Music, Rock & Pop

Arctic Monkeys

ROCK

26 Apr 2007

The weight of expectation hasn’t affected the Arctic Monkeys one iota. They’ve hardly broken their stride and have tossed off a second album of casual brilliance. It almost feels unfair how off the cuff Favourite Worst Nightmare feels; the lyrics are as…

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

Retrofest 2008 lineup announced

17 Apr 2008

The bill for Retrofest, Scotland's annual festival of pop nostalgia, has been announced. The event, which moves to a new home at Strathclyde Country Park, Motherwell from its old location at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, is expected to attract 15,000 fans…

Pete Doherty announces Glasgow Barrowland show

12 May 2008

Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty is out of jail and getting back to doing what he does best: playing live to an adoring audience

Sugababes, The Feeling And Gnarls Barkley to play Princes Street Gardens

9 May 2008

Sugababes, The Feeling And Gnarls Barkley are to perform in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens on Sunday June 1st. The Sugababes, with a line up now consisting of Keisha, Heidi and Amelle, have sold five million albums (including 3 triple-platinum…

Hey You Get Off My Pavement! announces line up

8 May 2008

The best-monikered music festival in Scotland - Hey You Get Off My Pavement! - returns to Glasgow’s King’s Court on 29 June.

The Ting Tings

15 Nov 2007

POWERPOP Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Wed 17 Oct If record labels really must go getting caught up in unseemly ‘bidding wars’, the least they can do is make sure they’re getting a good band. Columbia recently won the squabble for Manchester duo The Ting…

Girls Aloud to broadcast concert live to UK cinemas

8 May 2008

Girls Aloud are to broadcast their London concert to 50 Vue cinemas across the UK.

US rapper J-Live not playing Glasgow, just Edinburgh

12 May 2008

Further to our announcement that rising NYC rap star J-Live is to come to Scotland this month, we wish to make it clear he is only playing one date, the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh on Monday 19 May and not, as we previously stated at the Ivy in Glasgow on…

KT Tunstall

6 Sep 2007

POP KT Tunstall delared she wanted to make a ‘scuzzy rock’n’roll album’, but teaming up with Steve Osbourne, who has put the gloss on Placebo, Happy Mondays and U2 among others in the past, meant it was never really going to happen. Instead, Tunstall…

The Decemberists interview

4 Oct 2007

Any band who name themselves after the Russian uprising of 1825 are, you feel, coming from a different place to most other heralded groups for whom the tune’s the thing. The Decemberists’ architect and songwriter Colin Meloy is not so much a tunesmith…

MIA

23 Aug 2007

Were we to try and describe the precise sound which London-born, Sri Lanka-raised MIA makes, we’d be here all day. While she can be very broadly described as an electro-grime act whose vocals are a combination of hip hop cajoling and reggae rhythm…

Feist

20 Sep 2007

FOLK POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Wed 26 Oct If Leslie Feist has done one thing in her varied career that deserves to make her a star, it’s the day she spent shooting the video to her recent, mesmerisingly cheerful single ‘1234’. Google it or find it on…

The Dykeenies

6 Sep 2007

INDIE ROCK After a year of sell-out gigs and internet hype the Cumbernauld brotherly trio plus two mates release their debut album. The opener (‘The Panic’, about STD fear) is prophetic: a great, stompy, bang of the fists and wail of the klaxons with…

Exposure - Cajun Dance Party

3 Jul 2007

It’s not Cajun or dance music, but their indie rock has given these five smiling north Londoners a rollercoaster 18 months. Aged 17 and still at school, they’ve supported Kings of Leon, Thom Yorke loves them and Bernard Butler is producing their next…

New Scottish bands

15 Nov 2007

Over the last couple of years, it has sometimes seemed like the end of an era for Scottish indie music. Starting with the amicable split of the seminal Delgados, and, more recently, the demise of Falkirk’s Arab Strap and underrated noiseniks…

Rilo Kiley

6 Sep 2007

ROCK Rilo Kiley’s last album and singer Jenny Lewis’s subsequent solo debut both contained a handful of indie-country stonewall classics, but this lacklustre and scattershot offering shows none of the same spark, despite Lewis’ ever-wonderful and…

Conor Oberst and Gutter Twins for Hydro Connect festival

7 May 2008

Bright Eyes head honcho Conor Oberst brings his new band The Magic Valley Band to Hydro Connect festival this summer. This will be Oberst’s first venture to Scotland in this new guise.

Lou Hickey

Pop

29 Nov 2007

‘I was brought up watching Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin movies, and when I was a little girl I wanted to be just like Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’. Lou Hickey is a bit of an anachronism – a classically-trained…

Britney Spears

15 Nov 2007

POP Blackout (Jive) Producer So, she’ll be here in a few minutes, yeah? Record company executive Yeah, so we’ll have a window of 30 minutes to lay down some vocals. P But she hasn’t even heard the tunes yet . . . RCE Erm, yeah, just, um…

KT Tunstall interview

6 Sep 2007

Looking around the room gives a clear indication of the reason behind KT Tunstall’s remarkable success. Crammed into the boardroom at XFM Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow are two dozen competition winners being treated to an intimate acoustic show…

65daysofstatic

Exposure

23 Apr 2007

65daysofstatic are a Sheffield rock band who are distinctly different to their indie-bretheren. Combining drum & bass beats, glitches and synths over an instrumental rock template has seen them win over the rock press, Zane Lowe and the late John Peel.

The Edge replaces T on the Fringe

14 Apr 2008

DF Concerts, the promoters behind T in the Park, are rebranding their August live music series at the Edinburgh Fringe as The Edge. The month-long series has been an annual fixture since 2000 although, as DF's partnership with Tennent's on T in the…

Rihanna

13 Dec 2007

Girls Aloud know it, Leona Lewis knows it, and even Franz Ferdinand know it – great pop is hard to beat. America’s most recent answer to our successful crop has to be Rihanna, whose infectious ‘Umbrella’ dominated the UK charts and playlists for months…

90s revival

16 Aug 2007

When you are young there is no such thing as nostalgia, there is only the seemingly limitless advance of new experiences. Music inevitably provides the backdrop – a drunken first kiss, the first gig you ever sneaked into underage, or maybe just that…