Music, Kirstin Innes

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

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…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

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…

St Vincent, Stereo, Glasgow, Tue 15 Nov 2011

Thrillingly eclectic live set from the American musician

St. Vincent (okay, Annie Clark if you must), looks good lit from behind, her curls silhouette into an entirely appropriate halo-effect as the first angelic vocals hit an absolutely rammed Stereo. It's a set almost entirely taken from new album Strange…

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

Our annual chart of the top creatives in Scotland

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.

St Andrew’s Day offers a programme of poetry, song and dance

2010 National Day a far cry from mince and tatties, a malt and the latest Broons annual

Let’s face it. There is no way that St Andrew’s Day celebrations will ever, ever be cool, and no special guest appearances by Amy Macdonald or thon wee laddie fae West Lothian who won the X Factor are ever, ever going to change that. Processed that?

How seven key figures in Scottish culture have fared over 25 years

25 years of The List

Didn’t they do well? Scotland has more than its fair share of talent, finds Kirstin Innes, as she chronicles the highs and lows of some of our finest exports over 25 years, including Peter Capaldi, Carol Ann Duffy, Ian Rankin, Douglas Gordon, Tilda…

Fruit Tree Foundation launches new album tackling themes of mental health

Alasdair Roberts, James Yorkston, Scott Hutchison and others record album

Sons and Daughters. Frightened Rabbit. The Phantom Band. Norman Blake. Perhaps because it sets out to encourage discussion of problems nearly everyone has come into contact with at some point in their lives, the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film…

Hole In My Pocket mark Pope's Scottish visit by starting their own church

Eilidh MacAskill and the Parsonage choir appear at Arches event

Inspired by the papal visit, Allistair Burt, more usually known as an architect and the brains behind Glasgow blog Southside Happenings, has just started his own religion. ‘With the Pope being in town, it just seemed like the perfect time,’ says the…

Meredith Monk: Songs of Ascension

There is so much beauty here

It’s difficult to begin describing Songs of Ascension, a new(ish) work by composer, musician, artist and mercurial force of nature Meredith Monk, because it doesn’t fit cleanly into any of the nice, regular boxes we use to describe different kinds of…

Big Society: The Musical

It’s actually rather heartening, in the current climate, to watch a London-based company not only tackling the ConDem government’s agenda of cuts head-on, but also managing to set an entire musical in a working class district of Newcastle without…

Showstopper: The Improvised Musical

Our Fringe reviewer explains what it’s like to be part of the show.

As a critic, I favour stealth and subtlety. Get in quickly, do not sit in the front row or anywhere else where the cast can see your notebook, and sneak out the back during the curtain call. I certainly don’t usually sit on stage, with the director…

Havers and Blethers brings new spoken-word show to Edinburgh

Daily show features writers, poets, actors and musicians

One of the great things about this time of year is the number of off-Fringe festivals that spring up, like this daily spoken-word-based show, hosted by Kirsty-Jacqueline Lingard and featuring writers, poets, actors and musicians performing short…

RM Hubbert and The Parsonage among highlights of Sonic Soak

Weekend festival of music and art in Govanhill Baths

From the echoing caverns of the now-disused Govanhill Baths, sound and art collective 85A have curated a weekend festival of music, installation, cinema and fancy dress: although there’s no water in the pool, patrons are expected to come in swimwear or…

The Forest Café celebrates tenth birthday

Volunteer-run café is a true original in Edinburgh

The Forest Café’s tenth birthday, happening mostly on Saturday 14 August, but spreading its shambolic, joyous tentacles throughout the rest of the month, is one of those true causes for celebration. That an entirely volunteer-run, hippy-hearted…

Music festivals 2010: Festival profiles

Big or small, loud or quiet, dry or muddy – we love festivals whatever their size, sound or likelihood to leave you soaking wet. Over the next 20 pages we'll give you the lowdown on every major fest hitting Scotland this summer, and information on a few…

Six Short Piano Pieces

Arnold Schoenberg wrote his sparse, tiny Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke (Six Short Piano Pieces) in 1911, at a time of great personal and artistic upheaval. It’s no coincidence that Ian Spink has chosen this particular work for his first choreographic…

Have meat, can eat

Just when you thought it was safe to crack open your haggis... BURNS IS BACK. Yes, no sooner has the Year of Homecoming been safely consigned to the tartan time capsule than Burns Night 2010 rolls around, with the usual mix of traditional suppers…

Piano Masterclass with Jean-Phillipe Collard

Always fancied yourself a bit of a Liberace? Or maybe you’re more of a Scott Joplin type. Ivory-tinklers of all levels of ability are welcome at this open event – allow the internationally acclaimed French pianist to right all your keyboard-based…

Cryptic Nights

It’s the first anniversary of the multi-artform night celebrating the possibilities of the CCA, and they’re commemorating with a feast. The first 25 people to book tickets will be offered a free Cryptic Nights banquet (everyone else can eat too, it’s…

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

Much of the most powerful art produced in Scotland in the 1980s–1990s developed in angry reaction to the political situation and tapped into our radical, left-wing and egalitarian traditions – it’s no accident that the most popular works of that period…

Blondes

Denise has more fun

Blondes is exactly what you’d expect it to be like. Graham Norton on voiceover introduces Denise! Van! Outen! and with a razzle-dazzle and a boop-boop-be-doop she shimmies her way onto the stage, belts her way through hits from Dusty, Madonna, Britney…

T in the Park – Sunday

Kirstin Innes gives her verdict on some of Sunday's highlights at T. As some cruel fates (work) kept me apart from my beloved Karen O on Friday, I was determined to fill up my one day of T-time with as many strange and wonderful womenfolk as possible.

Jarvis Cocker

One lanky, raised arm appears through a cloud of smoke, and the packed-out ABC goes nuts. I’m struggling to think of another UK performer who commands such instant, indulgent devotion – and naked lust, actually, as the room is thick with sex, and Our…

Cryptic Nights

New Media Scotland celebrates its tenth birthday with an interactive online, visual art and dance game/play/performance. Yes, we know that’s a whole lot of genres. Follow the tales of two lovers on the @mediascot Twitter stream from Wednesday 24 June to…

Fete accomplis - The West End Festival

The West End Festival, which has been going since 1996, is a community festival in the proper sense of the word, running free workshops and concerts, hosting events that involve local businesses and generally inviting residents to celebrate the various…