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…