Music and Rock

Interview: Friendly Fires plan to get the crowds dancing at RockNess 2012

Ed Macfarlane on festivals, pop music and dancing ‘like an idiot’

28 May 2012

Friendly Fires blur the lines between indie and dance music, so their brand of punk funk should fit in perfectly at RockNess. Hailing from St Albans in Hertfordshire they were nominated for the Mercury Music prize for their debut eponymous album, which…

Slash interview - Full transcript

16 Jun 2010

Born in Stoke on Trent, Saul Hudson became Slash after a move to LA at the age of 11. Now one of the world’s most iconic guitarists who gave us the timeless riffs from ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Paradise City’ and ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. After leaving…

Steel Panther, Saxon and Dilinger Escape Plan added to Download 2010 bill

23 Mar 2010

A further 22 names have been announced by rock and metal festival Download to perform on the 2010 bill. Steel Panther, HIM, Saxon, Airbourne, Coheed & Cambria, 36 Crazyfists, Dilinger Escape Plan, Dommin, Taking Dawn, Unearth, Cinderella, A Day To…

Summer Festivals 2012: Biffy Clyro - interview

The band's James Johnston discusses their headline slot at RockNess

25 May 2012

Despite the unusual time signatures, the uncompromising riffs, the bizarro lyrics and the beards, somehow Biffy Clyro have become one of the biggest rock bands in the UK. Even their hits – ‘That Golden Rule’, ‘Mountains’ and ‘Many of Horror…

Patti Smith - Banga

Unique album of punk poetry populated by rocky arias, improvised psalms and lyrical reveries

22 May 2012

You may have heard that Patti Smith dedicates a song to Amy Winehouse on her 11th studio album, Banga. This takes the form of a syrupy ballad, ‘This is the Girl’, and its intentions are honourable, but look beyond it: there are greater, more defiant…

Summer Festivals 2012: Here We Go Magic - interview

The band's Luke Temple gets ready for their slot at T in the Park

25 May 2012

‘I’m kind of a late bloomer, really,’ testifies Luke Temple, singer and songwriter in chief with Brooklynite indie-pop contenders Here We Go Magic. ‘I didn’t start writing songs until 2000, until I was about 25, and up ‘til then I’d only listened to…

Melvins Lite – Freak Puke

Experimental craziness from the long-running grungers' reduced incarnation

24 May 2012

You can never really expect every album by these insanely experimental men to sound the same. Even after 29 years of performing and recording together, The Melvins (or Melvins Lite, in this case) somehow manage to remain enthusiastic and creative in an…

Jonsi's live multimedia extravaganza tours UK

Sigur Ros singer on UK tour

22 Aug 2010

The majestic, cinematic voice of Jonsi, lead singer of Sigur Ros, should make for a shivers-up-the-spine performance. Supported by Mountain Man, a misleadingly named trio of twentysomething female folk singers from Vermont. O2 Academy, Glasgow, Sun…

Summer Festivals 2012: Death in Vegas - interview

A chat with Richard Fearless ahead of his RockNess performance

25 May 2012

As British music finally dragged itself out of a post-Britpop hangover around the turn of the century, Death in Vegas were among the most quintessential of festival bands. 1999’s The Contino Sessions and 2002’s Scorpio Rising were staples of any…

Friends - Manifest!

An insidiously hooky album that's sometimes brilliant, sometimes bloomin’ annoying

22 May 2012

There are songs you can’t get out of your head, and then there are songs you wish you could get out of your head. In the latter category: ‘Hey Baby’ by DJ Otzi. In the former: Friends’ ‘Friend Crush’ and ‘I’m His Girl’. The Brooklyn band’s well-blogged…

Stag & Dagger, various venues, Glasgow, Sat 19 May

Eleanor Friedberger and Miaoux Miaoux play as part of 13 hour gig crawl

22 May 2012

While its London sister seems to have died a death, presumably smothered by a surfeit of such hipster-friendly crawls and brawls in the English capital, the Glasgow leg of multi-venue one-dayer Stag and Dagger happily lives on, albeit with perhaps a…

Interview: Ash get ready for RockNess 2012

Northern Irish rockers Ash get ready for their only Scottish festival of the year

24 May 2012

Famous for the instantly catchy pop rock of tracks like ‘Kung Fu’, ‘Burn Baby Burn’ and ‘Girl From Mars’ Ash formed as teenagers in Northern Ireland back in 1992. Juggling homework with gigs and recording sessions they released the instant smash 1977 in…

Biffy Clyro - Only Revolution

And evolution too chaps?

16 Oct 2009

It’s all making sense now with Biffy Clyro, since Muse showed that you didn’t need to follow the entirely conventional path and attain rock band enormodome status. And it’s not like with the demise of Oasis there will be a flood of rock geeks filling up…

Calvin Harris

10 Sep 2009

The Dumfries born disk jockey and all round music maestro is riding high on the success of his latest album ‘Ready For The Weekend’ charting at number one in the UK, cementing his position as the premier recording DJ in Britain. His first album, the 80s…

Twin Atlantic - Vivarium

3 Sep 2009

Not since the sacred Biffy Clyro has The List been this excited about a bunch of young Scottish rockers. Twin Atlantic conjure up images of early Idlewild and Foo Fighters with a post-rock twist, and one listen to mini debut offering Vivarium proves why…

Emeli Sande - King Tut’s, Glasgow, Mon 15 Nov, 2010

Voice of UK rap-pop hits tours classically-styled soul material

23 Nov 2010

Acknowledging the fact there were representatives of London record labels in the house for this last date of a short Scottish tour, Aberdonian singer Emeli Sande seemed every inch the promising young singer-songwriter trying hard to make an impression.

Foals and Toro Y Moi set for UK tour

Five reasons to go see nu-prog double header

26 Oct 2010

For their lies, for their sweet little lies Foals (pictured) are not baby horses, we can tell you that. And Toro Y Moi is not a bull. The former is a Mercury-nominated art-rock quintet from Oxford. The latter is one Chazwick Bundick: a hazy…

Exposure - Tango in the Attic

11 Jun 2009

Despite the apparently never-ending harsh times worldwide, Tango In The Attic actually sound like they’re having a lot of fun. Bright, colourful, and straight to the point, their songs have a charm to them that could very easily be overlooked and…

Exposure - Jonathan Coulton

16 Oct 2008

From his secret lair in Brooklyn, New York, evil genius Jonathan Coulton has been hatching plans for world domination since 2005. His hook-filled fuzz-rock anthems about zombies, Tom Cruise, the Mandelbrot set and cyborg girlfriends have won him a…

The Son(s) – Leviathan EP

Remarkable EP of lo-fi subtlety and intimacy from the mystery-shrouded artist(s)

24 May 2012

Having consulted an online resource to find a definition of the word 'leviathan' I was met with the task of trying to come to terms with how a mythological sea creature that is manifested as some kind of demon incarnate would find context in the lush…

Interview: Jakwob prepares for his live show at RockNess 2012

The dubstep producer talks remixes, Rocky and RockNess

23 May 2012

Young dubstep producer and DJ Jakwob (aka James Jacob) favours a jazzy take on bassy electronica. He first appeared on most people’s radar with his squelchy remix of Ellie Goulding’s ‘Under the Sheets’ and has since gone on to remix Lily Allen, MIA and…

Sigur Rós - Valtari

A typically dazzling record from the Icelandic cosmic folk-pop outfit

22 May 2012

The rumours of an ‘indefinite hiatus’ might have left us thinking that was it for Sigur Rós, but the four years since their previous album have amounted to little more than a bit of creative refreshment time. Valtari (the infinitely less satisfying to…

Interview: Ben Sims gets ready for RockNess 2012

The techno DJ/producer among names added to festival bill

13 Apr 2012

DJ Ben Sims has been announced for 2012’s RockNess festival, where he joins Soma Records on the Arcadia UFO stage. With over 20 years of DJ experience, running his own Theory label (among others), he’s renowned for his DJ skills using vinyl, CD and…

Incubus announce one-off 2012 UK show

The Californian rock group to play London's O2 Academy Brixton in July

11 Apr 2012

After their highly successful sell out If Not Now, When? world tour last year, fans will be pleased to hear that Incubus have now confirmed a one-off UK headline show for 2012. This performance will be highly anticipated by fans as the band were…

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

17 Feb 2010

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…