hollow Man, Paul Verhoeven has gone home to Holland, where he’s also made a return to form with this pacy, provocative wartime thriller. It’s a companion piece to his…

Cascade

Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow, Thu 1 Feb

15 Jan 2007

CELTIC CONNECTIONS Cascade is a new project featuring a number of familiar names from a diverse range of musical backgrounds. The five-piece first got together at the London Jazz Festival in November, and this will be their debut in Scotland. The…

Justin Currie with The Poems

ABC, Glasgow, Sat 20 Jan

15 Jan 2007

CELTIC CONNECTIONS Every year Celtic Connections’ programme throws up nuggets of thoroughly insightful booking, and this gig - showcasing green pastures new for a couple of Scottish artists whose musical careers seemed consigned to yesteryear - must…

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…

The Fountain

15 Jan 2007

Plagued with production problems - most infamously star Brad Pitt exiting over creative differences, causing the film to close down - Darren Aronofsky’s labour of love has been a long time coming. Before rewriting the script and recasting a scaled down…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

15 Jan 2007

The Kerrang! Tour featuring Biffy Clyro, The Bronx, The Audition and I Am Ghost The bible for the rockingmost draws together some new faces headed up with our finest exponents of wilful, joyful noiseisms. Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 23 Jan. (Rock & Pop)

Bobby

15 Jan 2007

Writer-director Emilio Estevez has created a hagiography of Bobby Kennedy and posits that his death marked an end of a political dream in the United States. The action takes place at the scene of the crime - the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June…

Rough Cuts - film news

Rough Cuts

15 Jan 2007

It seems the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Ecstasy has run into a heap of bother on its way to the big screen. Production was supposed to start in November but clashes between the Scottish production manager and the line producer and Rob…

Ridicule - DVD review

Ridicule

15 Jan 2007

COMEDY/HISTORY /DRAMA Wit is indeed the ultimate weapon and there was no place more dangerous than the doomed opulent court of Louis XVI in 18th century Versailles. Into this world comes an impoverished French nobleman Grégoire Ponceludon de Malavoy…

Venus

15 Jan 2007

This film would probably make more money if they renamed it Withnail and I: The Pensioner Years, because that’s what it most closely resembles when it’s good. Maurice (Peter O’Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips) are a couple of veteran actors who spend…

Infamous

15 Jan 2007

So how does this new film about Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood compare with Bennett Miller’s Oscar-winning Capote? It’s not as good, but this sentiment comes with a massive caveat as writer/director Douglas McGrath has created an entirely different…

Surface Noise - music news

Surface Noise

15 Jan 2007

Triptych announced more names! CCS and Terry Riley have both confirmed gigs for the last weekend in April. Click here for more details.

Southern Comfort - DVD

Southern Comfort

15 Jan 2007

THRILLER These days the great American filmmaker Walter Hill mostly concerns himself with exemplary television shows like Deadwood and the soon to be screened mini series Broken Trail. We should not forget, however, that this is the man who brought…

* Classical Hitlist

Hitlist

15 Jan 2007

The best classical & opera BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Afternoon Performance Definitely worth blagging an afternoon off to recharge the batteries in the company of favourite Russian maestro Alexander Titov, who tells Stravinsky’s colourful…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

15 Jan 2007

Simon Brodkin A best of British for you, as one of the true finds of the last Fringe brings us some characters from this sceptred isle. The Stand, Edinburgh, Fri 19 & Sat 20 Jan.

Ballad of a Soldier - DVD review

Ballad of a Soldier

15 Jan 2007

WAR/DRAMA/ROMANCE This long overdue DVD release of Grigori Chukhrai’s 1959 anti-war film arrives thankfully clear of the hideous dubbing that so marred previous incarnations of the film. It is not difficult to see why Chukhrai’s film picked up the…

Them

(15) 78min

15 Jan 2007

A young French couple living in an old mansion 30 kilometres outside of Bucharest are woken one dark night by the sounds of intruders. Thereafter, a game of cat and mouse commences as the man and woman creep around their labyrinthine home stalked by…

Cranes Are Flying, The - DVD

The Cranes Are Flying

15 Jan 2007

DRAMA Mikheil Kalatozishvili’s multi award winning masterwork was one of the first post-war Soviet films to receive exposure outside the USSR, and was at least partly responsible for reintroducing Soviet cinema into the more ambitious cinemas of the…

Lori Watson - album review

Lori Watson

15 Jan 2007

FOLK Borders fiddler Lori Watson has been tipped as a name to watch for a wee while now, and her debut CD bears out that perception in fine style. She is accompanied by accordionist Fiona Young and two guitarists, Innes Watson (her brother) and Barry…

Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente - album review

Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente

15 Jan 2007

JAZZ English pianist Robert Mitchell and Cuban violinist Omar Puente have worked together in bigger groups in the past, but this duo throws them into much closer relief. Both emerge with credit from the encounter in a disc that covers a lot of…

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - album review

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

15 Jan 2007

INDIE To follow up one of 2006’s albums of the year is a hard task, so for this US quintet to do it so quickly and effectively is pretty remarkable. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s second effort was recorded in ten months, between international festivals…

Evan Christopher

15 Jan 2007

The untimely death of Kenny Davern last month has left a big void in the mainstream jazz clarinet roster, and Evan Christopher is one obvious candidate to fill that gap. He was born and raised in California, but has carved out a growing reputation as a…

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…

Frames, The - album review

The Frames

15 Jan 2007

INDIE The Frames - everybody loves them at home in Ireland, very few have heard of them anywhere else. Although they’re not exactly the new U2 that shouldn’t really be the case, for The Frames are a fine and evocative guitar band of the lighters…

Gruff Rhys - album review

Gruff Rhys

15 Jan 2007

INDIE Super Furry Animals have always had an irresistible, hapless charm, none more so than bobble-headed stoner frontman Gruff Rhys. Freed from his bandmates’ influence, Rhys comes up with a warm and fuzzy smile-inducing collection of essentially…

Showcase Scotland

15 Jan 2007

The annual influx of agents and promoters invited to the Showcase Scotland weekend at Celtic Connections will be able to join what will doubtless be a substantial public audience for this very tasty array of contemporary Scottish folk talent. Session…

Good, the Bad and the Queen, the

The Good, the Bad and the Queen

15 Jan 2007

The latest seemingly random collective helmed by Damon Albarn. After the indie Britpop chirpiness of Blur and the wonky hip hop of Gorillaz this is a more stripped down affair with a heavy dub groove. Featuring the bass of Clash legend Paul Simonon, The…

Seth Lakeman

15 Jan 2007

Celtic Connections have secured one of the leading lights in the modern English roots scene, Seth Lakeman, as support for Scottish singer/songwriter Karine Polwart. Bringing a new dynamic and rawness to his intimate performances, Lakeman specialises in…

Tom Bancroft Six Pack, The

The Tom Bancroft Six Pack

15 Jan 2007

Hailed as one of the leading lights of the burgeoning Scottish jazz scene, drummer and composer Tom Bancroft has had more musical identities than the artists formerly known as Prince. Having scored gigantic hits as leader of Orchestra Interrupto and the…

Shooglenifty

15 Jan 2007

Edinburgh’s folk fusionists Shooglenifty are one of the many exceptional acts making up this year’s Celtic Connections programme. The groundbreaking celtic dance band will be joined by Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq Gillis, one of the leaders in…

Robert Hood at Pressure

Southern discomfort

12 Jan 2007

Starting off their own personal clubbing years with one of those metaphorical bangs we do all so enjoy, Pressure have coaxed a customarily splendid line-up together for their January event. It’s a classy roster, with Dave Clarke headlining, regulars…

A less traditional Burns Night

Getting fou and unco happy

12 Jan 2007

1 Wi’ sangs an’ clatter It’s pure coincidence that Edinburgh’s Big Word performance poetry evening falls on 25 January but when organiser Jenny Lindsay realised the date, she decided to make the most of it.

Fountain, The - Darren Aronofsky feature

Waves of mutilation

12 Jan 2007

Speaking to the website Comic Book Resources in May 2005, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky said: ‘I knew it was a hard film to make, and I said if Hollywood fucks me over at least I’ll make a comic book out of it.’ They did, and so he did.

Marcia Blaine School for Girls

Kinky Afro at the Sub Club, Glasgow, Fri 26 Jan

12 Jan 2007

ELECTRONICA Glasgow’s electronic trio Marcia Blaine School for Girls (yes, the name is based on the fictional educational establishment of the 1960s novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) are gearing up to launch their new album Halfway into the Woods…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

12 Jan 2007

Chew the Fat Do yourself two favours: firstly, go buy Fabric Live 30 courtesy of Stanton Warriors, and secondly, go to this night and see them. Sub Club, Glasgow, Fri 19 Jan.

January Clear out

12 Jan 2007

COMMUNITY EVENT ‘I just liked the idea that people could get together and do something for free,’ says Bob Hamilton, organiser of the January Clear Out at the recently refurbished Pearce Institute in Govan. The Clear Out is a whole day of films…

Will Hutton

The Writing on the Wall (Little, Brown)

12 Jan 2007

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS Taking complicated economic arguments and turning them into coherent and accessible reading is no mean task. But Will Hutton has long been a master of making the difficult easier to digest. His previous books have looked at…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

12 Jan 2007

Niven Govinden The second novel from Govinden, who’s been cruelly dubbed as the new Hanif Kureishi, is Graffiti My Soul, a fizzy, witty, horrific take on being a British youngster. Canongate Read review

Hitlist - The best events, talk and sport

12 Jan 2007

Holocaust - and After? Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, 556 9579. 10am-6pm. Free. In connection with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish colourist Myer Lacome’s exhibition looks at the implications of the Holocaust, and celebrates life in…

Niven Govinden

Graffiti My Soul (Canongate)

12 Jan 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA When a book claims that in its setting that ‘nothing bad ever happens’, you can rest assured that many different variants of excrement will be hitting the fan. With Niven Govinden’s zingy second novel, the disaffected youth of Surrey are…

Will Elliott

The Pilo Family Circus (Quercus)

12 Jan 2007

HORROR DRAMA If anyone, anywhere still finds clowns anything other than deeply sinister, this book is the one to change your mind. Excessively violent and twisted, it’s like some garish cross between The Magic Faraway Tree and Stephen King’s worst…

Ruth Thomas

Things to Make and Mend (Faber)

12 Jan 2007

FRIENDSHIP TALE Edinburgh-based author Ruth Thomas has garnered a reputation as a skilled, award-winning writer of short stories and makes a convincing transition to novel writing with her archetypal story of two women whose friendship is brought to…

Daljit Nagra

Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Faber)

12 Jan 2007

POETRY COLLECTION Daljit Nagra’s parents moved from the Punjab to Britain in the 1950s and it’s no real surprise that his poetry should be knitted together from bits of his cultural heritage and present environment. So, in the opener ‘Darling & Me!…

Glasgow Science Centre

Going up

12 Jan 2007

Have you ever wanted to take in the whole of Glasgow at a glance? Scotland’s tallest building, the 127m high Glasgow Tower adjacent to the Science Centre at Pacific Quay, has reopened to the public, offering some of the most beautiful views over the…

Word Up - club news

Word Up

12 Jan 2007

Some sad news from Mixed Bizness: unfortunately Kid Koala has had to postpone his tour until further notice, so for now the 4 February date at The Arches has been cancelled. More news as we get it.

Departure Lounge

The Caves, Edinburgh, Fri 26 Jan

9 Jan 2007

Despite being more than capable of aligning a cosmic jam with their resident DJs Astroboy, Mr Zimbabwe and percussionist Cammy, Departure Lounge have in three and a half years brought a boggling array of backward looking and forward thinking guests from…

Ed Brubaker & Trevor Hairsine - comic review

Ed Brubaker & Trevor Hairsine

9 Jan 2007

SUPERHERO Comics have embraced and pioneered the ret-con more that any other artistic medium. For the less geeky amongst us, a ret-con is ‘retro continuity’, the art of going back and retelling the past so it vaguely makes sense with what’s gone…

DJ Craze

PROFILE

9 Jan 2007

Name DJ Craze Occupation master turntablist, DMC award magnet Why should we have heard of him? Originally from Nicaragua, but now settled in Miami in a continental shift which Tony Montana would be proud of, Arith Delgado (for Craze is he) has…

Lorna Macintyre

Mary Mary, Glasgow, Sat 20 Jan-Fri 23 Feb

9 Jan 2007

INSTALLATION It’s advisable that when the figurative and the abstract meet they should do so in the clear empty spaces of the latter, otherwise the aesthetic object falls into the cheap embrace of anthropomorphism. The man-made material and the…

Kerrang! Tour 2007

Kerrang! Tour 2007 featuring Biffy Clyro, The Bron

9 Jan 2007

ROCK An army of kohl-eyed kids may shake their dyed fringes in disagreement, but rock music these days isn’t just about American emo. By way of proof our nation’s beloved Biffy Clyro return, taking time out from working on their forthcoming fourth…

Malcolm Ross

Ego, Edinburgh, Wed 13 Dec

9 Jan 2007

INDIE The sad but true fact of Edinburgh’s current music scene is that, unless you have local knowledge of the great bands bubbling under the radar, there is no major scene going on which might capture the imagination of the nation. But it wasn’t…

Spare Snare

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Thu 28 Dec

9 Jan 2007

INDIE Once proudly crowned the 46th best Scottish band in history by this very organ (one lower than Dogs Die In Hot Cars, but one above The Average White Band), Dundee’s Spare Snare are finally getting round to cashing in on the accolade with this…

Jason - comic review

Jason

9 Jan 2007

HORROR France-based Norwegian cartoonist Jason’s last graphic novella, The Left Bank Gang, was a witty, wacky crime caper featuring zoomorphic versions of modernist literature masters, canine Ezra Pound, James Joyce, etc. His new novella is an…

Various, The Book of Boy Trouble - comic review

Various artists

9 Jan 2007

GAY Edited by two of its contributors, Robert Kirby and David Kelly, The Book of Boy Trouble brings together selected highlights of the first ten years of the alternative fanzine of the same title (minus the ‘book’ bit). It’s a collection whose…

One Book - One Edinburgh campaign

One Book - One Edinburgh campaign Kidnaps The List

9 Jan 2007

The Edinburgh City of Literature Trust’s Citywide Reading Campaign launches its One Book - One Edinburgh campaign on Wednesday 31 January at Edinburgh Castle. The campaign runs for the whole of February 2007 and aims to get the whole city reading the…

Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris

9 Jan 2007

Freaked out space disco from Calvin Harris, officially branded ‘one to watch in 2007’. And he kicks the year off in style with a live show at Death Disco alongside the Gucci Soundsystem (Riton and Ben Fat Trucker). Check www.calvinharris.tv and the…

SkinnyMan

SkinnyMan

9 Jan 2007

One of the best MCs the UK has to offer, SkinnyMan is crashing the first Soul Biscuits of the year. And the hip hop night hasn’t just got SM on stage but he’s bringing the Whole Mud Fam with him, featuring among its many attractions his son Little Jiggs…