Issue 617

Clubbing birthdays

Three Scottish clubbing institutions hit big milestones this month: rock club The Cathouse is 18, the Art School’s regular soul night Divine is 18, and Slam’s techno hoedown Pressure is 10. We asked three regular punters just why they love these clubs…

Porn in the movies

Platonic friends Zack and Miri one day decide that in the current economic climate the only way to diminish their respective personal debts is to make a pornographic film together, but the world of amateur porno filmmaking is not as easy as it seems. So…

TV on the Radio

Three years ago the alternative music industry seemed determined to talk itself into a coma. You couldn’t open a magazine or turn on the radio without suffering some whinging executive complaining about the internet killing music. Fans who downloaded…

Social networker

How many times have you heard some over the hill rap star attempt to dismiss any attempts at innovation and excuse creative treading water by claiming their doing it ‘old school’? I still hear it a lot. This rosy, Ray Ban-ed view, which in actuality was…

A quiet life

It would seem that we’ve all become a little wary of silence. The sizeable majority of British society who own mobile phones may agree. Plug in, jump online, talk in libraries, and you’re doing OK. Withdraw however, and you have issues. Accomplished…

Lost in Fiction

It’s been eight years since the much-missed John Smith’s bookshop on Byres Road closed its doors and turned into a branch of Starbucks. At the time, many residents of Glasgow’s West End saw it as another, depressing, sign of the times. John Smith’s…

Calistoga Central

The first hurdle to clear is that this is an American restaurant that doesn’t serve burgers. The best explanation of this is that it’s not an American restaurant but Californian. Calistoga has been around in Edinburgh since 2004 on St Leonards Street…

Visionless Express - Fernando Meirelles director of Blindness

‘What’s the most challenging thing about making a film about blindness?’ asks Fernando Meirelles, the relentlessly upbeat director of relentlessly downbeat mood-blackeners City of God and The Constant Gardner. ‘Trying to establish relationships between…

Shock! Markets!

Something gets into the air about halfway through November, something that compels otherwise rational people to stand at tables – maybe decorated with fake snow or tinsel – offering genuinely original presents. There’s really no excuse to give anyone a…

Taste Test - White beers

Black Isle Organic Wheat Beer, Colomba, Grolsch Weizen, Konig Ludwig, Hefe Weizen, Weihenstephaner Dunkelweiss

Remote Control

When reading the brief synopsis of The Fallen (BBC2, Sat 15 Nov, 9.05pm) ••••• your worldview may determine how you approach this documentary: ‘a powerful and poignant film in which families and friends of those who have died fighting in Afghanistan and…

Heer Ranjha

Shan Khan should be the epitome of calm. Speaking to me on the phone during his first holiday in three years, he’s staring out across the tranquil waters of Lochgilphead. Yet, the subject of theatre clearly has his hackles raised. Since bursting onto…

Born Sneaky - Sneaky Pete’s

It’s still hard to discuss Edinburgh’s club scene without referencing the Cowgate fire which claimed La Belle Angele and the Gilded Saloon in December 2002. The event, along with the demise of the Venue on Calton Road, was a hammer blow to the city’s…

Open Field

Artists’ residencies sound like wonderful things. Who wouldn’t appreciate the opportunity to go somewhere new and moon around with a paintbrush? Unfortunately, this is not the reality of most residencies. Instead, pressure is often piled on artists to…

Big time - Metro Ecosse film competition

It’s been too long, but you know how it is – one thing leads to another and then it’s Christmas time again. Anyway, the time has come to check up on the progress of the second film competition. To recap – back in December 2006, The List launched Metro’s…

Derren Brown: The Specials

(4DVD) 196min Almost five years ago to the week that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were threatened with being burnt at the stake, another witch-hunt was conducted for another man merely seeking to thrill us. In October 2003, Derren Brown asked a…

John McCusker’s Under One Sky

Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Tue 25 Nov; Music Hall, Perth, Fri 28 Nov; Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 8 Dec John McCusker’s head has been in the clouds a lot lately – flying all over Europe and the Americas in a private jet, courtesy of Mark Knopfler. ‘Yes…

Last word: Mark Gatiss

Actor, screenwriter and novelist Mark Gatiss is best known for his role in The League of Gentlemen and acting in Doctor Who. Here he talks trousers, baked beans and sheds.

Singles & Downloads

It would seem that the season-savvy have been busy fashioning tracks to stay indoors to. Sofas, fine lounging and low key indie sounds are the order of the day for this fortnight’s top runners. Producer Kwes’ salutation to the slipper-set, debut solo…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra – East Meets West

Samaagam, in case you didn’t know, means coming together. For the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, it is the coming together of musical traditions from east and west. Samaagam, in this instance, is a new concerto by Amjad Ali Khan (pictured), reputed to be…

Will Young

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Thu 20 & Fri 21 Nov It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly seven years since Will Young shot to fame as the first winner of ratings-grabbing TV talent search Pop Idol. What’s perhaps more surprising is that he still enjoys…

Exposure -The Phantom Band

The latest in a long line of great discoveries by Chemikal Underground Records, Glasgow sextet The Phantom Band mash a coarse mix of influences – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Can and the theme to Crocodile Dundee among them – into a fine experimental…

Jason Cook

Jason Cook is a happy man. Today, he cheerfully tells me, he has purchased a new Xbox game. But Cook has other reasons to feel upbeat; his 2007 début fringe show My Confessions was a critical hit and was successfully followed by a show about happiness…

Noam Chomsky - The Essential Chomsky

(Bodley Head) For over 40 years, ‘the world’s greatest public intellectual’ has been not so much a thorn in the side of the West’s establishment structures as a battering ram to everything held dear by liberals and conservatives alike. Now fast…