Music and Brian Donaldson

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

Howard Marks in discussion event with MC5 manager John Sinclair

The two can offer different takes on the 1960s counter culture

22 May 2012

Every generation needs a figurehead to accentuate the fun side of drugs. From Thomas de Quincey to Sherlock Holmes and through to Timothy Leary, the Beatles and Bill Hicks, it’s not all been bad trips and cold turkey (if there any wags out there…

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…

Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun

Listenable but redundant take on some of Sun Records' finest

5 Jan 2012

(Vanguard Records/Rhino) During its 1950s heyday, Sun Records churned out standards by the bucketload from the likes of Elvis, Cash and Orbison. During the recording of Beyond the Sun, David Lynch’s favourite bequiffed rockabilly star was presumably…

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…

Eat Dr Ape - Love and Lust in Wonderland

6 Oct 2010

(EDA Publishing) While you’re listening to this seven-track affair drone on, why not play the band-name anagram game? It quickly throws up at least one intriguing alternative title which curiously matches the threatening ambience of the CD cover.

Various - Songs for the Young at Heart - album review

Various

29 Jan 2007

KIDS COMPILATION Nostalgia might not be what it once was, but in the Staples and Boulter households, the past is far from imperfect. Stuart and Dave, the guys from the Tindersticks, have lovingly recreated the songs they remembered from their radios…

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 Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

Tunng - This is Tunng: Live from the BBC

Warped magic of eccentric east London glitch folk collective

7 Dec 2011

(Full Time Hobby) With a line-up alteration or two, eccentric east London collective Tunng have gone from glitchy cut and pasters to singalong folksters. Their This is Tunng compilation features bouncy numbers (‘Jenny Again’, ‘Bullets’) from 2010’s…

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…

The best upcoming events in Scotland in 2011

Highlights of the 2011 cultural calandar from Film, Music, Comedy, Theatre and Visual Art

3 Jan 2011

Huge gigs, inspiring theatre productions, comedy legends and two cute little waving bears – just a few of the things coming up in ‘11 that we can barely contain our excitement about

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…

Agnes Obel

16 Sep 2010

Philharmonics (PIAS Recordings) Berlin-based Copenhagener Agnes Obel may well have just rewritten the book on ethereal pop. From ‘Falling, Catching’, the delicate opener of Satie/Einaudi piano cycles through its evocations of Sufjan Stevens, Stina…

Helen Arney

Sweet songs with a tender heart

24 Aug 2010

For Helen Arney, love is a many tentacled thing. Two centuries ago, there was ‘less choice, more farming accidents’ while now we’re never too sure whether the grass will turn out to be greener on the other side. For her own part, she seems to have a…

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…

A Toys Orchestra - Technicolor Dreams

13 Mar 2008

ROCK POP (Urtovox) Written rule in music number 14: Europeans of the continental type make horrible, horrible pop music. Of course, there are a few examples which dilute this tenet (ABBA and, um, A-ha?). And when it comes to Italians and pop, you can…

Torche

15 Nov 2007

ROCK In Return (Rock Action) More terrifying than Cradle of Filth coming to your house to do trick or treat and heavier than a sack of Ozzy’s spuds, Torche at least have the common decency not to take up much of anyone’s time, clocking this…

Devendra Banhart - album review

Folk rock

4 Oct 2007

The Devendra Banhart live experience is akin to watching over-excitable teenagers being left in charge for a bank holiday weekend. Listening to him in your home is like being left out of someone else’s joke. While his folkiosyncratic ways have given…

Tom Waits - album review

Tom Waits

27 Nov 2006

UNCLASSIFIABLE When the BBC were planning their resurrection of Jackanory, Tom Waits may well have been on the longlist of proposed readers. But maybe they got wind of his disturbing night-time terror ‘Children’s Story’ and revoked the invite. Like…

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…

How Soon is Now - music books round-up

A round-up of music books from Richard King, Rob Young, Martin C Strong and Bernie Krause

26 Mar 2012

The next best thing to hearing a great record is then going on to read all about it. Unless you feel that analysing music in any way is akin to destroying the purity of the aural experience. If you’re of that opinion then best avoid this clutch of…