Henry Northmore

Primal Scream confirmed to headline Edinburgh’s Hogmanay concert

First name announced for 2011/2012’s Hogmanay celebrations

Bobby Gillespie and co will be heading to Edinburgh to see in 2012 as Primal Scream are confirmed as the headline act for this year’s Hogmanay celebrations. Bringing their Screamadelica tour to Princes Street Gardens as they play the classic album…

Interview - Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of LuckyMe

Glasgow DIY label set for Edinburgh Festival clubnight

Mike Slott (producer) I met Dom [Flannigan] who runs LuckyMe in Borders Books. He was sneaking flyers into hip hop magazines. We got chatting, we liked similar music and in Glasgow if you’re into a certain kind of music, you bump into the same people…

Metal titans Manowar announced their first UK tour for 16 years

The mighty Manowar have announced their first UK tour in 16 years. Where they will be playing their album Battle Hymns in its entirety alongside other bombastic rock classics. Famed for their over the top showmanship, love of swords, sorcery and Norse…

DJs Radioactive Man and Billy Nasty team up for Radionasty

The twosome are to appear at the Caves courtesy of Jackhammer

Radioactive Man and Billy Nasty have both played Jackhammer before but now they’re back in a new itineration, as two-headed techno mutant Radionasty, and drawing on both their styles to create a fresh new sound. ‘Our first track was quite dark fast…

NEoN Digital Arts Festival 2011

Highlights include works by artists Tom DeMajo and N55 and an event exploring the sound of stars

Digital arts festival NEoN is once again transforming Dundee into an electronic playground for six days. With its series of film screenings, live music, DJ performances and workshops, NEoN’s main aim is to create works of art that couldn’t have existed…

Shark Night 3D

Dumb fun as big fish chow down on stereotypical college kids

(15) 91 min The avalanche of 3D releases may be slowing down but there’s still a few chuckles to be had with the format. Shark Night 3D has the flimsiest of plots as seven college kids head out for a weekend at a luxurious lake house in Louisiana…

The Woman

Challenging horror from the minds of Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum

(18) 98 min There has been a spate of interesting indie horror recently, films like Dead Girl, The Loved Ones and Red, White & Blue have brought a real intelligence to the genre. A challenging leftfield take on the idea of what is horror. The Woman…

Heavy Gossip and Ultragroove join forces

DJs Nick Yuill and Gareth Sommerville discuss the past and future of the Edinburgh house nights

Nick Yuill (Heavy Gossip) ‘Myself, [promoter] Paul [Cunningham] and Gareth [Sommerville] first got together to discuss doing one-off events and we realised we had the exact same aims and goals and it kind of rumbled on from there. ‘My first club…

Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards - Turf

Slightly clunky comic debut from the TV personality

(Titan) Yes that Jonathon Ross. The chat show host has long been an acknowledged geek with a superhero fixation, so perhaps it’s high time he stepped up to take the reigns on his own comic title. And he certainly goes for it, all guns blazing, with a…

Profile: Melissa George

Aussie actress Melissa George tells us all about her new film A Lonely Place to Die

Born 6 August, 1976, Perth, Australia. Background Yet another Aussie soap alumni done good, after starring as Angel in over 300 episodes of Home & Away. ‘I’m a very good quitter, I always quit a job at the right time,’ explains George. ‘I was…

Dead Island

The game behind the stunning trailer is finally ready for release

A young girl’s body lies in the grass, the image intercut with her running down a corridor pursued by undead hordes; time rewinds as she flies up, back through the window her father just threw her through as she grapples him from behind, biting a huge…

Ravi Shankar - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Aug

A mesmerising show of classical Indian music as part of 2011 EIF

Ravi Shankar crossed over into popular culture with his associations with various 60s musicians, working with and/or influencing the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Byrds. Going on to play at iconic festivals such as Woodstock and The Monterey…

Final Destination 5

Horror franchise gets back on track with some suitably gory bloodshed

(15) 92 min In many ways the Final Destination series is the ultimate streamlined horror franchise, they have dispensed with a villain and it is death itself that stalks our victims. And FD 5 returns the glorious gory yucks to the screen after the…

A Lonely Place To Die

Tense and riveting Brit-thriller set in Scottish Highlands

How far would you go to save a stranger? Would you risk your life? And your friends’ lives? It’s a question Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers must answer after they stumble across a young girl (Holly Boyd) buried in a wooden box while…

Beckett & Smith

A genuinely funny 60 minutes

There are some real gems on the free festival circuit, but picking the wheat from the chaff can be a daunting prospect. Split into two halves, Ian Smith launches this hour of stand up with some freewheeling rambling that at times cuts close to the bone…

Jay Cantoe & James Romberger - Aaron and Ahmed: A Love Story

(Vertigo/Titan) Novelist, scriptwriter and essayist Jay Cantor’s foray into comics starts as a simple examination of the relationship between an army doctor/torturer and a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, then heads off on a wild tangent concerning the…

Crate digging: Gary Beck picks 5 great tracks

Producer releasing on Soma, Drumcode, Minus and Bek Audio

Gary Beck is one of the younger artists signed to Soma (he also has releases on Drumcode, Minus and his own Bek Audio) and he joins Slam and Animal Farm at the Edge Festival’s annual Soma Night as part of the Glasgow label’s 20th birthday celebrations.

Terry Alderton

Hour of clever nonsense with surreal twist

Taking many of the conventions of old-school stand-up – observational comedy, sound effects, impressions – Alderton gives them a surreal twist before cramming them all together. Some punchlines get lost in the chaos of songs, dancing and vocal mimicry…

Isy Suttie

Cute, clever music-based comedy from the Peep Show comedian

Best known as geek love interest Dobby from Peep Show, Suttie’s an incredibly likeable comedian. Mixing stand-up and music, her humour has a real warmth and the stuttering love story of Pearl and Dave that runs through the show is instantly engaging and…

bETAMAX - New Edinburgh club plays 70s and 80s edgy dance

New club from promoters behind FAST and Vintage Violence

‘In our heads bETAMAX will be halfway between some legendary NY night like Danceteria and a local disco in Basildon circa 1982. If the Tories want to drag us back to that era in the worst of ways, we can at least enjoy the soundtrack,’ explains…

Five great tracks by Plump DJs

UK DJ duo set for Edinburgh club Bass Syndicate

1. Big Groovy Fucker An early Plumps production (their second release on Finger Lickin’) that takes its name literally. A big pumping groove machine that ends in a flurry of acidic breakbeat. 2. Creepshow Sees Andy Gardner and Lee Rous at their…

Review - T in the Park 2011

All the rain, mud and rock action from Scotland's biggest music festival

Saturday Ke$ha proves trashy entertainment with a set that refuses to take itself seriously. A party up glam stomp though a series of electro pop hits that while low on art is high on glitter and cheap thrills (and inexplicably includes a six-foot…

Sink or Spin

It’s gym life, but not as we know it

A site-specific comedy set in the working environs of Bannatyne’s Health Club (you even need to fill in a fitness form as you enter), you’ll spend most of Sink or Spin on an exercise bike in a distinctly unusual class taught by Clement (Donal Coonan).

Slavery to Star Trek

Autobiographical show taking in Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Andreea Kindryd has lived a fascinating life. She knew Martin Luther King, was friends with Malcolm X and worked on the original Star Trek series. She’s an engaging storyteller whose tale starts in the days of her great grandparents and slavery…

Interview: DJ Sneak - set for Edinburgh's Telefunken

The legendary DJ on 'real' underground house

DJ Sneak loves house music. In fact he’s kinda protective of the genre. ‘The word “house” has been murdered by the media and people like Swedish “blank” Mafia, which clearly know nothing about house music. Underground house will always keep the spirit…