Music
That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Best Band Of My Generation: The Twilight Sad, ABC, 02/04/10
- 08 Apr 10
Live Music
Something about tonight feels epochal.
The Twilight Sad has firmly established itself as the greatest Scottish band of its time, the best to emerge since the late '90s boom that produced Belle and Sebastian and Chemikal Underground's early roster: Mogwai, The Delgados, Arab Strap. If its 2009 sophomore album, Forget The Night Ahead, doesn't quite match its 2007 debut, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, it's only because the latter is arguably the finest album of the past decade, Scottish, debut or otherwise, and to say that it remains the band's finest hour is to say that Radiohead has never really topped Kid A, or that Sonic Youth has never really topped Daydream Nation. The band is the figurehead of a revitalised Scottish indie scene, many of whom are present at tonight's gig, most notably label-mates and frequent tour-mates Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks, and tonight, it's playing to a bigger audience than it ever has before.
Robot Rock - Japandroids
- 16 Feb 10
Live Music
We don't usually preview upcoming gigs, because we're not in the habit of regurgitating PR pieces for bands that generally don't need it. When you get down to it, what can a preview really say? It can't talk about the gig itself, because that hasn't happened yet. It can't just be an interview with a band member, because interviews are their own thing. It can't just review the album, because a band's live show is by its very nature something entirely different. So for a preview to be of any use whatsoever, it has to carry the weight of a recommendation from a trustworthy friend. It has to make you want to get out of your seat and go buy a ticket. It has to convince you that this band, more than any other band playing in any given town on any given night, is worth your time and your money, and the only way for it to do that is if its writer is willing to get shamelessly personal about how much this band means to him or her. For now, Japandroids is that band and I'm that writer. Things might be about to get weird.
Hydro Connect Festival 2008 - A Review
- 27 Oct 08
Live Music
John D, founder of Glasgow's own indie-tacular Pin-Ups Night, reports on his adventures at the Hydro Connect Festival 2008 in the company of Butcher Cassidy.
Instant Epiphanies: of Dennis Wilson, The Beach Boys and 'Pacific Ocean Blue'
- 18 Jun 08
Album Reviews
Three years ago, I paid the most money I've ever spent on a single gig ticket - £50, give or take - to see an insecure sixty-something with a history of mental illness play a ninety minute set of his decades-old back-catalogue, backed by a shiny young group trying to replicate exactly the sound he created almost half a century previous with his long-departed cohorts. Against all odds, it remains one of the most life-affirming nights I've ever had; probably because the insecure sixty-something with a history of mental illness was Brian Wilson, the decades-old back-catalogue was The Beach Boys' greatest hits, the shiny young group were the same musicians he'd used to finally complete his long-abandoned masterpiece SMiLE to stunning effect, the long-departed cohorts were either dead (his brothers Dennis and Carl) or such insufferable pricks that I'd gladly have paid another £50 to keep them away for the night (Al Jardine and, particularly, the reprehensible Mike Love) and, above all else, because Brian Wilson is now and ever will be an indisputable fucking genius.
The Gizeh Records Interview Extravaganza Part One - Her Name Is Calla
- 17 Jun 08
Music Interviews
Glissando, in Glasgow’s Bar Bloc at the end of May. Ward replied, saying he wasn’t even sure what he was doing at the end of March never mind the end of May, but he would try to make it along. Being an enterprising sort, and excited by the chance to do some actual proper music editor stuff free of the constraints of major-label PR types, he also mentioned his position at this august rag, and said that Gizeh should feel free to add Brazen to its mailing list.