David Pollock

Only the brave

Arches Live!

4 Sep 2008

As Arches Live! returns to Glasgow for its sixth year, David Pollock talks to new artistic director Jackie Wylie about her vision for the annual celebration of experimental theatre and performance art

Wrong Island

4 Sep 2008

‘Last month, a guy from London came up to us and said, “this is exactly what I remember the old Basement Jaxx parties being like”,’ says Teamy, co-promoter and DJ at Sleazy’s finest basement party since it won itself a late licence. ‘That’s just what…

Peak Practice

4 Sep 2008

'The Lighthouse Architecture Series is a new five-year series celebrating a range of Scottish architectural practices, which have delivered nationally, and now deserve recognition in the international market,' says Leonie Bell, programme director at…

Introducing: Soundcrash

4 Sep 2008

Residents: Big Dada’s regular tour DJ and a contender for the title of ‘Aberdeen’s most famous DJ’, A’ La Fu. Also Mixed Bizness’ Boom Monk Ben, although he’ll only be appearing at this first instalment in his guise of promoter. Guests: The riotous…

Judge Dredd Megazine No.275

4 Sep 2008

The other outlet for Dredd's continuing adventures in near-future totalitarianism alongside 2000AD is the Megazine, relaunched this issue, including a free mini-graphic novel collecting Dredd stories illustrated by Jock. Regular writer John Wagner is…

Licence Pending

4 Sep 2008

Drew Taylor, compere and promoter of the Tron’s Licence Pending night, is outlining the ideas behind the event when he stops and checks himself. He’s just used the words ‘performance poetry industry’ and he feels the urge to add the caveat ‘if you can…

Parklife - Brand new dance

4 Sep 2008

This first-ever instalment of dance music festival Parklife should take attendees back to the mid-90s glory days when T in the Park was still young and finding its feet, and Strathclyde Country Park was big enough to contain it. It’s not like the Park…

Paul Vickers and The Leg

4 Sep 2008

‘You’ve all soaked up the reverb a bit,’ noted Paul Vickers a couple of songs in, ‘which is good’. He seemed a bit dazed by this whole experience, although that might just be down to the ex-Dawn of the Replicants singer’s Henry Rollins meets Daniel…

Sean Connery & Murray Grigor - Being a Scot

4 Sep 2008

Many Scots cynics, upon seeing the title of this new coffee table volume by our most famous actor, might be inspired to enquire just how much research on the subject can be done by an ex-pat who hasn't lived in the country for decades. It's an…

The Streets - Everything is Borrowed

4 Sep 2008

Mike Skinner might be one of the finest pop artists of our generation, but there’s no escaping the fact that his fourth album is a real disappointment. Certain passages of it might well grow over time, yet the suspicion is that it’s just too damn…

Underling - Underling

4 Sep 2008

Based in Dunfermline, Underling pull off the hitherto impossible trick of making the Kingdom of Fife sound like a district of Brooklyn. Their music is played live, a light but spirited bed of intently grooving jazz, through which Aron Moorhouse’s raps…

Kate Davis

Outside interests

21 Aug 2008

This is the first time that New Zealand-born, Glasgow-educated artist Kate Davis has returned for a second exhibition within the same gallery space, and she’s eager that her latest show takes advantage of the fact. Where the original show with Sorcha…

Hydro Connect Festival - Acts you might not know

Fresh Connections

21 Aug 2008

Friendly Fires Their biggest influences are the Kompakt label, Carl Craig and Prince, and they’re named after a track by Blackpool post-punk confederacy Section 25. St Albans trio Friendly Fires (Ed MacFarlane, Jack Savidge and Edd Gibson) are one of…

Profile - Paul Woolford

21 Aug 2008

Name Paul Woolford Also known as Bobby Peru (also Willem Defoe’s character in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart), Hip Therapist (just a pun, really) and more. Occupation ‘Picking the cultural zeitgeist like a bogey’, says his MySpace headline. Ick. We…

Root Manuva - Slime and Reason

21 Aug 2008

Almost a decade after his debut album Brand New Second Hand appeared, Rodney Smith’s no longer at the head of a field of one. The popularisation of UK hip hop which he ushered in has since given way to garage and then grime, and while he’s stepped back…

Superhero

God on their side

21 Aug 2008

Religion and rock music don’t usually mix, but they’ve always been on speaking terms. Elvis himself grew up a good, god-fearing boy, while Bob Dylan, possibly the most famous one-time born-again Christian in music, released two albums of Christian songs…

Teaze

21 Aug 2008

‘Teaze isn’t just a burlesque night’, says Amy Telford, promoter of Teaze, and she’s right. There will be a burlesque show on earlier in the night, but DJs of various genres – from swing to techno and metal to alternative – will then take over until the…

Big Things on the Beach: Garden Gallery

Public art, right on your doorstep

14 Aug 2008

As far as public art initiatives go, it doesn’t get much more DIY or community-focused than this. Twenty-nine separate works, most of which are hosted in the front gardens of Portobello houses, and all of them part of a scenic walking tour of the…

Broken records

14 Aug 2008

‘It’s never been part of our gameplan to be a cool band,’ says Broken Records’ singer and guitarist Jamie Sutherland. In that case, they better start redrawing the rules right now. Attracting Arcade Fire comparisons like iron filings to a magnet, the…

Eskimo

New exhibition space warmed up by a fine group show

14 Aug 2008

Having made their debut last Festival with a show at West Barns Studios, Polarcap return to East Lothian for this debut exhibition at Eskmills’ new gallery. Although the exposed roof beams give the impression that the gallery itself hasn’t actually been…

Esther Rantzen

Loving life in the third age

14 Aug 2008

It was the death of her husband Desmond Wilcox that shaped the philosophy behind Esther Rantzen OBE’s new book If Not Now, When? A self-help book, after a fashion, it expands on the virtues of enjoying life at every available opportunity, even into…

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

The great global economic gamble, in heavily symbolic form

14 Aug 2008

Take Frances Richardson’s drawing and sculptures (the latter she refers to as ‘walk-in drawings’) literally and it seems the world is falling down around us. Or at least the financial world is, and that might not be too far from the truth. But how…

Headman

14 Aug 2008

When he released his debut album It Rough in 2001 (which contained the single of the same name), Zurich DJ Robi Insinna, aka Headman, helped presage a whole movement. Around the same time, everyone from Belgium’s Soulwax to New York’s LCD Soundsystem…

Kevin Williamson

Writing poetry on the run

14 Aug 2008

‘Rebel Inc involved a lot of chaos and a lot of confusion,’ says Kevin Williamson, founder of the one-time cult Edinburgh imprint. ‘And I can tell you that my days as a publisher are definitely over. I gave it all I could for ten years and wouldn’t go…

The Verve - Forth

14 Aug 2008

PSYCH-ROCK (Parlophone) Even their most evangelical of fans – of which there are still plenty – might have doubted The Verve’s reformation. Much of the solo material of the previously unimpeachable Richard Ashcroft flattered to deceive, and none of it…

Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the Art of Cover Design

Of human bond-age

7 Aug 2008

It’s strange, considering how conservative a character James Bond is, that his presentation and marketing seems to fall so readily in step with the times. From Sean Connery throughout the smooth, swinging 60s, to the more cartoonishly lurid 70s and…

Acoustic Edinburgh Festival

Phoenix nights from Cowgate ashes

7 Aug 2008

Although you won’t be seeing her here, KT Tunstall provides the inspiration for this high-quality acoustic night. Tunstall’s own 2001 Acoustic Extravaganza gigs at the Gilded Saloon on the Cowgate (which would go on to share a title with one of the…

Âme

7 Aug 2008

‘It’s pronounced “am”,’ says Kristian Beyer, one half of Karlsruhe electronicists Âme. ‘All the time people pronounce it “ami” or “Amy”, but it’s “am” – the French word for soul.’ In which case the duo are well-named, because Âme produce a beautiful…

Celine Curiol

French author celebrates the outsider

7 Aug 2008

Young Parisian author Céline Curiol laughs when I tell her of the proliferation of post-Carla Bruni articles seeking to define the particular character of the French woman, and then makes her apologies for a lack of further insight. ‘I’m going to have…

Profile - Antonio Forcione

7 Aug 2008

Name Antonio Forcione Occupation ‘The Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar’. What does that involve? Being unutterably talented. The rags-to-riches tale of Forcione busking in Covent Garden while unable to speak English is romantic; it was…

Richard Hamilton: Protest Pictures

Incomplete display of anti-establishment works by a British master

7 Aug 2008

While this exhibition gives a flavour of just how iconic the work of pioneering British pop artist Richard Williams has been, particularly in relation to the authority-subverting subtexts at work within them, the impression upon leaving is that only…

Robbie Morrison, John Burns & Simon Fraser - Nikolai Dante: Sword of the Tsar

7 Aug 2008

FUTURISTIC TALE (Rebellion) Set in a time after a mythical future Russian revolution, adventurer and rogue Nikolai Dante is one of the most feared men in the land, and that’s just by all the women he inevitably ends up charming into bed. On the way…

Top 5: Blur Moments

7 Aug 2008

With Alex James coming to chat about his past life as a Britpop superstar, we reflect on the bits of Blur that we remember ‘There’s No Other Way’ As much of a Madchester rip-off as it was (those guitar lines ride in the slipstream of The Stone…

Various - Fabriclive 41: Simian Mobile Disco

7 Aug 2008

ELECTRONICA (Fabric) By rights Simian Mobile Disco ought to be detestable. The production and remix team are responsible, after all, for the post-’We Are Your Friends’ decree that every NME-reading first-year university student to start an indie disco…

Stage Oddities

31 Jul 2008

Death By Chocolate ‘Interview the suspects, sample the chocolates, solve the crime’ is the pitch for this interactive murder mystery night. The setting is a chocolate-themed singles’ night; the audience are given notepads and pens and encouraged to…

Big Hand - How About It?

31 Jul 2008

SKA (Zorbic Media) They’ve been a familiar gigging presence around Edinburgh for some years, so it’s no surprise to find this is ska quartet Big Hand’s debut album. Quite a few of the 14 songs here will be familiar to anyone who has followed the…

Clubbing onstage

Chemical Romance

31 Jul 2008

As an experience that thrives on the spontaneity of the moment, and, often, some kind of altered state of consciousness, clubbing is a difficult subject to translate into drama. Since the mid-90s, the much-trumpeted drug movie or novel has largely…

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

Sculpture and walk-in drawings explore the gambler’s mindset

31 Jul 2008

In rationalising her new exhibition, English artist Frances Richardson finds it best to quote the wisdom of Chico Marx: ‘If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.…

Melting Pot

31 Jul 2008

‘Disco music as a genre essentially stopped in the mid-80s and became dance music as we now know it,’ says Andrew Pirie, promoter and DJ at Glasgow’s Melting Pot. ‘Everything happening in dance music today has some sort of roots in disco. Just as disco…

Retreat!

Indie magic from spanking new mini-fest

31 Jul 2008

In recent years mini-festivals Planet Pop and Tigerfest have sought to showcase local artists to Fringe visitors, before eventually folding or changing date and location. Now it’s Retreat!’s turn to try and demonstrate some staying power, with a line-up…

Yasser

Provocative character study with political overtones

31 Jul 2008

‘This is a play which is political, without becoming partisan political,’ says director Teunkie van der Sluijs. ‘It was written just before 9/11, so it doesn’t have that lamenting post-9/11 outlook that now occurs in all forms of writing which deal with…

Perfect pitch - Classical venue guide

29 Jul 2008

For those looking for something a little more civilised, Edinburgh and Glasgow have a host of classical venues on offers

In the swing of it - Jazz, Blues and Folk venues

29 Jul 2008

Boasting some of the finest new names and most exciting stalwarts of the jazz, blues and folks scene, Edinburgh and Glasgow have long set an impressive stall with some of the most diverse festivals and year round line-ups.

Pump up the volume - Music venues round up

29 Jul 2008

Glasgow and Edinburgh play host to some of the hottest hangouts in the UK. David Pollock explores the very best and handpicks the gigs you cannot afford to miss.

Picture this - World Press Photo

Festival of Politics

22 Jul 2008

From soldiers to skiers, featuring death and dresses, the World Press Photo exhibition captures life at its extremes. David Pollock views the cream of this year’s selection and discusses life through a lens.

Bound for glory - James Bond

Edinburgh International Book Festival

22 Jul 2008

With a new Bond movie on the way in the creator’s centenary year, 007 fever is rising. David Pollock flicks through an exhibition celebrating the cover designs of Ian Fleming’s pulp novels With Daniel Craig now installed as an updated, reinvigorated…

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

Husband and wife duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are quite possibly the most vibrant artistic force to have emerged from Canada in recent years. Certainly, this show will be one of the least missable exhibitions of the Festival period, as…

Flaming marvellous - Wickerman festival

17 Jul 2008

David Pollock meets apisrant Scottish indie heroes Attic Lights, one of the plethora of quality acts at this year’s ever vibrant and varied Wickerman festival

National Pop League

17 Jul 2008

‘The Woodside’s such a strange place,’ says John Hunt, promoter of the soon-to-be-no-more National Pop League, of the venue which has housed his indie club for seven years. ‘There’s no air conditioning, and it’s so hot that, at about one o’clock in the…

Profile - DJ Assault

17 Jul 2008

Name DJ Assault Real name Craig De Shan Adams aka Craig Diamonds Occupation Filthmeister supreme of the ghettotech genre. Ghettotech? A latter-day Detroit style, devised by Assault, DJ Funk and DJ Godfather, which blends the city’s ghetto house…