Issue 657

Music festivals 2010: Festivals timeline

From Rock Ness to Roskilde, Glastonbury to Glasgow Jazz Festival, we list the best of the many great fests happening throughout the summer. Which one(s) will you choose?

Music festivals 2010: Ones to watch

Unicorn Kid Aka Oliver Sabin – Edinburgh-based electronic wunderkind, this year playing festivals including T in the Park, Wickerman, Belladrum and Bestival Hudson Mohawke He makes super sweet futuristic jams. I loved last year’s album Butter. I…

Odd Squad - Yeasayer interview

‘Everything we do is a conscious decision,’ states Yeasayer’s Anand Wilder, smiling. ‘I mean, it’s not like we just stumbled upon the greatest pop songs of all time.’ He’s referring, of course, to their current album, Odd Blood – which has seen the…

Chicago house night Fiasco host ‘secret location party’

When Fiasco’s Ed Marco says his club’s next date in Glasgow is going to be another secret location party, he really means it. Even gentle exhortations to give The List a little off-the-record tip-off are stonewalled. ‘Honestly, I really can’t,’ he says.

A history of the con man in cinema

Con artists, sharks, flimflammers and hustlers have an honourable history on the silver screen. Paul Gallagher goes in search of the best

May 2010 News Roundup

The final phase of a seven year project to convert a former military building in Edinburgh into an arts venue will be completed this month, following a £750,000 renovation. Multi-arts venue Out of the Blue, on Dalmeny Street, offers studio and…

Music festivals 2010: T in the Park gossip

Peas in a pod There’s been a heap of unsubstantiated rumour and wishful thinking about a romance between Cheryl Cole and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am … which we’re going to add to. First she guest-starred on his solo outing ‘Heartbreaker’, then…

Edinburgh festivals line-ups announced

Whatever your cultural poison, Edinburgh’s festival circuit has it covered

Wigtown Book Festival 2010

‘The best way to explain the Wigtown Book Festival is to explain Wigtown first of all,’ says festival director Adrian Turpin. ‘It’s Scotland’s National Book Town, which means it has lots of bookshops and book businesses. It’s like a mini Hay-on-Wye…

The best of animation in Scotland

It’s time to get animated, with June promising the UK premiere of the latest venture from Sylvain Belleville Rendez-vous Chomet in the form of The Illusionist, which provides the opening gala at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. As well…

Scout Niblett UK tour 2010

Who is this woman? And why haven’t I heard more about her? She’s the Staffordshire-born chanteuse responsible for some sparse but beautiful singer-songwriting on six fantastic albums. Despite frequent comparisons to Cat Power and PJ Harvey she has a…

Michael Winterbottom on The Killer Inside Me

Born 29 March 1961 Background Born in Blackburn the director has become known for his ability to churn out films and work across genres. He made his first feature film Butterfly Kiss in 1995. What’s he up to now? Winterbottom has adapted…

Tamsin Egerton of 4.3.2.1

Born 26 November 1988, Hampshire, England Background Having followed her older sister to a BBC audition at their local youth theatre as a child, Egerton started to get TV parts immediately, traveling the world for various productions before she…

Exposure: Veronica Falls

Poppy tunes and dark-as-the-night lyrics feature on Veronica Falls’ first two singles ‘Found Love in a Graveyard’, and the soon to be released ‘Beachy Head’. The London-based four-piece (two boys and two girls) draw influence from shambling Glasgow…

24 City (Er Shi Si Cheng Ji)

(U) 112min How does that Chinese proverb go? ‘If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.’ Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Zhang-ke Jia has been standing straight and telling it like it is for years. This brave and frequently brilliant…

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

Made up of over 2,500 lines, Hugh MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle can safely be labelled a long poem. Written in Scots, its length gives ample opportunity for MacDiarmid’s 1926 stream of consciousness to explore a wide array of topics…

The Killer Inside Me

(18) 109min Utilising Jim Thompson’s controversial pulp novel, workaholic filmmaker Michael Winterbottom explodes the myth that the 1950s was a time of innocence. The jaunty music on the credit sequence is more suggestive of family television than a…

Brooklyn's Finest

(18) 132min The ironic title refers to three police officers that operate within the grey area of the law, where upholding justice and personal interest make uncomfortable bedfellows. Such is the size of Brooklyn’s police force, none of the cops know…

Washed Out, Small Black and Dam Mantle play Glasgow

Ernest Weatherly Greene is sitting on the deck of his wife’s parents’ lake house in Milletsville, Georgia, soaking up the sun. He just got off tour with Beach House, and is enjoying doing a bit of nothing before more UK dates. ‘It’s so scenic out here,…

Bob Doolally's World Cup Countdown

‘It’s good to see Scotland has a presence at the World Cup this year,’ says Bob Doolally, ‘even if it’s only the haggis-flavoured World Cup crisps that Walkers are selling. I’m not so happy that they’ve started printing the English flag on Mars…

The Time That Remains (Chronicle Of A Present Absentee)

(15) 109min Writer-director Elia Suleiman again interweaves the personal and the political in the third film in his wryly observed Palestinian trilogy, following on from Chronicle of a Disappearance and Divine Intervention. Inspired by his own…

Five reasons to go and see Kenny Rogers

1 He knows when to hold ‘em, knows when to fold ‘em. Every country star worth their stetson has had a shot at writing a song about poker, but with ‘The Gambler’, Kenny surpassed all challengers. It might be about gambling, it might be about…

Book and Literary festivals in Scotland 2010

With Glasgow’s Aye Write! and Aberdeen’s Word behind us for another year, Scotland’s book lovers are now holding their breath for the real heavyweight of the nation’s literary calendar, the Edinburgh Book Festival (Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, Sat…

Sweeney Todd

In too many of its retellings, the story of the demon barber of Fleet Street is a juvenile gore-fest that is all gothic thrill and little substance. Not so here. Stephen Sondheim’s majestic through-composed musical takes its cue from a stage adaptation…

Channel Hopper: Men Behaving Badly

The late Frank Deasy had a knack of writing about the frailties of men and the long-term effects of the bad things blokes do even when they try to make amends for their past indiscretions. It’s there in 90s drug drama Looking After Jo Jo, and in his…