Issue 646

Tracy Beaker Returns

7 Jan 2010

Anyone who tunes in to CBBC from time to time might not know it, but it’s five years since the last new episode of the show featuring the abandoned and shouty Tracy Beaker. But that constant loop of archive 20-minute snapshots of life within the…

An Inspector Calls

17 Dec 2009

Superb 1954 adaptation of JB Priestly’s long-running stage play set at the turn of the last century benefits from a typically delightful performance from Alistair Sim (who, by the way, lived for a time next door to the Filmhouse on Lothian Road) as the…

Big River Man - Martin Strel interview

5 Jan 2010

‘The director John Maringouin first contacted me and my son Borut in 2002 after John’s wife Molly had seen a report on CNN about me swimming the Mississippi. When they found out that I was planning to swim the Amazon in 2007 to raise environmental…

50th Anniversary: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

9 Dec 2009

As an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art gets underway Neil Cooper delves into the institution’s colourful history As labours of love go setting up the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in…

You Me At Six - Hold Me Down

7 Jan 2010

(Virgin) Chances are, if you liked YMA6’s first effort Take Off Your Colours, you’ll find plenty to like here. Spiky pop-punk riffs, catchy choruses and guest vocalists from The Blackout and Kids in Glass Houses ensure there’s nothing to disappoint…

Three American Artists: Randy Bolton, Michael Krueger & John Schulz

6 Jan 2010

We’re accustomed to American imagery pervading our own culture, but these three critically aware artists – whose work is displayed at the Glasgow Print Studio this month – themselves scrutinise and re-imagine American printed imagery. Bolton explores…

The Hot 100 2009

18 Dec 2009

Compiled by List staff through a painstaking process of review and debate, the Hot 100 is the comprehensive list of Scottish creative talent, covering both individuals and organisations who’ve made a standout contribution to culture in 2009. This year’s…

Hot 100 2009 - Carol Ann Duffy profile

17 Dec 2009

In one year as Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy has made more of an impression than Andrew Motion managed in a decade in the job. Her appointment in itself was pretty iconoclastic, and we all dutifully reeled off the reasons why it was a historic event…

Last-minute local love

17 Dec 2009

We round up ways to support local businesses while you do your Christmas shop. Alright, the search is over. You’re looking for somewhere you can go to get away from the city centre crowds, still, miraculously, get all your Christmas shopping done…

Fall Be Kind - Animal Collective

17 Dec 2009

(Domino) This year’s Merriweather Post Pavilion left a lot of Animal Collective fans thirsty for more. All those summery, melted hooks, the warped beats and echoey vocals, not forgetting the shimmery awesomeness of ‘My Girls’ – it was no wonder it…

Subculture vs Sensu Detroit Weekender

9 Dec 2009

Isn’t every weekend a Detroit weekend at the Subbie in one way or another? It helps, of course, that this party in two parts will see techno innovator and one of the original ‘Belleville Three’ Derrick May make another of his regular appearances at the…

Stewart Francis hits the Stand

7 Jan 2010

Stewart Francis used to open his set with, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t heard of you either.’ Between hosting schlocky gameshow You Bet Your Ass in his native Canada, then moving to Spain, his memorable one-liners were an itinerant treat on the UK circuit to…

Barbera Ehrenreich - Smile or Die

7 Jan 2010

(Granta) What’s wrong with positive thinking? Anyone who’s been forced on a team bonding day or made to sit through the platitudinous drivel of a ‘motivational guru’ by their employers will tell you exactly what’s wrong with it. And that culture of…

Five Christmas books

7 Jan 2010

Augusten Burroughs You Better Not Cry: True Stories for Christmas A twisted collection of Yuletide tales in which the face of a stuffed Santa is eaten off and a tenement is constructed entirely from gingerbread. Atlantic. Loek Koopmans The…

David Hughes - Walking the Dog

7 Jan 2010

(Jonathan Cape) David Hughes is an illustrator, graphic designer and artist whose work is pitched somewhere in the hinterland between the poignantly funny line scribbles of artist David Shrigley and the acerbic splashes of Pink Floyd collaborator…

Anguish With Posie

6 Jan 2010

Fans of spoken word night DiScomBoBuLate will be no stranger to Ian Macpherson’s ability to wax lyrical. A creative powerhouse for writers, actors, comics and directors, the night helped provide the inspiration for Macpherson’s upcoming play, Anguish…

The Sound of Music

6 Jan 2010

For decades, the swansong of legendary musical writing partnership Rodgers and Hammerstein was associated with the 1965 Academy Award-winning film adaptation, in particular the iconic image of Julie Andrews spinning around on a Salzburg…

Stomp

6 Jan 2010

Our instinctive desire to hit things that make a noise is evident from an early age. For the sake of our parents’ sanity, most of us grow out of it. But fortunately, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas never quite managed to shake that desire…

Vampire Weekend - Contra

6 Jan 2010

(XL) Where would these Ivy League afro-pop boffins be without Paul Simon’s Graceland? Half an album short of songs on their second long-player, Contra, that’s where. If the New York quartet’s much-hyped debut merged African rhythms and art-rock…

Wolfmother

6 Jan 2010

Channeling 60s psychedelic rock, Aussie band Wolfmother earned themselves a good few new fans on both sides of the pond with last October’s album, Cosmic Egg. ‘White Feather’, the band’s latest anthem from the album, hints at Velvet Underground with an…

Chew Lips - Unicorn

6 Jan 2010

(Family Recordings) Track four on this electro-pop debut is entitled ‘Karen’ – very fittingly, as the entire album sounds remarkably like Yeah Yeah Yeah’s last album It’s Blitz! Maybe it’s the synths, maybe it’s the strong female vocals – in any…

All About Steve

5 Jan 2010

(12A) 98min Sandra Bullock follows twin box-office strikes The Proposal and The Blind Side with supposedly kooky comedy All About Steve. Combining the male charms of The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper and Sideways star Thomas Hayden Church must have…

Profile - William Douglas

17 Dec 2009

I’ve seen that guy around, haven’t I? Very possibly, yes. He’s been gigging around Edinburgh and Glasgow for the best part of six years now, with the four-piece rock ‘n’ roll outfit, William Douglas and the Wheel. They do quite Beatle-y sounding…

I'm Gonna Explode (Voy A Exploter)

17 Dec 2009

(15) 103min Mexican filmmaker Gerardo Naranjo channels Godard’s much quoted mantra that ‘All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl’ in this kinetic homage to Pierrot le Fou. His lovers-on-the-run turn out to be a pair of delinquent…

Broadcast

Stereo, Glasgow, Wed 9 Dec 2009

17 Dec 2009

Throughout their career, Birmingham’s Broadcast have created a brand of ghostly electronic pop which might fairly be described as comforting. Yet this latest live incarnation, promoting the new EP ‘Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate the Witch…