Jonny Ensall

Summer Festivals 2012: Community

Solas, Leith and West End Fests among the best community-focused fests around Scotland this summer

25 May 2012

West End Festival Where: Various venues, West End of Glasgow, 1–24 Jun, westendfestival.co.uk Price: Free–£20 for bigger gigs Line-up: James Yorkston, Howard Marks, Suzanne Vega, Michael Marra, We Were Promised Jetpacks You want to learn Gaelic in…

Summer Festivals 2012: Best dance music live shows

Which of this year's superstar DJs have visuals to match their beats?

25 May 2012

Picture the scene. Dusk has fallen on the festival site. Tens of thousands of inebriated and euphoric festivalgoers have assembled at the main stage. They’re waiting for the headliner, whooping and hollering in anticipation. Then it happens: a guy…

Summer Festivals 2012: Ones to watch

A selection of industry experts and List writers choose their musical highlights for this summer

25 May 2012

Lanterns on the Lake Chosen by Jonny Ensall, Editor, The List What does that name bring to mind? Boats on the water? A night to remember? An ethereal choir of knitting together a sense of the magical past and the optimistic future? You’re spot on with…

Austra, The Unthanks and Richard Hawley set for No Direction Home 2012

New festival with focus on quality from team behind End of the Road

23 May 2012

End of the Road has been the latte-drinking, glam-camping Guardian reader's weekender of choice almost since it's inception in 2006. Picking up plaudits from The Times and The Guardian (of course) as well as an award for 'Best Small Festival' last year…

Friends - Manifest!

An insidiously hooky album that's sometimes brilliant, sometimes bloomin’ annoying

22 May 2012

There are songs you can’t get out of your head, and then there are songs you wish you could get out of your head. In the latter category: ‘Hey Baby’ by DJ Otzi. In the former: Friends’ ‘Friend Crush’ and ‘I’m His Girl’. The Brooklyn band’s well-blogged…

Video: animated street art at Newhaven

Edinburgh artist Spaceboy animates a 150 metre-long mural along fishmarket shutters

4 May 2012

Edinburgh artist Mike Inglis, aka Spaceboy, has collaborated with Red Stripe on transforming the shutters of Newhaven fishmarket into a Jamaica-inspired animation. The first cut of the video can be seen below. Spaceboy pasted his illustrations…

Major Lazer - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sun 22 Apr

A ballsy and daft neo-dancehall party that wasn't shared enough with the audience

26 Apr 2012

‘Make some noise for all the asses!’ encouraged super-producer, and one half of Major Lazer, Diplo, midway through the band’s dancehall blitzkrieg of a live show. A dozen Glaswegian girls had been hoisted from the audience onto the O2 ABC stage to…

Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself

Reasonably consistent album of simple, emotional music from multi-instrumentalist smartypants

22 Feb 2012

(Bella Union) There are signs on Break It Yourself that multi-instrumentalist and genre-hopping smartypants Andrew Bird has mellowed out somewhat. The album is reasonably consistent and settles in a gentle neo-folk groove that shows off Bird’s…

GFF 2012 - Kid With a Bike and On The Ice

Dardennes brothers film strikes a chord but Inuit thriller fails to excite

20 Feb 2012

Before the Film Festival began, when talking to people about highlights, one of the picks that kept coming up was the Dardennes brothers' Kid With a Bike. The Dardennes (Jean-Pierre and Luc) are the Belgian filmmaking pair responsible for La Promesse…

GFF 2012 - Opening Gala: Your Sister's Sister

Mumblecore director Lynn Shelton introduces her latest film at the opening of the Glasgow Film Fest

17 Feb 2012

Director Lynn Shelton was at the Glasgow Film Theatre last night to introduce her opening gala feature, Your Sister's Sister. She seemed ecstatically happy to be there, hugging co-director Allison Gardner ahead of the screening. Then, after the usual…

Five reasons to go see . . . The GZA

The GZA of Wu Tang approaches the Arches

1 Feb 2012

He’s a genius The Genius, to be precise. GZA, aka The Genius, (Gary Grice to his mum) is a founding member of Wu Tang Clan, along with his cousin, producer The RZA, and gravelly-voiced rap heathen Ol’ Dirty Bastard (RIP). The Clan emerged out of New…

Azari & III - Azari & III

Credit due delivering a straightforward house music manifesto with compelling four-to-the-floor forc

1 Feb 2012

(Island) This self-titled debut is actually a major label re-release of an album that, until recently, was widely available as an import – including on Spotify. It’s getting a reboot in the UK in CD form (you remember CDs right?) though really the…

Vieux Farka Touré set for Celtic Connections 2012

Blues and country influence from son of legendary Malian guitar player

27 Jan 2012

Farka Touré. Where have you heard that name before? Vieux is the son of legendary Malian guitar player Ali Farka Touré, one of the true stars of the world music scene. Farka Touré senior passed away in 2006, but junior has picked up where he left off…

The high energy, high concept dance-rock of Justice is French through-and-through

To these new gods of French electronic music, we say Salut!

27 Jan 2012

The hair; the crotch-hugging denim; the ‘tude - everything about Justice’s demeanour screams metal. And with good reason. The band, comprising Xavier de Rosnay (monobrow, flaired nostrils) and Gaspard Augé (hair of Robert Plant, moustache of a Deep…

Preview of 2012 - The best events this year

Featuring the Cultural Olympiad, The Dark Knight Rises, WU LYF, Glasgow International and more

9 Jan 2012

It’s 2012, but fear not, things aren’t as bad as they seem. Before you decide to occupy government property, or smash a brick through Dixons, take heart in the folklore of a simpler age. For when times are black, you can always rely on the comfort of…

Edinburgh gets first IMAX screen

Cineworld Fountain Park to launch IMAX cinema with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

20 Dec 2011

Cineworld Fountain Park is to introduce Edinburgh's first IMAX screen from 21 December. The new cinema promises, 'ground-breaking, crystal clear digital projection, cutting edge audio technology and one of the largest screens around'. With 3D…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

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

16 Dec 2011

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…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 54: Summerhall venue offers something special

Festival debut marks beginning of major creative space in Edinburgh

16 Dec 2011

Before this August it seemed the Edinburgh Festival was already home to every sort of show and venue imaginable. So, when an entirely new major space sprang up, it was difficult to see what it might offer above the usual. On the programme at…

The Hot 100 2011 - No. 32: Remember Remember interview

Graeme Ronald’s complex compositions get the full-band treatment

16 Dec 2011

‘Steve Reich on acid,’ is how one List critic described Graeme Ronald’s second album as Remember Remember, released this year. True, it has Reich’s trademark repetition – albeit combined with melodies that could only be Scottish – but Ronald is unsure…

Django Django - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Thu 24 Nov

Infectious fun from band with no agenda other than having a good time

13 Dec 2011

Django Django’s music could be described as folk-rave, or math-beat, or perhaps contemporary hoedown. It’s hard to explain, really, why the combination of American West, Merseyside and East London rhythms should sound so good, meaning that, joyously…

It's Funtime - Edinburgh pub quiz that thinks it’s a 70s gameshow

The all-singing, all-dancing brilliantly twisted world of It's Funtime

18 Nov 2011

All across the country this coming Saturday night families will sit down in front of the TV to watch people be mocked and derided in the name of entertainment. They’ll gawp at the outrageous outfits worn by the mentally unstable on X Factor. They’ll boo…

The List Hot 100 Awards to honour the best and brightest in Scottish arts and culture

List Award and List Newcomer Award celebrate artistic achievement

16 Nov 2011

It’s stating the obvious to say that Scotland is full of great artists and performers. Our cultural stars dominate the Turner Prize every year, grab lead roles in Hollywood films, and write epoch-defining novels and poetry. We publish an annual Hot 100…

Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat - interview

Moffat and Middleton are set to team up again to celebrate Nice'n'Sleazy's 20th birthday

7 Nov 2011

The mid-90s Arab Strap song ‘I Saw You’ was inspired by The List’s lonely-hearts feature of the same name. Do you remember using I Saw You at that time? That I Saw You feature had just started, and it was quite exciting and cool. I did attempt to use…

The best Hogmanay holiday ideas

The best ways to bring in the New Year

28 Oct 2011

Get on the farm Forget Carry on Camping, the crew at Comrie Croft in Perthshire know how to do camping in style, with this eco-friendly farmstead conversion. Located in Crieff, surrounded by gorgeous vistas, bring in the bells around a campfire…

James Corden continues touring success of One Man, Two Guv'nors

National Theatre show treats audiences, but reveals craft behind magic

27 Oct 2011

One Man, Two Guv’nors is no longer a play that needs much of an introduction. It’s one of the most critically and commercially successful productions of the 21st century, now on tour from the National Theatre, and gathering more momentum, column inches…

Azari & III - Don't call them house revivalists

Toronto-based act favour Roland drum machines, crisp piano loops and emotional lyrics

21 Oct 2011

Is it too soon for a house music revival? That’s the question The List is mulling over ahead of speaking to self-proclaimed ‘house music aficionados’ Azari & III. The Toronto-based band, comprising producers Dinamo Azari and Alixander III and vocalists…

The Salon Project

An interesting stab at reviving the art of critical discussion, undermined by technology

21 Oct 2011

‘A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge.’ So says Wikipedia – the significant choice of source that The Salon Project uses to define…

Remember Remember, Miaoux Miaoux - Glasgow Science Centre, Sat 8 Oct 2011

Fantastic electronica double-bill in impressively apt surroundings

19 Oct 2011

It’s a simple enough idea. Two nights of live music (Saturday and Sunday) inside the Glasgow Science Centre planetarium, with the performances broken up by lectures from Simon, the centre’s laser pen-wielding resident stargazer. Simple but brilliant.

The Dø - Both Ways Open Jaws

Overly saccharine quirk-pop from the Finnish/French duo

12 Oct 2011

(Village Green) There’s so much charming naivety on The Dø’s second album it makes you feel nauseous. The French/Finnish boy/girl duo can write a catchy song but lack any kind of mettle, sounding like a summer school recording project, complete with…

Tim Key interview: the poet discusses Edinburgh, Alan Partridge and 'sexy baths'

Comedy Award winner brings his Masterslut show to the 2011 Fringe

21 Sep 2011

The List has just presented Tim Key with two pages of facts about himself. ‘This is a very good piece of research,’ he says, commending the 16-year-old work experience person who compiled them. ‘I didn’t get to do anything like this on work experience.

Photographer Elad Lassry to bring film Untitled (Ghost) to Tramway

Scottish appointment follows artistic recognition in Venice and Germany

21 Sep 2011

What does modern mean? Does it mean commerical, bright, and futuristic? Or is modernity simply something to do with how our view of the past changes over time? These aren’t new ideas to occupy the mind of an up-and-coming visual artist, but Elad…

Arcade Fire - The Castle, Edinburgh, Thu 1 Sep 2011

Band's enthusiasm helps suck in swirls of Edinburgh spookiness

16 Sep 2011

Any band gigging at Edinburgh Castle is going to feel a sense of occasion. Arcade Fire more so than most. Frontman Win Butler, his wife Régine Chassagne and the rest of the Montreal outfit are obsessed with the fragility of the modern world. Playing in…

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

David O’Doherty in very funny piece that risks becoming one-note in tone

30 Aug 2011

Rory Sheridan is a lovesick man, who inadvertently ends up on an Antarctic expedition to win his bride. Sheridan is no Scott or Shackleton, he complains too much for a start – about the penguins, about the cabbage he has to eat, about the farts that…

The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding

A cure for loneliness?

26 Aug 2011

This one-on-one hotel room experience is Adrian Howells’ attempt at total care for a single audience member. It starts with a warm bath filled with rose petals. I undress and step in. ‘It’s my honour to bathe you,’ Howells says, with no hint of…

The Drums - Portamento

Second helping of summery indie pop from the darlings of the hipster set

24 Aug 2011

(Island) On this, their second album, The Drums have made no effort to grow out of summery guitar riffs and meaningless lyrics full of innocent joy. In fact, these 12 sprightly indie-pop tracks are so similar, and so slight, that Portamento could be…

David O'Doherty is Looking Up

Immaculate content delivered with furious enthusiasm

19 Aug 2011

David O’Doherty used to work in a German sausage factory. This might sound like a crass comedy set-up, but it is in fact true. His role was to drive a giant Hoover designed to suck up the smashed, sausage-filled jars that tumbled off the conveyer belts.

May I Have the Pleasure . . . ?

Champagne, slow dancing and loneliness

19 Aug 2011

Adrian Howells is a warm and empathetic character and a captivating speaker. This helps to explain why he’s been picked to be a best man six times. However, in this one-man show he’s facing up to some cold facts. Like how, at 50 years old, he’s still…

The Pajama Men

Both brilliantly silly and brilliantly clever

19 Aug 2011

In The Middle of No One is one of the most inventive, thoughtful and well-performed comedy shows on the Fringe, a whisker away from five-star glory, let down only by a slight lack of energy on the night of the performance. This, however, is…

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place

Stand up for the left

19 Aug 2011

Josie Long is ready to rubbish a stock right-wing idea when a heckler interrupts. ‘Hear hear!’ the grumbler shouts back at the suggestion that a cleaner shouldn’t have to pay tax towards funding liberal arts degrees. Long looks shocked, uttering…

Futureproof

A fairly unshocking freak show

17 Aug 2011

In the world of the freak show there is, Lynda Radley’s play informs us, a hierarchy. At the top are the ‘reals’ – people like bearded lady Countess Marketa (Irene Macdougall), Siamese twins Lillie and Millie (Ashley Smith and Nicola Roy, mirroring each…

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Funny and heart-wrenching show on Disney films and painful break-ups

16 Aug 2011

There are two themes in Tuck’s show: straight to DVD Disney films and severely painful break-ups. The connection isn’t immediately apparent, but Tuck’s brave finale combines both strands with some genuinely dark humour, while simultaneously his stage…

Hotel Medea

A killer night out

15 Aug 2011

Spend a whole night in the company of a murderer. See her history retold, eat with her, dance with her, bathe and clothe her, listen to her problems, understand them if you possibly can, and, ultimately, be party to her gruesome crime. This is the…

The Horne Section

Toe-tapping jazz-and-comedy combo from Alex Horne and friends

15 Aug 2011

Imagine how much funnier you could be if you had your own backing band to play along to your jokes; sing back your best one-liners; hit drum fills after your punchlines... Such is the set-up that three top acts are treated to c/o Alex Horne’s ensemble.

Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall)

Following a dangerous tourist trail

12 Aug 2011

The problem with political comedy is that, in sharing a joke with a person simultaneously making a serious point, you can easily become confused about what it is you’re signing up for. Added to this, Mark Thomas has an enviable rhetorical tool at his…

Lounge Room Confabulators

Aussie troubadours paying home visits

11 Aug 2011

‘Hello! It’s the Lounge Room Confabulators.’ A voice chimes cheerily through the intercom. The Confabulators – a pair of bearded Australians in Del Monte suits who will be performing an hour-long storytelling show in my home – ascend the stairwell…

John Peel’s Shed

Intimate musings on the joy of radio

8 Aug 2011

In 2002 author John Osborne won a competition to write the best two-sentence description of John Peel’s radio show and win a box of the DJ’s records. ‘Songs you want to hear. Played by a man who wants you to hear them.’ earned Osborne the prize, and he…

Somewhere Beneath It All, A Small Fire Burns Still

Monologue that’s less than straightforward

8 Aug 2011

'This is true.’ Comedian Phil Nichol implores you to believe in his story midway through this experimental monologue, seemingly trying to inject a moment of clarity into a deliberately fractured and confusing play from Royal Court young writer Dave…

Nathan Dean Williams

Twisted pick ‘n’ mix

8 Aug 2011

A clown accidentally sending a child into anaphylactic shock. A bullied teacher forcing chocolate cake into the mouth of a sex doll he calls ‘mummy’. A put-upon husband dressing up like Velma from Scooby Doo to meet the demands of his dominatrix wife.

Doris Day Can Fuck Off - Greg McLaren interview

2011 Edinburgh Festival show based on singing to strangers

26 Jul 2011

It’s a sunny Saturday in Stoke Newington, North London, and I’m competing in my very first ‘allotment Olympics’. Specifically, a shot putt event that swaps the usual metal balls for hefty, organic potatoes. The games have been organised by Stoke…

Lounge Room Confabulators perform 2011 Fringe show in your home

Edinburgh Festival Fringe duo bring their cabaret show to your house

20 Jul 2011

Lounge Room Confabulators have hit on a wonderful idea in performing their show only in punters’ homes. List editor Jonny Ensall invites them to appraise his flat as a performance space

Review - T in the Park, Balado, Sunday 10 July

Glorious Pulp, heavy rain and hard electronic madness

20 Jul 2011

I was duly punished for arriving late to T in the Park this year by a brief, but torrential shower, hitting at about 3pm on the Sunday. A quick meteorological experiment to measure the level of rain in my wellies revealed that it had just ‘pissed down’.

The Horrors - Skying

Some highlights here, but ubiquitous retro pop nonsense blunts their edge

13 Jul 2011

(XL) Did someone replace the light bulbs in The Horrors’ recording studio? Have they started taking multi-vitamins? Something uplifting has happened to what was previously Britain’s blackest band. And, unfortunately, it’s blunted their edge. The…

The shocking, rude and offensive highlights of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe

The controversial shows of Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 2011

If boundary-pushing comedy is your thing, or if you just like smutty jokes, you’ll no doubt find a suitably impolite act at the Fringe. Jonny Ensall ranks 2011’s controversial shows by their level of offensiveness

Metronomy - Joe Mount interview

Metronomy hit paydirt in 2011 with a perfect summer album

28 Jun 2011

As if to prove a point about Metronomy’s newfound popularity, the first time The List tries to ring front man Joe Mount for a chat he’s engaged. ‘Sorry, did you just try and get through a second ago?’ he apologises, when the phone connects. ‘The…

RockNess - Dores, Loch Ness, Fri 10-Sun 12 Jun 2011

Something-for-everyone and friendly, if intense, atmosphere

21 Jun 2011

At first glance, the RockNess 2011 line-up looked a little schizophrenic. Acts were mainly pulled from the distant camps of Scots indie rock (Glasvegas, Paolo Nutini, Frightened Rabbit), and pioneering electronica (Jamie xx, Chemical Brothers, Groove…

Song wishlist for T in the Park 2011

Request a specific track from your favourite T in the Park band

31 May 2011

Will you be a mardy bum if Arctic Monkeys don't play 'Mardy Bum'? We're creating a wishlist of songs that we want to hear bands play at T in the Park, and we're inviting readers to contribute. If you're desperate to hear your favourite track played by…

Domino Records host Edinburgh International Film Festival event

Event aims to showcase effective combination of music and film

27 May 2011

A good advert can, sometimes, sell more than jeans, or alcohol, or cars. Think of the 1999 number one song, 'Flat Beat', which gained enormous popularity after a puppet called Flat Eric danced to it in a Levi’s advert. Levi’s shifted their jeans, the…

EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Reel Science

Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands

27 May 2011

Oi! Get Your Grubby Hands out of My Brain A film-initiated debate about the growing commercial application of neuro-imaging, epigenetics and other futuristically-named brain technologies. Do you really want to know if you are going to pass on madness…

Sounds of the Summer 2011 Spotify Playlist

The best summer listening, as chosen by List music critics

25 May 2011

The List: Sounds of the Summer Playlist 2011 You've bought your sausages, you've scrubbed your charred old BBQ back to shiny, chrome perfection, and you've invited your most lithe and beautiful friends around to your back garden. Everything's in…

Kronos Quartet's David Harrington on Glasgow concerts – full interview transcript

Ensemble's artistic director on curating a mini-festival

28 Apr 2011

The List: Could you tell me first of all when it was that you decided to put together this programme and how long you’ve been working on it? David Harrington: You know it seems to me we’ve been thinking about this for at least a year, probably more.

Wild Beasts - Smother

Hayden Thorpe and co deliver sleazily brilliant third album

20 Apr 2011

(Domino) Having covered back alley frottaging and the pleasures of ‘girls from Whitby’ on their 2009 release Two Dancers, the four-piece from Kendal have peeled back the net curtains even further for Smother, casting a pale light on the kinks of…

Panda Bear - Tomboy

Woozy submarine pop from Animal Collectivist Noah Lennox

21 Mar 2011

(Paw Tracks) Noah Lennox, aka Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, has been a major influence on the rise of music that sounds like it’s been made in a bathtub, and Tomboy has some more standout examples of the woozy, filtered indie pop that he’s helped…

Holy Ghost! - Holy Ghost

New York disco revivalists fail to make any significant advances with the genre

21 Mar 2011

(DFA) In March this year NY duo Holy Ghost supported Australian electropop heroes Cut Copy at the Arches. This debut album also comes in the wake of the excellent recent Cut Copy record, and does little to advance on the Aussies’ good practices.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Another quiet gem from a band you couldn’t pick apart, and wouldn’t want to

1 Mar 2011

(XL) It’s hard to isolate The King of Limbs from its context, especially when Radiohead do something like produce it as a ‘newspaper album’ – the £30 version comes wrapped in ‘many large sheets of artwork’ that embrace the distortions of packaging…

Busy P & DJ Mehdi - Let The Children Techno

Compilation haemorrhages label Ed Banger’s 00s cool points with hasty mixes

1 Mar 2011

(Ed Banger) This new compilation haemorrhages many of Parisian label Ed Banger’s 00s cool points with its hasty mixes (courtesy of Busy P and DJ Mehdi), cheesy raps and hackneyed futurist skits. Many of the songs from the label’s stalwarts…

No Wave filmmaker Vivienne Dick on 1970s New York - interview

The influential filmmaker behind She Had Her Gun All Ready reminisces

18 Feb 2011

List: Could you tell us a bit about when you started making your early films like She Had Her Gun All Ready and the scene at the time? VD: Well, it was editing and everything at home where I was living on the Lower East Side and I didn't think when I…

The Glasgow Short Film Festival sheds light on influential area of US cinema

Focus on No Wave DIY ethos of 1970s and 80s New York

17 Feb 2011

A look at the Glasgow Short Film Festival's No Wave strand, featuring Vivienne Dick's Lydia Lunch-starring She Had Her Gun All Ready.

Trembling Bells, Rachel Sermanni and John Grant among Celtic Connections highlights

Mavis Staples and Tribute to Bob Dylan also on diverse programme

23 Dec 2010

Chicago’s music scene is the first stop in this very international round up, specifically the music of distinguished gospel and soul singer Mavis Staples. In the 60s Staples released a string of hits on the Stax-affiliated Valt label. Last year, aged…

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

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

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.

Arcade Fire - unlikely contenders for one of the world’s biggest bands

The Suburbs cements solid indie rock credentials without compromising bleak vision

30 Nov 2010

Arcade Fire are, on the surface of it, unlikely contenders to be one of the world’s biggest bands. Thirty-year-old singer-songwriter Win Butler, his wife Régine Chassagne and the rest of the Montreal eight-piece produce songs of spiritual yearning and…

Crystal Castles embark on UK tour

The 8-bit punks are back, but just who are Alice Glass and Ethan Kath?

6 Oct 2010

Crystal Castles are notoriously hard to pin down. They rarely do interviews, and when they do, they make those interviews difficult. Over half a decade of grumpiness, reticence and insouciance they’ve done little to promote their own work in the…

Robyn set for UK tour to promote Body Talk series

Swedish pop genius - Robyn interview

10 Sep 2010

Remember that song? The one that went, ‘Show me love. Show me life. Baby show me what it’s all about.’ Yep? Well that was Robyn, back in 1997. And the track, ‘Show Me Love’ was a worldwide supersmash that reached number eight in the UK. And now…

Rich Fulcher

Smutty drag act comes on a little strong

24 Aug 2010

‘A woman with tits’ is how Rich Fulcher introduces his current favourite character creation, Eleanor (The Tour Whore). Spotted first in season three of The Mighty Boosh, this dusky, seductive lady has been recast as a sordid super-groupie, happy to take…

I, Claudia,

23 Aug 2010

Writer-performer Kristen Thomson swaps between eerily shapeless masks to deliver monologues from a precocious 12-year-old girl hiding from the fallout of her parents’ divorce, her stepmother Lesley and the wise Eastern European school janitor. Initially…

Twonkey’s Cottage

Just plain silly

22 Aug 2010

There’s a lot to love about Paul Vickers and his not-for-kids, kids show. Ambling onstage at midday he launches into the story of Twonkey, a small, limp character perched onstage in front of a model cottage, whose love for acid house he indicates with…

It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later

Achingly beautiful stories from a normal bloke

19 Aug 2010

Daniel Kitson is a prodigiously talented comedian and storyteller. He’s also a normal guy. He announces himself normally, strolling onto the stage and thanking his audience for coming to such an early show (10am). He says he’s going to tell two stories…

Jimmy McGhie

A set of simple but funny observations

16 Aug 2010

The consumer perversions of iPhone owning, Tesco Metro shopping, gap-year funding middle-class twonks form the meat of McGhie’s show, and if you are such a twonk then you’ll enjoy laughing at your own foibles. Zaire despot Joseph Mobutu features as the…

Luke Toulson

Plenty of bonhomie, but not much els

16 Aug 2010

A sweet show from a decent bloke who’s recently kicked a drink habit features riffs on the perils of bad parenting (in reality, he’s probably a great dad), first dates and teaching geography. There’s not a lot more than good vibes to keep tepid material…

Dr Brown Because

Physical comedy for willing idiots

15 Aug 2010

Watching Dr Brown provides a good opportunity to test the theory that taste moves in circles. Or more specifically that something can become so stupid it will eventually plop back into the realm of bizarre genius. It’s a difficult call to make, but this…

Hudson Mohawke, The Blessings and American Men lined up to play Cab Vol

LuckyMe’s festival party, in association with The List

12 Aug 2010

LuckyMe are at it again. The taste-making record label and artists collective have lined up an exceptional bill for their third annual festival party, launched in association with The List. Warp Records’ electronic wunderkind Hudson Mohawke is topping a…

Jack Whitehall

Lacking real substance

11 Aug 2010

Having Robert Pattinson as a classmate has left Jack Whitehall with a chip on his shoulder, though you don’t feel the 22-year-old comic has real enthusiasm for bashing the Twilight star. Similarly, with jokes on swimming lessons and the vagaries of…

Paul Sinha - Extreme Anti-White Vitriol

Handling some hot political spuds

9 Aug 2010

This year Paul Sinha walks the tightrope of political comedy, and just about manages to keep his balance. There are enough outright jokes in this show to keep a bog-standard comedy club audience entertained, but they’re liberally spaced through a set…

Rich Fulcher - From Mighty Boosh to Edinburgh Fringe's greatest groupie

Mighty Boosh star tells the whore truth with 'groupie school' show

16 Jul 2010

Squeezing out of the extra tight safari suit that made him a cult star with The Mighty Boosh, Rich Fulcher is throwing on some slinkier threads to morph into super-groupie Eleanor. Jonny Ensall wonders just how low he/she will go

T in the Park 2010: Dirty Projectors, Hot Chip and Kele

T in the Park blog

11 Jul 2010

Sat 10th Jul Hi folks. Your T in the Park blogging correspondent this morning will be Jonny, recovering from an excellent Friday at the festival and ready to recap on the best bands so far. Starting off, it was a storming set from New York’s…

T in the Park 2010: Spotify Playlist

16 Jun 2010

So you’re at T in the Park. There are bands everywhere … everywhere! The important thing is not to panic. You won’t be able to see them all. Jonny Ensall suggests merely that you arrive at the right stages in time to catch the following songs

Betrayed

14 May 2010

There’s little that’s cut and dried about the Iraq war, and current attempts to explain and attribute blame for its follies – Paul Greengrass’ movie Green Zone for example – often choose to overlook the stickier parts of the mess. George Packer’s…

Calculating the emissions cost

The Editor's green blog

29 Apr 2010

After two weeks it’s time to do the sums and put the stamp of factual authority onto my green project. The CO2 emissions calculator on the government’s Direct Gov website (carboncalculator.direct.gov.uk) tells me that, prior to my eco-conversion, I had…

Growing your own veg not just for the green-fingered

The Editor's green blog

21 Apr 2010

It's weekend catch-up time on the Green Blog, and yes, it did get dirty over the last few days. On Saturday I wandered, blinking, into the sunlight of my back-yard to see what I might be able to cultivate for myself. I was pleased to find that I…

Booze-free, bus-free, bottle-free green living

The Editor's green blog

16 Apr 2010

Going green is a process in stages. I am currently still just starting out in my efforts to be a more planet-conscious human, though my first steps are significant ones. The most significant of which are the steps I now take to my work instead of…

Growing pains: Guerilla gardening in Glasgow

15 Apr 2010

Glasgow’s Guerrilla Gardening campaign is currently transforming the Townhead area of the city centre with seed and bulb-bombing tactics. Their cause resonates with a lot of green-fingered but flat-bound gardeners, desperate to make the most out of any…

Convection heater first casualty of war on waste

The Editor's green Blog

15 Apr 2010

The List’s editor, Jonny Ensall, ditches bad habits in favour of a fortnight of green living. I am not the Earth’s best friend. If I’m honest, we rarely see eye-to-eye. My side of our relationship is based around a lot of taking and not much giving.

The Glass Menagerie

15 Apr 2010

The Glass Menagerie opens with an address from Tennessee Williams, masquerading as the play’s central character, Tom Wingfield. ‘I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion,’ he says, an idea that Shared Experience’s touring production has…

The best places to eat breakfast in Glasgow and Edinburgh

We select the best cafes for the most important meal of the day

22 Mar 2010

What did you have for breakfast this morning? A thin slice of processed white toast, smattered with vegetable oil-laced spreadable butter? A dry cereal bar, full of shrivelled fruit and bound together with sugary glue? Worst still, a Sausage and Egg…

Four Tet

The Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Sun Mar 14 2010

22 Mar 2010

Things have gone well for Mr Tet (aka Kieran Hebden) this decade. Having started out as an acoustic guitar-loving ‘folktronica’ talent, he’s progressed through mix albums and collaborations to end up somewhere more grounded on latest album, There Is…

Grizzly Bear

Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Mar 2010

22 Mar 2010

It's a rare experience when a gig leaves you feeling blissfully subdued and, even, pleasingly sleepy. Though usually I'd take it as a bad sign, the wave of lethargy that passed over me as Grizzly Bear rounded out the final vocal harmonies of their one…

Yeasayer

2 Mar 2010

The New York oddballs were greeted with some exceptional Weegie banter at Oran Mor. ‘Ira, Ira, where’s your ‘tache?’ the crowd chanted at bassist Ira Wolf Tuton, referring to the long black hair and Gaucho moustache he recently ditched in favour of a…

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

17 Feb 2010

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…

Backbeat - Stuart Sutcliffe story comes to Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow

And the beat goes on

3 Feb 2010

This season’s major show at the Citizens Theatre is more than just a Beatles biopic. Writer/director Iain Softley explains why to Jonny Ensall

Bombay Bicycle Club, The Maccabees, The Big Pink and The Drums set for Shockwaves NME Awards Tour Glasgow date

3 Feb 2010

The latest NME tour brings another collection of bands – Bombay Bicycle Club, The Maccabees, The Big Pink and The Drums – looking to put a modern twist on familiar sounds. With sharp, noisy guitars and quivering vocals all round, the tour harks back to…