Issue 634

Antichrist - Lars Von Trier interview

23 Jul 2009

Lars Von Trier makes films that defy consensus. He is a showman provocateur in search of a reaction, however extreme. The shrugged shoulders of indifference would be his definition of failure. With this in mind, Von Trier can only have been delighted…

Southern Fried Festival - country music comes to Perth

23 Jul 2009

Glen Lyon, 1982, is as good a place to start as any. That summer Andy Shearer, son of the local deerstalking ghillie, met Will Oldham, a young American holidaying on the estate with his family. They struck up a friendship and began to swap music…

Activisim - Meet the political activists

23 Jul 2009

There’s been a lot of nostalgia for the 90s recently, as Blur, Take That and the Spice Girls reform (however fleetingly), and various media outlets (this one included) celebrate 15 years since the invention of a handy marketing tool called Britpop.

Activism - Active ingredients

23 Jul 2009

What we eat, where our food comes from and how we eat it all have a huge impact on our local and global environment – and, happily, it only takes a few small changes to the way we approach our food to make a difference. Local, seasonal food is cheaper…

Activism - Global activism

23 Jul 2009

The Make Poverty History campaign garnered worldwide attention back in 2005 thanks to the involvement of Messrs Martin, Bono et al. It’s still going strong, though, and they need support to pressure the politicians and decision makers into helping make…

Activism Feature - why volunteer?

23 Jul 2009

So you want me to do something for nothing? Not nothing, no. Volunteering is a way to gain skills, help out and make a difference. What could I do? There are always countless projects in search of volunteers, and if you want to get involved you…

Activism - The Google activist

23 Jul 2009

If you want to campaign on the big issues greenpeace.org.uk foe.co.uk (Friends of the Earth) antislavery.org cancerresearchuk.org childline.org.uk rspca.org.uk howardleague.org (Howard League for Prison Reform) For insightful…

Adam Thirlwell's latest novel - The Escape

23 Jul 2009

There’s a scene at the end of Adam Thirlwell’s The Escape in which its British Jewish protagonist Raphael Haffner attempts to explain the concept of a draw in cricket to an American friend. This idea acts as a neat allegory of the book’s plot, in which…

An Hour to Sing fo Your Soul - Kevin Bridges' stand-up show

23 Jul 2009

When comics make their Fringe debuts, many of them are hell-bent on working up the biggest theme their minds and mouths can maintain over the course of an hour. Not such manufactured tosh for a guy like Kevin Bridges, the latest in a long line of great…

Chic - Nile Rodgers

Funk master

23 Jul 2009

Nile Rodgers defined an era with the classic disco soul of Chic and again as one of the most sampled act in hip hop history. David Pollock meets him.

Divorce, Vom and Teenage Ricky - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Sat 4 Jul

23 Jul 2009

Launching their Optimo Records debut EP – a satanic slab of red vinyl sleeved in a painting of ragged teeth and diseased gums – Divorce affirm their status as Glasgow’s most thrilling band. Their support acts are no slouches either. Teenage Ricky stage…

Film and Fashion - Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

As enjoyable as Coco Before Chanel – the giddy biopic of the reputed Nazi collaborator couturier starring Audrey Tautou – is, it underlined a hard, learned truth for me. Fashion and films co-exist – there is no symbiosis between the two. If they were…

Glasgow homegrown events round-up

23 Jul 2009

So, apparently there’s this … festival thing, happening in Edinburgh? Whatever. While the gallons of international acts pouring into the Capital at the beginning of August do traditionally tend to hog the headlines at this time of year, with loads of…

Isa & The Filthy Tongues - 'Addiction'

23 Jul 2009

Re-issued from 2006 on the strength of their recent ‘New Town Killers’ single (from Richard Jobson’s film of the same name) Addiction marked/marks the return of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie alumni Martin Metcalfe, Fin Wilson and Derek Kelly. Having seen…

JM Barrie: Peter Pan Man - a play by Anne Stenhouse

23 Jul 2009

Few lives could have been as dogged by mortality as that of JM Barrie. From his childhood, much of which he spent imitating his brother (who died in a bizarre skating accident), through his youth, and on to his latter days, those close to Barrie were in…

Liam McIlvanney - All the Colours of the Town

23 Jul 2009

In an age in which the sins of our politicians provide regular column inches and minimal shock value, Liam McIlvanney successfully delivers a powerful thriller, rich in colour and skilfully imagined. Jobbing political hack Gerry Conway is in a bind when…

Mach Nausea - DIY noise festival

23 Jul 2009

As church fetes go, this second edition of this DIY noise festival was an appositely unholy resurrection. Lit from an archway behind them and playing on bare floorboards, the 18 acts on show tapped into industrial metal roots, surrealist slapstick, an…

Magnus Mills - The Maintenance of Headway

23 Jul 2009

It’s questionable what’s more unlikely about this sixth novel from Magnus Mills: that he’s managed to eke out 136 pages about the delicate art of driving a bus, or that he succeeds so well in making the job’s habits and peculiarities seem like a…

Tonite - contemporary art in Glasgow

23 Jul 2009

The East Coast scene may be dominated by the Edinburgh Art Festival, but lovers of contemporary art in Glasgow can get their fix at The Modern Instutute with this large group show, which features work by Hany Armanious, Martin Boyce, Martin Creed, Mark…

Wickerman Festival 2009 - DJ Danny Rampling interview

23 Jul 2009

It might not be on the same scale as T in the Park or Rock Ness but the Wickerman is happily striding forth into its eighth year as an alternative to the many big buck corporate festivals. Wickerman aims to create a friendly atmosphere and a good time…

Exposure: Growing

23 Jul 2009

Unlike, say, The Lemonheads, Growing are a band with a literal soubriquet: their evolutionary noise and experimental rock exploits provoke a sense of advancing ambience, metal progression and, well, growing. They’ve recorded for Mogwai’s Rock Action…

5 reasons to go and see - Pontiak

23 Jul 2009

1 They’re a band of brothers The molten rock of Pontiak is forged by a hairy Virginia fraternity: Van (guitar/vocals), Lain (drums) and Jennings (bass) Carney. Their agrarian wig-outs are hence imbued with a profound musical intuition that edifies their…

Antichrist

23 Jul 2009

Danish Dogme pack leader Lars Von Trier conjures up a slice of unbridled and unpleasant pantheistic horror that’s underlined by themes of grief and guilt. When middle class couple Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe’s son dies in a freak accident…

Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

Films about great writers rarely work because it’s hard to express their literary output cinematically; a film about a fashion designer offers a much more visual proposition. Anne Fontaine’s sumptuously dressed biopic of the early years of Gabrielle…

Cornershop - Judy Sucks a Lemon For Breakfast

23 Jul 2009

It’s been seven years since Cornershop’s last outing, and they’ve clearly spent that time being happy, but not necessarily getting inspired. Judy Sucks a Lemon … is upbeat, sunny, summery fare, but almost pathologically derivative of 60s rock, pop, soul…