Music, Pop and Brian Donaldson

The Just Joans - Buckfast Bottles in the Rain

Underwhelming concept album from the indie-poppers

23 Apr 2012

(weePOP!) Naming themselves after a notoriously annoying tabloid columnist might be mistake number one, but it isn’t the worst of The Just Joans’ crimes. Claiming to have created an ‘audacious artistic undertaking’ of Bowie and Zappa-like proportions…

French Wives - Dream of the Inbetween

An astute and highly promising opening salvo from Glasgow band

18 Apr 2012

(Electric Honey) What a satisfying thing it is to hear a pop song that bypasses the tyranny of the chorus and sticks to its guns with a series of ear-warming verses. ‘Younger’, the shoulder-high stand-out track from the debut collection by French Wives…

Dean Owens - New York Hummingbird

Release from Edinburgh-based tunesmith a mixed bag

28 Feb 2012

(Songboy Records) Could it be that Dean Owens suffers from Ron Sexsmith Syndrome? RSS is that little-publicised but extremely frustrating affliction which strikes talented singer-songwriters who are perfectly capable of crafting a gloriously melodic…

Mull Historical Society - City Awakenings

Varied collection of often backwards-looking eccentricities

5 Jan 2012

(Xtra Mile Recordings) A decade after the Mull Historical Society debut Loss, Colin MacIntyre marks the event with another gentle, curious and occasionally awkward platter, as they called them back in the early 00s. In some ways, MHS are becoming…

The Hazey Janes - The Winter That Was

Unoriginal effort from the Dundonian indie-poppers

12 Oct 2011

(Armellodie Records) For those looking to uncover evidence that the reservoir of originality has truly dried up on contemporary music, this new effort from Dundee’s Hazey Janes might well seal the deal. After an intriguing, brief opening salvo which…

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Tape Club

Enjoyable collection of B-sides and demos a predictably patchy affair

14 Sep 2011

(Polyvinyl) The 26 tracks on Tape Club, the majority of which are pleasingly under two and a half minutes long, represent unreleased tunes, B-sides, demos and rare recordings across a decade in the life of this Missouri outfit with one of the…

Viva Brother - Famous First Words

Dull and pointless album of Britpop-era rejects

13 Jul 2011

(Geffen) ‘If you don’t give yourself the option of fucking up, then you can’t fuck up,’ boldly announces Viva Brother frontman Lee Newell. And yet, time and again, their ‘gritpop’ (oh dear) debut album offers chance after chance for the band to make…

Lamb - 5

Diverting aural oddities abound on this return to action

13 Jul 2011

(Strata) Have you ever seen anything more 80s than Lamb’s cover design for 5? No, we’d venture, you haven’t. Yet curiously, their big comeback album (they’d put themselves on ice since 2003 and not, as you might guess first time, during the summer of…

Capercaillie, Lau and Eddi Reader set for Fringe by the Sea 2011

North Berwick festival offers alternative to August in Edinburgh

30 May 2011

What is there to dislike about Fringe by the Sea? For those in the capital mid-August sick and tired of being jostled by flyer-folk, it’s a wonderful opportunity to seek a retreat and still get a shot of culture. For residents in the North Berwick area…

Echo and the Bunnymen and Anna Calvi among highlights of Belladrum

Music festival set in deepest, brightest Inverness-shire

30 May 2011

The award-winning festival event returns for an eighth time with a big bunch of music acts parking their campervans in deepest, brightest Inverness-shire. Alongside the music fare, there’s whole lot of entertainment for children, street theatre…

Celebrity memoirs: Rob Lowe, Barbara Sinatra, Stacey Solomon, Judy Golding and Bear Grylls to publish books

13 Apr 2011

While Charlie Sheen implodes in front of the world’s eyes, he could take comfort in the salutary tale of his old Brat Pack boozing buddy Rob Lowe. In 1988, grainy video footage of him having a wild time with two women became the first commercially…

Mark Radcliffe to tour new book, Reelin’ in the Years: The Soundtrack of a Northern Life

13 Apr 2011

When David Bowie implores the public to indulge in thieving, you know it must be for a very good reason. His call to serious felony was raised on the publication of Mark Radcliffe’s Thank You for the Days: A Boy’s Own Adventure in Radio and Beyond, in…

The Greenhornes - ****

15 Nov 2010

(Third Man Records) According to some worldviews, the 1960s officially ended when The Beatles announced they were splitting up or when Charlie Manson and his followers unleashed a summer of hate. Clearly, no one ever informed Cincinnati garage band…

Video Killed The Radio Star

Nostalgic documentary on pop promo world profiles Russell Mulcahy, David Mallet and Wayne Isha

2 Nov 2010

(IND3D) Did you know that, with the dawn of MTV in the 1980s, the pop promo became almost as important to an artist’s career as their actual songs? Everyone who has studied that period or, worse, lived through it, won’t need telling twice. Well…

30 top shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010

The List's pick of the Edinburgh Festival programme

23 Jul 2010

From Turner Prize-winning Martin Creed and New York theatre experimentalists The Wooster Group to former wild child Storm Large and promising newcomer Jonny Sweet, this is The List's pick of August’s entertainment.

Five new music books

7 Jul 2010

Rob Jovanovic - The Velvet Underground Unpeeled Some bands just refuse to go away and the Reed/Cale combo is one such example. This is the first full biog for two decades and is based on exclusive chats with the surviving members. Aurum. Rob Young…

Nina Nastasia - Outlaster

20 May 2010

(FatCat) Should you happen to have the severe misfortune of being stranded on a leaky boat in a most callous storm, the soundtrack in your head to accompany this horror will most likely be sung by Nina Nastasia. In this, her most lush offering to…

The National - High Violet

14 May 2010

(4AD) Over a ten-year spell, moody Brooklyn boys The National have been fretting over their souls and this messed-up world around them. The time to cheer up a bit is surely overdue with Interpol having long ensnared the miserablist NYC indie rock…

The Bacon Brothers - New Year’s Day

12 May 2010

(Hypertension) To those who say there’s not way too much recorded music in the world, please cop a feel of this. Featuring anaemic white reggae, crushingly vapid soul and decrepit grandad rock, there’s barely a track on Michael and Kevin Bacon’s…

Chris Bradley - At the Outpost

19 Mar 2010

(17 Seconds Records) With his angelic vocals and breezy folk aesthetic, this latest release from Aberfeldy man Chris Bradley makes for an engaging listen. At the Outpost never quite manages to rise out of its lower gears though, making for an…

Galaxie 500: Today/On Fire/This is Our Music

19 Mar 2010

(Domino) Between 1987 and 1991, the Harvard Uni-formed slowcore band released three albums which caught the indie mood of the times but have somehow, pleasingly, weathered the ravages of time. Awash with bonus tracks, the reissue of Today, On Fire and…

RM Hubbert - First & Last

17 Feb 2010

(Ubisano) Once a member of the now defunct Glasgow instrumentalists El Hombre Trajeado, guitarist RM Hubbert delivers his debut solo release and proves that there’s much to be said for working hard on your craft. Here, he flexes his post-rock…

Erect - Sweeney Straddles the Sun

17 Dec 2009

(Boffo Bear Studios) A chubby, cherubic young lad grins from the cover of Sweeney Straddles the Sun’s debut, the titular word ‘erect’ uncomfortably large beside the boy’s shiny head. Listening to this set of 11 tunes is equally fraught an experience…

Codeine Velvet Club - Codeine Velvet Club

9 Dec 2009

(Island) Different people have a different idea about what makes for glamour. Those who are into a bit of monochromatic 60s chic will go ape for the breathy duo behind Codeine Velvet Club, perhaps realising only too late that this is largely a…

Loner - Western Sci-Fi

16 Apr 2009

ELECTRO-POP (Just Music) If Loner’s second album was a flower, which would it be? Probably one that wilted and split at the merest whiff of a breeze, so delicate are its components. Geoff Smith doesn’t so much sing his fragile numbers as emit…