Music, Issue 633

Bruce Springsteen

You saw him at Glastonbury, he played for ages, everyone loved it. Now he’s coming to do the same for us at Hampden. Revel in our bluffers’ guide to Bruce Springsteen.

T in the Park: Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini is a star in charge of his own destiny, arriving at this year’s T, flying high on his success. Mark Robertson gets an insight into life behind the scenes of an errant pop star.

Bruce Springsteen - Brucie Bonus

11 Number of current members of the E Street Band 19 Number of grammys won. 2 Number of Golden Globes won. 1 Number of Academy Awards won. 7 The age Bruce was when he knew he wanted to become a musician after he saw Elvis…

T in the Park: Virgins & Veterans

Veteran Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai It’s Mogwai’s first T in ten years. What brings you back? We’re doing a lot of festivals this summer. We hadn’t actually done any for a while until we did Connect two years ago and it was great. So we’re…

T in the Park: The Horrors

Forget about the big barnets for a second, because The Horrors are back; having weathered the hype and the haters to come up with one of the best records of the year in the form of atmospheric second effort Primary Colours. As the Southend quintet gear…

T in the Park: Info

Amy Taylor provides you with all manner of sensible information to take the hassle out of the weekend

New York Dolls

Having burned brightly for just a few short years in the early 1970s, seminal glam-punk band the New York Dolls reformed 27 years later for what was supposedly a one-off gig at the Morrissey-curated 2004 Meltdown festival. A rapturous reception from the…

Singles & Downloads

Time was that the onset of summer beckoned a slew of novelty singles, courtesy of cartoon pop ingénues, often replete with carefree dance moves. You know: The Vengaboys’ ‘Going to Ibiza’; Los del Rio’s ‘Macarena’; Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’. Ah, happy…

St Vincent

PREVIEW INDIE She may induce elemental wonder, but Annie Clark is no meteorologist. ‘By my humble estimation, it’s 175 Fahrenheit here today,’ affirms Clark – aka cinematic sorceress St Vincent – of her prevailing Atlanta, Georgia vicinity. A quick…

Profile - Stuart Staples (Tindersticks)

Born Stuart Ashton Staples, 14 November 1965. Background Staples is the lead singer of Tindersticks, an originally Nottingham-based band formed in late 1991. Initially called Asphalt Ribbons, the band changed their name after Staples found a box of…

Sound Festival

Following its success last year, the sound festival has launched its programme boasting over 60 performances and events. The music fest line-up will include a special celebration of the work by the festival’s patron, James MacMillan to mark his 50th…

First word: Jamie T

First record you ever bought Gabrielle’s ‘Dreams’. Last time you were chatted up Two weeks ago. First film you saw that really moved you Platoon. Last lie you told I’ve never told a lie. First movie you ever went on a date to I…

Exposure: Dead Boy Robotics

Edinburgh based duo Dead Boy Robotics used to be, by their own admission, pretty terrible. They haven’t even released an EP yet, but have been selected to play the T Break Stage at T In The Park. Multi instrumentalist Gregor McMillian explains how the…

Wilco: Wilco (The Album)

Reputation can be a curse. With 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born two years later, Wilco re-wrote the book on what rock bands could do, blending brilliant musical experimentation with note-perfect rootsy folk-rock and searingly troubled…

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland

Guitarist Mike Walker will join the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland on this three-date tour, which will feature a full performance of his long-awaited debut album, Madhouse & The Whole Thing Here, released earlier this year. It will be a…

Horace Andy

After giving us The Congo’s first ever Scottish show, the Summer Reggae Sunsplash season turns up a more familiar talent in the distinctive vibrato of Horace ‘Sleepy’ Andy. Hardly warranting introduction, Andy’s career as first guitarist, then singer…

La Roux

Good pop music is instant, but great pop music lasts forever. Elly ‘La Roux’ Jackson, with hair like a winsome gingerbread Mr Whippy, a voice like spun sugar and on the receiving end of more hyperbole than Cristiano Ronaldo, Kanye West and Susan Boyle…

Soul Power

Just when you thought there were no more films to be made about the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman bout in Zaire in 1974 there comes a remarkable film about the 12-hour, three-night-long concert which took place around the event. In 1974 musician Hugh…

Battant

Signed to Paris’ Kill the DJ label, sometime home of Optimo’s own How to Kill the DJ (Part 2) mix, Battant are a class above most other bands of their ilk. Look to lead singer Chloe Raunet for the reason why, her jeans, plain white T-shirt and cropped…

Malcolm Middleton

Welcome back, Malcolm Middleton. Now with added Jenny Reeve on guitar, violin and gorgeous, elfin vocals, and Johnny Lynch (the Fence Collective’s Pictish Trail) in charge of yet more guitar, harmonies and – we kid you not – rapping out the entire theme…

Jocasta Sleeps

It could be said the Scottish alternative music scene is threatening to become over-saturated with Biffy Clyro clones, accent and guitar attack in tow, so where are the bands capable of transcending this rut? Well, we may well have just found one.

AC/DC

Crashing through the back of the stage on a full-size locomotive is one hell of a way to make an entrance, as the opening chords of ‘Rock’n’Roll Train’ blare out across a sweltering Hampden. The atmosphere is electric as AC/DC are greeted as all…

SNJO: Rhapsody in Blue Live

It has been a source of regret that so little of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s mighty achievements of the past decade and more have made it onto commercial CD release. This is only the second disc they have been able to issue (although Tommy…

Alyn Cosker: Lyn’s Une

The Ayrshire drum maestro’s current high-power trio with guitarist David Dunsmuir and bass guitarist Ross Hamilton provides the foundation for his debut album. The energised music foregrounds the funk and groove elements of Cosker’s playing to great…

Peatbog Faeries: Live

The Skye-based fusion outfit never let up in energy or intensity in the course of this first live recording, taken from concerts in Edinburgh and Durham last year. It will surely satisfy those who feel the band’s studio outings don’t quite reflect the…