Midgie Bites

My Top 5 Travelling Tunes: David Gow

The Sons and Daughters drummer picks his favourite touring playlist

David Gow, drummer in Scottish band Sons and Daughters, is constantly on the road touring. He tells Anna Docherty what keeps him bopping when he’s travel hopping

Gizmos: Green Special

The best in environmentally friendly gadgets

The key to this whole backpacking lark is to leave behind nothing but your footprints. Here’s our guide to the best environmentally friendly gadgets – all under £20!

Our Favourite (Old) Scottish Band: The Proclaimers

We celebrate their upcoming tour in figures

Usually this spot is dedicated to our favourite new Scottish band, but in honour of The Proclaimers UK tour, we’re dedicating it to a Proclaimers-by-numbers special

Auntie Midgie's Guide To: Scottish Cuisine

What’s best? Things like Scotch beef, Scotch lamb and Scottish salmon are real local delicacies and guaranteed to be of superior taste, protected as they are by strict quality guidelines. And many seaside towns offer locally caught fish that is second…

Auntie Midgie's Guide To: Midgies

Tiny little biting bugs that live off human blood, sucking from the skin and causing unpleasant swelling and itching.

Sound Advice - Our New Favourite (Scottish) Band

Withered Hand

The name sounds like it could be the title of a twisted fairytale about a reclusive boy with a deformed limb (or maybe that’s just me?). But upon listening to Withered Hand this sinister moniker becomes all the more fitting, as embedded within the music…

Sound Advice - My Top 5

1 Kraftwerk - Ruckzuck This is a fantastic driving song and quite possibly my favourite song to utilize the flute, which always gets you extra points with me. It also has some great motorik drumming (a repetitive beat specific to Krautrock music).

What’s in your bag?

Name Radka Simlova Age 37 Hometown Prague How long in Scotland I have visited many times, this time I have been here for 6 weeks Interests Yoga, Knitting, Taxidermy and Social Experiments Donkey ‘I was getting really sick of carrying my…

Auntie Midgie

Q: What’s the best way to explore the Highlands? (Laura, Australia) A: The Highlands are vast, so it helps if you can narrow it down to a chosen area - so do a little research first. Your options are to go it alone, Bear Grylls style; camping…

Introduction to Midgie #2

It's often been remarked that as a small country, Scotland punches well above its weight. Look in any record shop and it's heaving with records from bands that started here. Scan through the history books and you will find that Scots invented Dolly the…

Robert Burns: Rampant Robbie

Seducer, sex machine, womaniser, charmer, bragger and a bit of a bastard. Scotland’s national poet, Rabbie Burns, was a loose-limbed man with one hell of a sex drive. His love life reads like something from a daytime TV show. There are illegitimate…

Homecoming Scotland: Salmond Swims Home

Compared with the Scottish rebel leaders of old, Alex Salmond is a pussycat. William Wallace carried a sword the size of a man; Robert the Bruce was so tough that he wanted his heart cut out after his death, to be taken on a crusade, but Big 'Eck, as…

Robert Burns: Burnie on Burns

I'm in such a mess! I met this guy a year or so ago and really fancied him. All the girls did. He's tall, dark, handsome and writes poetry. Maybe it sounds like a cliché, but when he stares into your eyes your heart starts to melt – and other places…

Your New Favourite Scottish Band: Zoey Van Goey

We live in a world that likes labels. As a result, Zoey Van Goey have often found their sound folded up and slotted into tiny boxes. ‘Sometimes people say they pick up a Canadian indie influence and some have mentioned a Celtic or traditional Irish…

Talk To The Tour Guide

Name James Donaldson Age 35 Hometown Muirdrum, Angus Interests I have a great interest in the history and folklore of Scotland, socializing and, erm, sleeping, eating and working. What do I do with my life again? What sort of…

Rockin' All Over The World

Primal Scream – ‘Swastika Eyes’ You always get to that point of the night where the Scream go on. When we used to tour in a splitter van (a transit van with sections for people and equipment), we'd stop at traffic lights with music blaring and open…

12 Questions: Travis

1. What are you most proud of? My son, Dylan, he is perfect in every way. 2. What do people not know about Travis? That we really aren't such nice guys at all. Behind closed doors we are some of the vilest people you would ever encounter. 3.

The Buzz

THOSE DANCING DAYS Popping and bopping their way towards a hyperactive fit, Those Dancing Days have a boundless energy. All five band members are freshly out of high school and busy making bouncy Swedish pop. Their songs rattle with smoky vocals…

FAQs

This sweet orange fizz is Scotland's second drink, after whisky, and is so popular that this is one of the only countries in the world where Coca Cola is not the biggest selling soft beverage. No one knows quite what it's actually made from. Rumours…

Just what is a Midgie anyway?

For those who have recently arrived in Scotland - as opposed to residents who know these blood-sucking terrors all too well - the midgie (or midge) is a small biting insect that swarms across the Scottish countryside, delivering sharp nips to anyone…

Samhain: The Real Halloween

It’s that time of year again when kids dress up as ghosts and ghouls, some girls dress up in next to nothing and the rest of us, who’ve left it a little late, poke three holes through a white sheet and pretend we’re ghosts. That’s right, it’s Halloween…

12 Questions: Julian Barratt

With the Mighty Boosh stage show soon to hit Glasgow, Julian Barratt (the taller half of the surreal comedy duo) allows Mary Bowers a peek into the forest of his mind. Howard Moon - genre spanner, jazz maverick and Yorkshire’s foremost cream poet - adds…