Emma Newlands

Craig & Roxburgh

14 Aug 2008

Christopher Hitchens caused outrage when he said women aren't funny. Lucy Craig and Kate Roxburgh, performing feeble gags on family life, poshness and being Brits-who-live-in-LA, are adding treacherous fuel to his fire. This needs 'stand-up' in the…

Wendy Wason

Comedy catharsis lacks bite

7 Aug 2008

Inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's infamous 'known unknowns' comments that were beyond parody, Wendy Wason takes the audience along the rocky path of her marriage break-up (from Steve Furst of Lenny Beige and Orange cinema advert fame) and the lessons it has…

Lloyd Langford

Schoolboy whimsy misses the mark

7 Aug 2008

What do you get if you combine misanthropy and anthropology, as Lloyd Langford promises at the start of his routine? The answer is a disappointingly mixed bag of punchlines from the baby-faced and constantly chipper 24-year-old. The material, delivered…

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…

Shazia Mirza

23 Aug 2007

Most notorious for her line about the name on her pilot’s licence, Brummie comic Mirza here conjures up plenty more where that came from. The point she makes is as important as the quality of her material, lampooning the audience for choosing to see…

Tanyalee Davis

16 Aug 2007

She may be 3ft 6in, but describing herself as ‘low to the ground and kind of racy’ reflects that that there is definitely nothing small about Tanyalee’s personality. Her self-deprecating humour provides a fair few laughs detailing the trials and…

Stephen Carlin

16 Aug 2007

Examining and dissecting popular culture is a hurdle that has felled many a stand-up, but the very dapper Carlin has some aces up his sleeve with a seemingly laid-back delivery revealing extremely shrewd and highly amusing observations. Technical…

Jim Bowes

9 Aug 2007

Whether WMDs can be launched within 45 minutes may be debatable, but a far safer bet would be to spend that length of time in the company of Bowes. An affable and enthusiastic host, he guides us along the journey from polite to increasingly assertive…

Stuckey and Murray

9 Aug 2007

A musical comedy act is a tough tightrope to walk at the best of times, and although the camaraderie of this duo is impossible to fault, it proves that a song doesn’t automatically become funny because it contains the word ‘douchebag’. One to avoid if…

The Queef of Terence

9 Aug 2007

The insincerity and superficiality of daytime TV make a ripe target for lampooning, and the three stars of Queef start out promisingly in this supposed pilot for a show. With a finely-tuned sense of character acting and comic timing, they deserve a…

Cirque de Sabotage

9 Aug 2007

This female three-piece act proclaims itself as ‘heavily character-driven, comprising sketch-based slapstick and silliness, woven together with verbal dexterity and an extensive wardrobe of props and costumes’. True enough, but then so was the…

Psister Psycho

1 Aug 2007

The path to true love never runs smooth, but it’s a bumpier road than usual in unconventional love story Psister Psycho. ‘The eponymous villain is a psychotic arms-dealing lesbian robot nun,’ says Danielle Ward, who last year performed…

Stephen Grant

1 Aug 2007

‘Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely,’ Woody Allen once said. He didn’t, however, reckon with Stephen Grant whose self-proclaimed mission this August is not only to ‘obliterate untruths and punish inaccuracies’, but to solve…

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…

Summer in the City

3 Jul 2007

It’s summer. Well, as close as it gets to summer in Scotland. Sunshine is carefully rationed so when it does make an appearance you’d better be prepared to make the most of those breaks in the cloud. Here we present some of the best ideas for enjoying…

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…