Issue 641

The five most important moments for digital music

7 Oct 2009

Napster starts it all In 1999 Napster became first music file-sharing service to make digital downloading a viable, and illegal, option for finding new music. The end came in 2001 after a law suit from the Record Industry Association of America…

The Blessings: Exclusive LuckyMe DJ Mix

7 Oct 2009

A mix of the best of the LuckyMe collective, exclusively available as a free download from List.co.uk. Featuring Hudson Mohawke, Mike Slott, RKGB, Lunice and more. God bless The Blessings. The LuckyMe co-founders Dom Sum and Fine Art, together known as…

Campaigning For Falkirk's Park Gallery

Helping the building fight for its survival

5 Oct 2009

The Park Gallery is something of an art institution. Located in a stable block at Falkirk’s Callendar Park, the gallery is best known for its edgy, contemporary, thought-provoking work by local, national and international artists. So last month’s…

New National Gallery Restaurant Opens Its Doors

Good news for Scottish food and culture buffs

5 Oct 2009

Art lovers have exciting news to nibble on, following the National Gallery of Scotland’s announcement of its collaboration with Victor and Carina Contini, the team behind popular George Street eaterie Centotre. The new look Scottish Café and Restaurant…

One Thousand Paper Cranes

Bringing the magic of origami to the stage

5 Oct 2009

An actor preparing for a role has to do many things, but learning origami isn’t usually one of them. Alongside the usual checklist of remembering lines and researching characters, however, the performers in One Thousand Paper Cranes also had to turn…

An Argument About Sex

An audacious conceit that lacks thematic focus

5 Oct 2009

This site-specific production springs from an audacious conceit: an updating of 18th century playwright Pierre de Marivaux’s comedy La Dispute, framed within a topical argument. Was the severity of the economic downturn down to inherently male…

Side Dishes

More foody going-ons

5 Oct 2009

The BBC Good Food Show Scotland, now in its third year, will be at the SECC in Glasgow from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November. Alongside the usual array of big-name cooking demos, there’s a strong showing from smaller local producers including…

Glasgow East End: Shopping

The area's top shops

5 Oct 2009

Often forgotten when it comes to retail therapy, shopping in the East End may well involve a bit more walking, but the results will certainly be fruitful. Pop into Brigitte for a spot of vintage heaven – designer cocktail dresses galore at…

The Holly and the Ivy

50s British melodrama

5 Oct 2009

Although it’s by no means a classic, this British melodrama from 1952 provides an interesting snapshot of domestic life in postwar Blighty. Taking place over Christmas in rural Norfolk, it revolves around a family gathering at the vicarage of the…

We Like...

Batman and smart-arse comedy

5 Oct 2009

This week some of us are suffering knuckle-ache and eye-strain from having spent a whole weekend playing the new Batman game. An excited section of List HQ is boldly declaring it ‘the best superhero game ever’ and muttering things about graphics and…

Halloween II

Rob Zombie's sequel to his remake

5 Oct 2009

Rob Zombie makes his own sequel to his own remake of the horror classic where he puts putrid flesh on the bones (and gives him a mother. What?) of that ultimate senseless killing machine Michael Myers. A potentially pointless exercise in some ways…

Zombieland

Surviving a world overrun by zombies

5 Oct 2009

Zombieland is pitched somewhere between From Dusk Till Dawn and Anchor Man with a nod of the stetson to George A Romero’s zombie flicks. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin are four disparate characters hell-bent on…

Couples Retreat

Daft slapstick and a smearing of schmaltz

5 Oct 2009

Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn are all grown up since Swingers and are now here, buddying it up as a part of four couples who hit their 40s and end up mistakenly entering into a compulsory couples therapy retreat on a luxury island resort. Cue lots of…

Ong-Bak: The Beginning

Action packed tale of revenge

5 Oct 2009

Master martial arts star Tony Jaa shows his chops in considerable style – a style that has found him compared favourably to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li – in this action packed tale of an orphan brought up by a gang of thieves who trains to avenge…

Love Happens

Muddled, befuddled rom-com mess

5 Oct 2009

Jennifer Aniston adds more fuel to the fire that she’s a one hit wonder with this muddled, befuddled not very rom and not very com mess with Aaron Eckart. The nonsensical title (‘love happens?’ Is that equivocal to ‘shit happens’?) should be enough to…

The Creek

Formulaic no-budget horror

5 Oct 2009

Formulaic no-budget horror in which a group of friends are forced to reunite by their dead friend’s ghost. They return to the scene of his death but strangely start being offed, one by one.

Music In The Digital Age

Technology's impact on the artform

2 Oct 2009

To paraphrase the Creme Egg adverts, when it comes to music, how do you hear yours? Streaming over the internet? Nicking stuff from torrents on the web? A bag full of goodies from Fopp? Crates of obscure vinyl from your local specialist…

Music Websites

Where to go to find great new music

2 Oct 2009

The Hype Machine (www.hypem.com) An oldie but a goodie. Trawl blogs from around the world here, stream new bands and normally stumble across tons of fresh remixes. Set aside a long skive break, as it can get quite distracting. (Claire Sawers…

Carol Ann Duffy

Taking a look at her kids poems, moon verse and a tale of a Christmas cheer

2 Oct 2009

The appointment of Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate was always going to raise eyebrows and temperatures among certain elements of the literary establishment and seamier side of the media. In this writer, there is a spirit of rebellion and…

First Word: David Shrigley

The artist talks about 80s music, pumpkins, and the joys of being tall

2 Oct 2009

First record you ever bought ‘Einstein A Go-Go’ by Landscape on 7” single. It was a big hit in 1981. Last time you were chatted up Most of the time I don’t even realise I’m being chatted up – so it could have been recently. First film you…

Benedict Allen interview

Talking with the TV adventurer before his lecture tour of Scotland

2 Oct 2009

Having a conversation with Benedict Allen is what I imagine chatting to Indiana Jones is like. After all, not many people, when telling you what they did in the year after university, will suddenly, cheerfully diverge into the following anecdote…

Glasgow's Revitalised East End

Nicola Paul discovers the area's new lease of cultural life

2 Oct 2009

Once a major industrial centre, Glasgow’s East End has long been associated with deprivation. Now, thanks to a cultural boom, the East End is giving the other parts of the city a run for their money. The area is home to some long-standing Glaswegian…

Alternative Christmas Dinners

Why not turf out the turkey and can the cranberry?

2 Oct 2009

Tang’s This Christmas Tang’s restaurant on Candlemaker Row in Edinburgh is offering customers Japanese winter dishes shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, both cooked and eaten at the table fondue-style in a hot pot. Shabu-shabu has Konbu dashi stock, often…

DVD Round-up: Horror

The films that want to make you scream

2 Oct 2009

Sexy Killer, Dr Chopper, Mr Halloween, Staunton Hill, Smash Cut, Death of a Ghost Hunter, The Books of Blood, Wasting Away, I Sell the Dead, Rogue

Glasgow East End: Eating & Drinking

Our top restaurants and cafes

2 Oct 2009

Tapa A hugely popular organic bakehouse that has had even the most hardcore WEndies flocking over to Dennistoun. The menu is littered with a mouth-watering array of homemade chutneys and organic cheeses, while the bread and cakes baked on the premises…

Scottish Opera: Italian Girl in Algiers

She takes a trip to Scotland too this autumn

2 Oct 2009

Sun-kissed blondes in bikinis aren’t the usual types found on the world’s operatic stage. Especially bouncing up and down on a spacehopper. Scottish Opera’s new co-production with New Zealand Opera of Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers is a bit…

Hitlist: Music

Your fortnightly feast for the ears

2 Oct 2009

Noah and the Whale, Mudhoney and The Vaselines, Invasion, Scarce, The Big Pink, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Music Like a Vitamin, The Dead Weather

Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee

Shane Meadows mock-doc

2 Oct 2009

After the relative extravagance of his 80s-set skinhead film This is England, Shane Meadows returns to his roots with this mock-rockumentary road movie made in the spirit of the low-fi, no-budget shorts with which the Midlands-born filmmaker began his…

Hitlist: Clubs

2 Oct 2009

Devil Disco Club, Mudhoney, Pulse, Telefunken, Sensu is 5, The B^stard Dancehall, Pest Control Records, Mount Heart Attack, Death Disco, Numbers, Ultragroove

5 of the Best: eReaders

Your guide to electronic books

2 Oct 2009

Kindle 2 Expect wireless download times of less than 60 seconds a book when the second incarnation of this machine finally hits UK shores. Amazon’s dreaded DRM means no chance of sharing the 1500 possible titles it can hold though. Currently only…

Food For Thought: Rod Jones

The Idlewild guitarist and mental health spokesman gives us his food tips

2 Oct 2009

Whether I’m touring or at home everything starts the same way, a breakfast of toast, a banana and coffee. In the studio and during rehearsals it gets a bit fraught as we’re a band who all love coffee but argue over how it should be made. Colin [Newton…

Hitlist: Books

Literary highlights this fortnight

2 Oct 2009

Vic Reeves, Heroic Poetic Extravaganza, And Another Thing … Hitchhiker Celebration, Nick Cave, Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay: Voice, Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay: Voice, Denise Mina and Alan Bissett, Zoe Strachan and Louise Welsh: Diverse City

Also Released: Music

2 Oct 2009

Various Warp Box Set (Warp) Celebrating the twentieth birthday of the groundbreaking Sheffield electronica label we get a mammoth ten-disc box set of 10in EPs with the label’s artists covering each other, new unheard tracks, special one-off mixes…

Hitlist: Theatre

What to see this fortnight

2 Oct 2009

The Grapes of Wrath, Glasgay!, That Face, Curve Foundation, Scottish Ballet, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Othello

5 Things You Might Not Know About: Alistair McGowan

2 Oct 2009

1. McGowan first started impersonating people at school. During an early stage appearance in West Side Story, he went marginally off-script to mimic some of his teachers. 2. He studied English at the University of Leeds, an establishment which has…

Katalin Varga

2 Oct 2009

Filmed in two weeks on a micro budget, Katalin Varga is proof of just how good independent filmmaking can be in the hands of a committed and intelligent filmmaker, in this case, first time director, Peter Strickland. While a tale of revenge set in…

Blueflint - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Wed 30 Sep

The local folk duo dazzle

2 Oct 2009

Stories of heartbreak, revenge and plenty more drama besides pepper the lyrics of ace Edinburgh bluegrass banjo duo of Deborah Arnott and Clare-Louise Neilson who play the fingerpickin’ and clawhammer banjo respectively. Their sublime delicate vocal…

Fanfarlo - King Tut’s, Glasgow, Wed 30 Sep

Fantasticfarlo more like

2 Oct 2009

Bowie loves them. And so should you. Or you would if you ever caught Fanfarlo’s awesome folk punch live. Relocated to King Tut’s from the ABC, the smaller stage is ideal for a band so positive about the communal experience, especially when the crowd…

Part Chimp - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 25 Sep

'Loudest band in Britain' let loose

2 Oct 2009

The term ‘Cult Following’ is thrown around all too easily these days, but it begins to prove apt as the dimly-lit bowels of Stereo, wall to with head-banging disciples, are thrust into perpetual noise this evening at the hands of Part Chimp. Previously…

Hitlist: Around Town

The best talks and walks

2 Oct 2009

Beyond the Corporation: Taking Control of Our Everyday Lives, An Evening with Kevin Smith, Gude Cause: Recreating the 1909 Suffragette March, An Audience with Arun Gandhi, Just a Little Run Around the World – Rosie Swale Pope, Scottish Ballet: Outside In

Miss The Occupier - Bar Bloc, Glasgow, Wed 30 Sep

Small crowd, big entertainment

2 Oct 2009

‘We are Miss the Occupier, but most of you already know that,’ says the enchanting Roz Davies, the band’s pink haired front-woman, and unfortunately, this is probably true. It’s a sparse crowd indeed, but the music certainly isn’t lacking from this…

Glasgow East End: Area Guide

2 Oct 2009

Trongate 103 Glasgow’s most exciting cultural development in recent years, Trongate 103 is a new arts and creativity centre which houses some of the city’s finest talents. Housing the likes of the Glasgow Print Studio, and Transmission, it also acts…

Kevin Jackson - Bite

Less than filling vampire handbook

2 Oct 2009

The symbolic breadth and depth of the vampire has long been the cultural analyst’s wet nightmare. Blood-suckers have variously stood for capitalist tyranny, dictatorial communism, Freudian repression, drug addiction, social Darwinism and sexuality in…

Will Vinson - Promises

2 Oct 2009

Will Vinson is an English saxophonist residing in New York, and the line-up on this disc – his first as leader since 2004 – reflects that association. He is joined by fellow expat Orlando Le Fleming (formerly a member of Tommy Smith’s group) on bass…

Hitlist: Comedy

It's a funny old fortnight

2 Oct 2009

Billy Connolly, Tim Minchin, Glasgow Kids Comedy Club, AListair McGowan, Reginald D Hunter, Ennio Marchetto,

Be A Familiar - Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Oct

Twee to a tee, but lacking something new

2 Oct 2009

Go to enough gigs in Scotland, and soon you’ll know what to expect. And I don’t just mean the overexcited, teenage Topshop-clad girls and their male peers who are never exactly sure whether to join in the dancing; nor that older sort who’s given his…

NYJOS Collective

Collective

2 Oct 2009

The NYJOS Collective is a ten-piece band made up of the most advanced members of the National Youth Jazz of Orchestra of Scotland, directed by Malcolm Edmonstone and Andrew Bain. They include two winners of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Jazz Musician…

Inside

A rare French gorefest

2 Oct 2009

During the filming of Inside, Béatrice Dalle would hide herself under a hoodie, so upset was she that people would deign to look at her when not looking her best. OK, the character she plays (‘The Woman’) has just had half her face blasted away during…

I Sell the Dead

The horror comedy comes to DVD

2 Oct 2009

First-time writer-director Glenn McQuaid does a pretty good job of invoking the spirit of the camp old Hammer chillers films with this low-budget comedy horror about a pair luckless bodysnatchers. Set in a mist-shrouded backwater of 19th century feckin…

Mhairi Hall Trio - Cairngorm

2 Oct 2009

Aviemore-born pianist Mhairi Hall dragged a piano to the top of Cairngorm (well, with a bit of help) to launch this album, an appropriate enough gesture for a record very much steeped in the landscape and ethos of her native Strathspey. Not…

Also Published: Short-story paperbacks

Keeping it brief

2 Oct 2009

Janice Galloway - Collected Stories, Sarah Waters - Dancing With Mr Darcy, Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is, Catherine O'Flynn - Roads Ahead, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - The Thing Around Your Neck

Hitlist: Classical Music

The fortnight ahead

2 Oct 2009

Valery Gergiev with the Mariinsky Orchestra, The Sixteen: The Choral Pilgrimage 2009, RSNO: Angelic Memories

Efterklang - Performing Parades

2 Oct 2009

Parades is a great album. Originally released in 2007, it transformed marginal Danish avant rock outfit Efterklang – a more off-kilter Arcade Fire who combine massed voices with modern classical instrumentation – into a marginal Danish avant rock outfit…

J Dilla - Dillanthology 3

2 Oct 2009

Since his untimely death the legacy of rap producer J Dilla aka Jay Dee aka James Yancey’s work has been elevated beyond touchable. His influence on rap is considerable but sadly, there remains a battle over his offspring gaining the profits from his…

Glasgow East End: Don't Miss

Where to shop and drink

2 Oct 2009

Hang out with the YBAs Wasps Artist’s Studio, Hanson Street, 0141 554 8299 A charity-funded design space that offers young artists and recent graduates career support and exhibition space. Watch out for the Next Big Thing here. Bargain…

Editors - In This Light and on This Evening

Going Coldplay or sticking with Joy Division?

2 Oct 2009

A third album from Editors, another smotheringly pretentious title and another internal debate about whether singer Tom Smith would rather be Ian Curtis or Chris Martin. For all that Smith’s sonorous tones reflect those of the late Joy Division singer…

Del LaGrace Volcano

Questioning gender definitions at the sh[OUT] exhibition

2 Oct 2009

The recent media furore surrounding the gender testing of South African 800m athlete Caster Semenya suggests that society still has a very rigid, black and white view regarding what it means to be male or female. As the debate over Semenya’s future…

Flood of Red - Leaving Everything Behind

2 Oct 2009

If the opening track of Leaving Everything Behind was used as the sole tool to market Flood of Red’s debut collection, there would surely be trade descriptions issues arising. ‘The Edge of the World’ (a longer version of which also closes proceedings…

Andrew Weatherall - A Pox on Pioneers

2 Oct 2009

Although this is Weatherall’s debut solo album in point of fact, we can’t discount his legacy as the man responsible for Sabres of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen. Or, no matter what the title says, his pioneering work as producer of Primal Scream’s…

Phonat - Phonat

2 Oct 2009

Flashes of inspired genius abound in this debut of cunning cut up dancefloor electronica from one Michele Balduzzi, who abandoned his farmland idyll in the Italian hills to decant to London and create this stomping album dashed through with 80s rock…

Chipmunk - I Am Chipmunk

2 Oct 2009

The British grime scene is defined by its fury and bravado and Chipmunk rolls out a debut album that suggests there’s scope for having some heart too. After demolishing the charts with the simpering proto-Kanye ‘Diamond Rings’ (which features Glasgow…

William Sinclair: Aspects of the Clyde

Portraying the emotion of the once bustling harbour

2 Oct 2009

This exhibition of paintings and drawings by William Sinclair (1930–1997) captures the once bustling, now dormant harbours and docks of Greenock and Port Glasgow where the artist lived. Educated at Glasgow School of Art in the 50s, and a respected…

Pearl Jam - Backspace

Grunge veterans still going

2 Oct 2009

Pearl Jam finally kick back and enjoy being rock stars on Backspacer, their ninth studio album. Rushing out the gates with four raucous rock tracks (‘Gonna See My Friend’, ‘Got Some’, ‘The Fixer’ and ‘Johnny Guitar’) before switching gear for a more…

Kings of Convenience - Declaration of Dependence

2 Oct 2009

A band’s submission in the ‘Sounds Like’ column of their myspace page is often telling, and in the case of Kings of Convenience their self-effacing ‘music your parents like too’ hints at the quiet Norwegian duo’s fond acceptance of where two albums of…

Death Disco

A Glasgay special

2 Oct 2009

Glasgow’s favourite electro party joins forces with Glasgay! for an all out spectacular. There’s too many names involved but even the highlights should have you salivating at the electronic disco excess on offer. French tastemakers Ed Banger host their…

An Evening With Kevin Smith

The cult director talks to Glasgow

2 Oct 2009

Silent Bob only ever speaks when he has something to say, so you can be sure that this evening in the company of his alter ego Kevin Smith will be full of meaningfully-chosen words. One of the only celebrity voices of sense in the recent Polanski…

The Law - A Measure of Wealth

2 Oct 2009

Galling as it must be, comparisons with fellow Dundonian upstarts The View are hard to resist when taking on The Law. Both are undeniably cut from the same cloth as youthful champions of raucous, anthemic, singalong indie-rock with celebrated live…

Big Man Walking

Say hi to the 8-foot blue giant

2 Oct 2009

Take to the streets to welcome The Big Man, an 8-foot blue giant created by Scotland’s own Puppet Lab with support from the Scottish Arts Council’s Inspire Fund. Celebrating Scotland’s ancient Myth of the Giant, The Big Man will walk the streets of…

Girls

The band, not the ones from those 'Gone Wild' videos

2 Oct 2009

Already proclaimed by NME as one of the bands ‘set to smash 2010’ Girls are actually a male quartet (centring around the songwriting of Christopher Owens and the DIY production of Chet JR Whit) from California who are wonderfully out of time with their…

The Dead Weather

Jack White's other other band

2 Oct 2009

Jack White appears to be addicted to making music, and after the genius of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs he returns with yet another project as The Dead Weather make their Scottish debut. Expect raw sleazy rock as he joins forces with Alison…

Band of Skulls

Garage rock action

2 Oct 2009

Hailing from London and obviously raised on a diet of Rolling Stones, White Stripes and The Ramones, Band of Skulls specialise in garage rock action. Starting life as Fleeing New York before changing their name to the far superior Band of Skulls they…

Lucy Kaplansky

East-coast US folk from a veteran of the genre

2 Oct 2009

New York-based American folk musician Lucy Kaplansky started her career in music in the late 70s when she was only 18, working with names like Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin and Nanci Griffith before going on to form Cry Cry Cry with Dar Williams and…

Substance

Edinburgh electronica evening

2 Oct 2009

Techno night Substance has been importing and promoting cutting edge electronica in Edinburgh since its inception and now they take things to the next level for their third birthday. Appropriately featuring three guests: loud and abrasive beats with a…

Juliette Lewis

Punk rock, Hollywood style

2 Oct 2009

She may have left her backing band, The Licks, behind but Hollywood actress Juliette Lewis (her role in Natural Born Killers probably best sums up her punk rock attitude) hasn’t lost any of her rock verve. ‘I’m just some crazy fucking chick fronting a…

James McMurtry

Purposeful singer/songwriter

2 Oct 2009

Americana with a socio-political viewpoint from Texas native James McMurtry, who first picked up a guitar at the tender age of seven. Even horror author Stephen King has described McMurtry ‘the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation’. The…

The F Word: 100 Years Of Scottish Feminism

Celebrating the anniversay of one of the country's greatest Suffragette marches

1 Oct 2009

One hundred years ago this fortnight thousands of women from all over Scotland descended on Princes Street in one of the biggest Suffragette marches the country would ever see. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were the keynote speakers and guests of…

Who Are LuckyMe?

The people behind the music

1 Oct 2009

Who's involved? Who are you? Claude Speeed of American Men (along with Paul Carlin and Ali Lloyd). Where do you come from? We live in Edinburgh, Manchester and Glasgow, but Paul spends most of his life in various hotels and tour buses…

The New Reality Of 3D TV

Television just got that little bit more invasive

1 Oct 2009

In the face of falling box office receipts 3D has been a godsend to the film studios. It seems any movie screened in 3D has both a longer shelf-life at the cinema and a better chance of making its money back at the multiplex. It’s still a novelty that…

Book to the Future

Considering the future of how we read

1 Oct 2009

It’s not quite meltdown yet. The good news is, some stories are projected to sell well in the coming year – the adventures of a young magician, the new Dan Brown, also some book called The Bible (sometimes bought in two parts, doubling sales potential).

The Big Pink interview

Getting dreamy with the indie fuzz debutantes

1 Oct 2009

We’re told The Big Pink’s Robbie Furze is something of a charmer. Quite apt, then, that his band’s debut is all about love, as we imagine, the singer has had a hell of a lot of experience. Furze is on rare downtime and in the middle of dog walking on a…

Ultragroove and Telefunken: Edinburgh's House Nights

The state of the capital's dance scene

1 Oct 2009

There are few people working in the clubbing world who would look you in the eye and honestly tell you that the last year hasn’t been a tough one. When asked to reflect on the scene they operate within, the fact that attendances have been fluctuating…

Pontypool

Bruce MacDonald speaks about his new zombie flick

1 Oct 2009

Just when you thought cinema had done zombies to death a film with a radical new approach comes along to reanimate the living dead. In the Canadian chiller Pontypool a mysterious infection turns the inhabitants of a small town into incoherently babbling…

Running Time – Artist Films in Scotland

Previewing the mammoth exhibition of local artist films

1 Oct 2009

‘It’s a really inspiring time for film and video activity in Scotland,’ says Rosie Lesso, one of the curators of Running Time, a mammoth survey exhibition of artist films in Scotland at the National Galleries. ‘We’ve got some fantastic material.’ The…

Confessions of a Justified Sinner

The ecclesiastical thriller is more resonant today than ever before

1 Oct 2009

‘If I kill people, if I kill children, if I blow up civilians, if I am in the service of God in my actions then I’m a martyr and I’m justified.’ Mark Thomson, artistic director of the Lyceum, is talking about the main character in his new adaptation of…

Hudson Mohawke interview

The LuckyMe man talks to David Pollock

1 Oct 2009

Where once Glasgow was known for bands comprised of skinny indie boys playing guitars, music and design collective LuckyMe is changing the face of the city’s music scene. The group of artists and friends (male and female) has been redefining Glasgow’s…

The Blind Pig

Sidling into the latest bar-bistro to rev up Glasgow’s West End scene

1 Oct 2009

This is the recession, right? Calamitous days for bars and restaurants? Yet everywhere you look there are new openings, and decent ones at that. In recent weeks the The Two Figs opened at the foot of Byres Road, followed closely by the Blind Pig…

Taste test: Scottish-grown apples

Finding the very best potato of the sky

1 Oct 2009

Charles Ross October is the time for apples in Scotland – for this month at least you can stop buying the few familiar types of imported apple and choose from the hundreds of native varieties growing in orchards, parks and back gardens near you. The…

Mudhoney and The Vaselines

Grunge legends team up with the recently reformed Scots

1 Oct 2009

Back in early 90s the music world turned its eyes on Seattle. And Mudhoney were there right at the start, they were first band to have success on the seminal Sub Pop record label with their Superfuzz Bigmuff EP in 1988, featuring the classic ‘Touch Me…

Richard Hawley interview

Chatting with the Sheffield troubadour

1 Oct 2009

‘Someone call 999, Richard Hawley’s been robbed!’ shouted Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner on accepting the Mercury Prize in 2006, indicating the high esteem he had for his fellow Sheffielder, an esteem shared by the likes of Elbow, REM and Jarvis…

Scottish Ballet's 40th Anniversary

A triple-bill of celebration

1 Oct 2009

They say life begins at 40, and looking at Scottish Ballet it’s hard to disagree. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the company has never looked better. A fantastic new home at Tramway in Glasgow, an impressive team of technically strong…

Alex Dordoy: Winner

A metaphysical battle of paint versus reality

1 Oct 2009

There is something of a painting coup d’état happening here: an insistent need for paint to overthrow and overwrite objects, for objects to be perceived first and foremost through the physical medium of liquid substances – as if the artist sees paint…

Up

More Pixar genius

1 Oct 2009

You almost tire of saying it but Pixar have created another masterpiece with Up. As uplifting as it is heartbreaking, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s film is a magical adventure that takes an odd couple relationship and turns it into one of the most…

Tim Minchin: Ready For This?

The Australian musical comedian returns to Scotland

1 Oct 2009

I’ve interviewed Tim Minchin several times, but never in the surprisingly big, hairy and hungover flesh before. ‘I’m totally comfortable on stage but I like to appear discomforted and vulnerable because it works with my material. I’m surprised how…

Othello preview

After his EIF success, Andy Clark tackles the Bard

1 Oct 2009

Andy Clark is perhaps Scotland’s most in demand actor at present. From his earliest days at Dundee Rep a decade back, his performances have long garnered praise, but in such productions as The Ching Room and The Last Witch over the last year, he has…

Adventures in Sound and Beat Control

Exploring the best new nights in town

1 Oct 2009

Residents Andy Wilson takes charge at Adventures in Sound while the Evol DJs (Keiron Mellotte and DJ Skoda) take care of Beat Control. Guests None confirmed as yet with the residents on hand every week, but don’t be surprised by the odd DJ set from…

The Orb

Ambient electronica legends in Glasgow

1 Oct 2009

The Orb brought ambient to the masses. The brainchild of Dr Alex Paterson the band emerged from the early house scene, manning the decks at Paul Oakenfold’s Land of Oz in 1988. ‘We split £90 between us when we did the six-hour chill out sessions. Our…

Singles & Downloads

1 Oct 2009

There’s an almost embarrassing number of good local bands dishing out fine efforts this time. One name that may be familiar is Ming Ming and the Ching Chings, whose double A-side ‘Show Off’/‘OUT in the West of Scotland’ (Badly Built) ●●●● is an errant…

The Feminists of 1909

Remembering some of the women behind that 100 year old march

1 Oct 2009

Elsie Inglis Now probably best known for the Edinburgh maternity hospital that bore her name until its 1988 closure, Dr Inglis was one of the first graduates of the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, and one of the original founder members of the…

How It Works: 3D TV

The technology behind bringing the screen to life

1 Oct 2009

Early 3D cinema (and DVDs, books and posters) worked by using glasses with different coloured lenses, usually red and green or red and blue. The system blocks out the opposing colour in the image your mind perceives, giving a simple, if multicoloured…

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

The Chicago jazz collective come to Glasgow

1 Oct 2009

‘When my mother was pregnant with me, she went to concerts,’ says Gabriel ‘Hudah’ Hubert, trumpet player in Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. ‘Apparently your ears are one of the first things that develop on you, so that was my way of life, who I am…