Month: January 2011

Gig Review: Twin Shadow

Standard

Twin Shadow

The Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
27th January 2011
Review by Stephen Donkin
Sometimes a single song can remind why you spend so much time hunting around the interwebs for new tunes, and drop all your available cash on importing 7” records from Canada, and suffer the dodgy looks from your boss as you slope off early to go to another midweek gig on the other side of the country. The opening song of Twin Shadow’s set at the Captain’s Rest on Thursday was one such song.
On record, Shooting Holes In The Moon is a sleek, wiry little pop song bathed in soft eighties synths a bit of funky bass, and mournful vocals singing a gorgeously nonchalant melody. Live, it was absolutely transformed into something altogether more muscular, loud, fast and…heavy. The tiny sweaty walls of the room were at bursting point, full with people expecting a bit of a bop, a wee singalong and to hear some songs of one of the best albums of the past couple of
months. What they got was an absolute tour-de-force in how to translate your record for live performance.
There was always a bit of suspicion about Twin Shadow, which is essentially one man, George Lewis Jr, that their popularity is as much a product of a massively popular man, who happens to be a great songwriter, than it is a result of a great songwriter becoming popular. However, the humility was written all over his face as he received a rapturous applause after every song from a clearly adoring audience. It became a bit of a love-in to be honest, with George reiterating at
every opportunity what a great gig it was, and the crowd reciprocating with gushing shout-outs.
Of course, there was more to the set than just the first song, as excellent as it was. The rest of the gig played out like a mini greatest hits set, with Castles in the Snow, Forget and Slow superseding their recorded versions in much the same as Shooting Holes in the Moon did. So let it be a lesson to all those bands out there who are obsessed with replicating every detail from their recordings: sometimes the song is just enough. And if it’s not, well….draw your own conclusion.
Twin Shadow: Website
This was a guest post by Stephen Donkin. Stephen is a member of Birdhead, who release an EP, Talons, soon. Thanks Stephen!

This Week’s Gigs: 31st January - 6th February

Standard

Gig guide time, with a bare minimum of chatter from me.

Monday:
Redwings, Now Wakes The Sea, Ryan Joseph Burns. The Captain’s Rest. (Tickets)
Redwings feature The Seventeenth Century’s Andrew Truscott, Now Wakes the Sea featured here during our Christmas songs, and Ryan Joseph Burns, also of The Seventeenth Century, is just plain fab. Good way to spend a Monday night.
Wednesday:
So Many Animal Calls, Toy Fires, The Lonely Boy. The Buff Club
Lovers Turn To Monsters, Matt Norris and the Moon. Bloc, free entry.
Thursday:
Friction Burns - The Alternative Burns Supper. Pivo Pivo, £5.
Swing by Facebook for all the details on this one, as the list of people taking part is a lengthy one!
Friday:
Azure Ray, Beerjacket, Quickbeam. King Tut’s. (Tickets)
Wooden Wand, Adam Stafford, Kill The Waves. Nice n Sleazy. (Tickets)
Saturday:
Miniature Dinosaurs, Cancel the Astronauts, Any Color Black, Endor (Acoustic). Stereo.
Launch night for the new Miniature Dinosaurs EP, and they’ve assembled a pretty ace line-up for it.
Another launch night, this time for Zoey Van Goey’s second album. Support comes from Malcolm Middleton’s new thing, Human Don’t Be Angry.

Aye Tunes Joins The Revolution

Standard

Pop Goes The Revolution that is.

Yesterday I was invited along to take part in what was dubbed The Blogger Battle for Pop Goes The Revolution, along with our pals from Song, by Toad, Peenko, Halina from Glasgow Podcart and The Pop Cop. We picked four songs each, and chattered a bit about them and why we picked them.
You can listen to the results here, so if you’ve ever wondered just how ineloquent I am, now you can find out.
My song choices were:
Loch Awe - The Ocean In Me
Kid Canaveral - Couldn’t Dance
Mondegreen - Yesterday-Minded
The Last Battle - Nature’s Glorious Rage
In other news, I’m still looking for some guest posters to help me get caught up with a few things, and the regular Sunday gig guide will probably be late this week as I’m off to help a pal move house this weekend.

Be My Guest (Poster)

Standard

So, the phrase “I don’t have time” is starting to sneak back into my vocabulary more than I’d like. I’m likely to have a lot more time to mess about and do blog stuff soon, but for the next week or two I might struggle to get a lot of new posts up, especially since the review pile is already starting to grow and is a priority to get on top of, leaving other things to fall behind.

This means I’m looking for a wee bit of help in the form of you, dear reader. There’s no money in it, nor any glory. No, wait, come back…
Anyway, short version, I’m looking for a few guest posts to run on the site. Rather than me not have time to finish anything and go a week with little but the gig guide appearing I’d like to be able to plug in a guest post rather than no new content.
I’m not really looking for anything in particular. Pick five of your favourite songs at the moment and tell the World (well, the tiny portion of it that reads Aye Tunes) why these songs are awesome. If you are a band it could be a wee piece about yourself, without waiting for me to get round to asking you questions. It could be something about a band you, band members or the general public, like.
Been to a good gig recently? I’ll publish your review if you like.
It could even be something about a band you hate, so long as it in constructive and doesn’t get me sued or battered.
The people that pop up occasionally to tell me how much the blog sucks, my music taste is awful, or how I’m just generally a terrible person are welcome to write a piece saying these things again, if they can explain them. Be warned though, it won’t be published anonymously.
One thing I’m not really after though is record reviews, I’ve got quite a few of them to deal with on my own.
Now, you may be wondering why writing a guest blog for me would be any good for you, considering I’ve already mentioned there’s no money or anything in it. The answer is, basically, it probably won’t be. If you are are a blogger you’d be as well running the article on your own site. No benefit to anyone but me then, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?
Anything I’m sent will be run, of course, with full credit to whoever wrote it (this means no anonymous hatchet jobs please), including links back to you and so on if you have your own site.
Oh, and if you are in Glasgow I promise I’ll get you a couple of drinks at some point.
Anyone interested send me a wee email at [email protected] telling me who you are (assuming we don’t know each other already) and what you want to do, or with something already written, and I’ll get back to you super quick, I promise.
Cheers!

Playlist: Aye Tunes Presents

Standard

This was meant to have been a series of posts between Christmas and New Year, of my favourite songs of 2010 but it never quite worked out.

Anyway, for the Aye Tunes Presents gig just passed I whittled down the number of tracks from around 100 and knocked up a few CDs to dish out in exchange for a donation to charity. I didn’t quite have time to supply a tracklist with the CDs though, so I promised everyone that picked one up I’d put the tracklist online.

For those of you that didn’t come, or didn’t pick up a rubbishy wee CDr (I have have some left, if anyone really wants one) I’ll go better and stick up the songs too. Some are downloadable, others are just streaming, since I’ve violated copyright quite enough in the first place and don’t want a kicking.
Since this will be pretty music embed heavy I’ll stick in a cut here, so if you are reading the post of the main page click here for the rest of the post.

You Already Know - Let’s Fuck

Mondegreen - Yesterday-Minded

Adam Stafford - Shot Down You Summer Wannabees

Fear The Fives - Devil’s Tongue Buy Fear the Fives EP from iTunes

King Post Kitsch - Walking On Eggshells

Haftor Medboe Group - As Time Spirals Backwards (Buy A Box of Monkeys from iTunes)
Lamplighter - Angelspark (Buy from Antimatter Records)

Cancel The Astronauts - She Said She Loves Somebody Else

Mammoeth - LapDog

We See Lights - Parachute

The Japanese War Effort - Summer Sun Skateboard

Beldina O - Chariots


Loch Awe - Awe

Come on Gang! - Fortune Favours The Brave

dems - Lioness

PAWS - Violent Vicky Violet (Free Download)

French Wives - Me Vs Me (Buy Me vs. Me single from iTunes)

Miaoux Miaoux - Snow

Over The Wall - Thurso (Found In Sound/Fresh Air Session)

This Week’s Gigs: 24th - 30th January

Standard

Hello, how are we all? I’m bloody knackered, I’m getting too old to drink all weekend.

What a weekend it has been though, kicking off with my first solo gig venture on Friday, then the liver damaging Barmellodie gig afterwards, followed up with the Chem19 Showcase at The Captain’s Rest on Saturday and rounded off with the launch of Cargo Crate at The Arches on Sunday. I’d quite like to crawl under a rock for a few days to recover, but sadly I have no such luck.
There is, as usual, plenty to do this week, so let’s get on with seeing what’s on.
Tuesday:
Super Adventure Club, PAWS, Hagana, Rollor. 13th Note.
Rescheduled after adverse weather caused it to be cancelled back at the start of December. We were looking forward to it then, we still are now.
Wednesday:
Glasgow City Scoundrels: Madskull, The Girobabies, The Unstoppable Flying Raincoats, Ghosts of Progress, Portraits. Stereo, £5.
Glasgow City Scoundrels is a new night, with the kind of ethos I can get right behind - promoted by bands, with more focus on having fun than making money. Good luck to them.
Thursday:
Mogwai. Paisley Town Hall.
Oh, yes. To say I’m looking forward to this one would be an understatement.
Friday:
Pin Up Nights - Pirates! The Flying Duck.
The last Friday of the month wouldn’t be the same without the most fun club in Glasgow, would it? Along with the usual fun and frolics you expect from the Pin Ups crew there’s the standard good selection of bands playing too. This month’s live line-up are Ace City Racers, The Plimptons and Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers.
Allo Darlin’, The Orchids. Captain’s Rest
Single launch for Fiction Faction’s “Apparitions”, the video for which we featured the other week.
Saturday:
Miss The Occupier, Transmanta, Roscoe Vacant. The 13th Note.
There Will be Fireworks, Bear Bones, Galleries. The Captain’s Rest.
First gigs in a while from both Miss The Occupier and There Will Be Fireworks. If you can somehow split yourself in two and attend both then do that, and let me know how you do it.

Last Reminder: Aye Tunes Presents

Standard

By now you are probably sick to death of me mentioning this, so you’ll be glad to hear that the first Aye Tunes Presents gig takes place tonight, so I’ll soon shut up about it.

If you’ve somehow missed the details, then playing tonight live in Stereo are Boygirlanimalcolour, Kochka and Trapped Mice. There’s a free sampler of the bands here.
Doors open at 7pm, entry is £5. If you hurry you can stil get a £3 ticket online, but I’ll be taking those down soon.
The first twenty or so people through the door will also get free biscuits, so come along at the start of the night if biscuits are something you enjoy.
I’ve also made up a small bunch of copyright violating CDs for the evening, one of which is yours in return for a donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care. I’ll be collecting for the charity tonight, so bring some spare change.
Please come along, and say hello.
I’ll now be quiet.

This Week’s Gigs: 17th - 23rd January

Standard

No prizes for guessing the main focus of this week’s gig guide… It is a reasonably quiet week for a change, which is good for me.

Monday:
Graeme Ronald (Remember Remember). Mono. Free.
Tuesday:
Glasgow Slow Club: Miaoux Miaoux, Matthew Scott. Bloc. Free.
Friday:
Aye Tunes Presents #1: Boygirlanimalcolour, Kochka, Trapped Mice. Stereo. £3/£5
I’m putting on a gig, have I mentioned it already? Tickets are £3 in advance, available from me here, or from the bands. There’s a free sampler of the three bands available to download here too. Doors are at the early time of 7pm, so swing by early if you can. To encourage early attendance there will be free biscuits on the go for the first 20 or so people that turn up, and maybe other wee surprises too.
Barmellodie: Le Reno Amps, The Douglas Firs, Battery Face. Bloc. Free before Midnight.
Kicking off around 11pm, so you can come to Aye Tunes Presents first, you can find out more here. I’ll be there, probably horrendously drunk.
Saturday:
Chem19 Studios Showcase: So Many Animal Calls, Dear Mountaineer, Little Fire, The Young Spooks, Pinky Suavo. Captain’s Rest. £2 Advance
I don’t think I’m spilling any great secrets if I say that I’d asked So Many Animal Calls to play on Friday, but we had to scrap that plan due to this gig. Go see them here instead then. Dear Mountaineer are also very promising, and the small bit of Little Fire I’ve heard sounds good too though I don’t know a lot about the others.
The Ides of Toad: The Scottish Enlightenment, Johnny Reb, Morris Major. The Wee Red Bar. (Tickets)
Since me and Armellodie going and putting on our own gigs isn’t quite enough multi tasking for one week Song, by Toad are getting in on the act too, with the first of the Ides of Toad series of gigs. As you’d expect the line-up is a good one.
The Lowly Knights, We See Lights, Micah Vincent. The Lot, Edinburgh.
Sunday:
The Lowly Knights, We See Lights, Micah Vincent. Nice N Sleazy.
Cargo Crate Launch. The Arches, 3pm.
Not a gig really, but our pals at Cargo Publishing get a mention any time they have something on. This is the Glasgow launch of Cargo Crate, Scotland’s first ebook/print on demand imprint. Visit the Facebook page for all the info.

BARmellodie

Standard

Normally when there’s another gig on the same night I’m promoting one the blog turns a bit of a blind eye to it. No sense in gibing the competition free promotion after all, is there?
Sometimes we make an exception though, like for next Friday’s first BARmellodie gig.
Not content with putting out some of our favourite singles and albums of recent years from the likes of Cuddly Shark, Super Adventure Club, Thirty Pounds of Bone and The Scottish Enlightenment, Armellodie Records are taking over Bar Bloc on the third Friday of every month for a six month resident.
The gigs will showcase bands from the Armellodie roster along with other special guests. They’ve also roped in some local blogger types to play some records alongside the ArmelloDJs till the small hours.
The first BARmellodie gig takes place on Friday 21st of January. Entry is free before Midnight, £2 after. The bands don’t start until around 11pm, while my Aye Tunes Presents gig at Stereo will be kicking out at around 10:30pm, so why not go to both and make both myself and the Armellodie crew very happy people?
Playing at the first gig are:
Guest DJ: Phil Elba (Elba Sessions)
BARmellodie #2 follows on February 18th, with The Scottish Enlightenment, Thirty Pounds of Bone and Randolph’s Leap playing live, and Halina of Glasgow Podcart on DJ duties.
For more info on Armellodie and to buy the records they release visit the website.

Look, It Moves!

Standard

Looking through my inbox I’ve been sent quite a few videos recently.

Rather than leave them all in there, all sad and lonely and ignored, here’s the first of a probably irregular round up of some of them.

The Son(s) - Radar
Serious favourites round these parts, and of quite a few of the other blogs too, The Son(s) release the fan-flipping-tastic single Radar on January 17th through Eli and Oz. An album follows in March, but more on that nearer the time.
Aaron Wright - Trampoline
Aaron Wright has announced a load of tour dates for the rest of January which you can find by visiting the link above the video, and will be releasing Trampolines as a single on February 21st.
Cities and Skylines - Holes in the Snow
Cities and Skylines launch this single with a gig in Bloc on Thursday (13th January). The single is available from iTunes now.
Blinding Sunlight - Let’s Just Sit Around
Blinding Sunlight’s Particles albums was one of my favourite impulse purchases of last year. Me being me despite loving the album and playing it to death I’ve completely forgotten to mention them on the blog so far. So here’s a look at a video they made with Glasgow based film maker Mark Davitt.
Fiction Faction - Apparitions
Fiction Faction release Apparitions as a single through 17 Seconds Records on January 31st.
Polly and the Billet Doux - Follow My Feet
Finally, stepping out of Scotland for a minute because I like the band, here’s a live version of Polly and the Billet Doux’s upcoming single Follow My Feet, set for release on February 21st.