Music and Emma Newlands

Home work - Tipis and pods

17 Jul 2008

Home work A festival that is boutique in all the right ways, Hydro Connect offers some truly original bespoke accommodation options, as Emma Newlands discovers Ideally, all camping experiences would take place in Jellystone Park with Yogi Bear, or…

Bloc Party - A weekend out of the city

17 Jul 2008

'Alluding to a stadium moment is not something to be ashamed of,' grins Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke, 'if it can be done well...' The band's 'agit-jitter guitar pop' not only led to their 2005 debut album Silent Alarm selling a million copies, it…

Kevin McDermott

3 Jul 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 23 Jun ‘Was that good?’ says the chipper Scots musician early on in his set, and 20 years into his career as a singer-songwriter. ‘I thought so,’ he adds, tongue in cheek. ‘And I liked the guitar solo.’ But he has every…

John B McKenna, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Over the Wall

3 Jul 2008

ROCK Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Thu 5 Jun Starting with suitably hushed reverence for John B McKenna’s gentle powerhouse of a voice in an acoustic set, and ending with the squawking guitar, pounding keyboard and trumpet combo of Over the Wall, tonight’s…

Sergeant

19 Jun 2008

ROCK/POP King Tut’s, Glasgow, Fri 20 Jun ‘I wasn’t prepared for the sublime genius of Sergeant,’ says Alan McGee, who believes the Glenrothes band is carrying on a great tradition of perfectly-crafted sunny Scottish pop songs. ‘They have that slight…

Black Kids

22 May 2008

INDIE King Tut’s, Glasgow, Wed 4 Jun They’re not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you, but tipped-for-greatness combo Black Kids are hellbent on entertaining the Tut’s crowd as part of their UK and Europe-wide tour. Speaking from…

Natty

10 Apr 2008

REGGAE Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 1 Apr ‘You’ve made my night very enjoyable,’ says Natty at the end of his infectiously sunny set, before needlessly adding: ‘I hope I have yours.’ It’s a suitably charming signing off from this Londoner; fresh from…

Manchester Orchestra

13 Mar 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 10 Feb When it comes to compiling the worst album titles of all time, this Atlanta-based five-piece will surely be up there with the likes of Fiona Apple and Limp Bizkit with their second release, I’m Like a Virgin Losing a…

Yellow Bentines

28 Feb 2008

ACOUSTIC Linen 1906, Glasgow, Thu 31 Jan I like to imagine that bands are created in a Weird Science-style lab, and that when they’re complete, they emerge in a puff of dry ice to the delight of their creator. Then again, maybe I should lay off the…

Adele

14 Feb 2008

REVIEW SOUL Classic Grand, Glasgow, Fri 1 Feb Dovetailing two phenomena, namely the fast track route to fame via MySpace and the new crop of ‘60s-style female singers triggered by the combined forces of Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, Adele is most…

The Apple Scruffs

14 Feb 2008

REVIEW ROCK 13th Note, Glasgow, Fri 1 Feb The original Apple scruffs used to hang around waiting to meet The Beatles, and tonight the devotion was so intense that you could have been forgiven for thinking that the door to the 13th Note was a portal to…

Rags and Feathers and Eugene McGuinness

31 Jan 2008

ROCK FOLK ‘Heckle us if you like!’ was a brave challenge from Rags and Feathers frontman Tom Davis, especially as the band was apparently brought to life in this very venue only a few months previously. But there was nothing to find fault in during a…

Beerjacket and Kate Sutherland

17 Jan 2008

ACOUSTIC Brel, Glasgow, Thu 20 Dec Katie Sutherland’s motivation for picking up a guitar was, she explains: ‘I wanted to do more than listen. I wanted to play. So I bought a Jim Deacon and taught myself guitar.’ It proves to have been a very wise…

Technophobes and Iamchemist

4 Jan 2008

ELECTRO POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 16 Dec Marty McFly was the only kid ever to get into trouble before he was born. Lamentably, I reckon I was the only person in the audience to get into trouble before either Technophobes or iamchemist were…

Luva Anna - review

29 Nov 2007

Barfly, Glasgow, Fri 9 Nov Dundee may currently be famous musically for giving the world The View, but other than a similar capability for whipping the audience into a frenzy, it’s clear from their opening, perfectly harmonised sea shanty that Luva…

Chi Weapon - review

29 Nov 2007

The Beat Club, Glasgow, Wed 7 Nov For every band breaking new territory by moving too fast to be pigeon-holed, there are plenty more who are spreading themselves too thinly. Chi Weapon, originally from Bute but now Glasgow-based, live up to their…

Paul Vickers & The Leg

15 Nov 2007

ROCK Nice’n’Sleazy’s, Glasgow, Tue 6 Nov Rock’n’roll clichés, eh? Musicians trashing their instruments, throwing TVs out of their hotel room windows, and erm... their backing bands modelling terrifying panda-meets-voodoo-skeleton outfits. The…

The Graduate

20 Sep 2007

ROCK Barfly, Glasgow, Thu 6 Sep ‘Did you see his hair? Did you see his arms? Did you see his teeth?’ The post-gig analysis comes in many forms, but for some it had an overwhelmingly teenybopper feel when The Graduate left the stage after this…

Plain White T's

6 Sep 2007

ROCK ‘We are the Plain White T’s from Chicago. And we’re super excited about this tour!’ Sharing that enthusiasm was the unusual occurrence of a squealing audience of young ladies in the Tut’s crowd, but despite a promisingly frenetic start, things…

Flavour of the month

23 Aug 2007

Food at festivals is too often hit and miss. At best you may find some culinary treat that shocks and delights the pallette, while others are there to fill a hole as you rush from stage to stage between bands. But the organisers of Connect are…

The Be Good Tanyas

16 Jul 2007

ROOTS THE BE GOOD TANYAS City Halls, Glasgow, Sun 22 July ‘We approach music simply, very simply,’ says Sam Parton of Vancouver-based trio The Be Good Tanyas. ‘In terms of production, we don’t tend to stray too far from what our capacities…

Candie Payne

21 May 2007

MELANCHOLIA Phil Spector’s name may now be more likely to be linked at the moment to incarceration than innovation, but the eccentric New Yorker’s influence still casts a powerful shadow over the performance by diminutive Scouse songstress Candie…

Amy Macdonald

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Tue 13 Mar

27 Mar 2007

ACOUSTIC POP I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar, a wise man once said, then it meant that you were a protest singer. Quite what he’d make of 19-year-old Amy Macdonald is difficult to predict; her lyrical targets include reality TV, ‘the…