What's Happening This Week?

My list of things to listen to keeps getting longer despite my attempts to stay on top of it, so why not fall a little further behind by taking a break to run through a few things happening this week? If nothing else it'll save me from messing about with templates any more, I've already broke the blog 3 times today.

Cassidy and Roddy Hart both have singles out. As do French Wives, which I reviewed last week. Those French Wives songs are still wedged in my head incidentally, I've found myself humming Halloween on countless occasions over the last few days. The band were also in good form when I caught them in Bloc last week. It was a shame about the pain in the arse drunk bloke that caused quite a few people to leave early though. I'm a non violent kind of guy, but that twat deserved a sound thrashing.

Luke Haines - who isn't at all Scottish, but is a big favourite of mine - has a new album out today.

eagleowl have sold out of physical copies of their debut EP, so they've made it available for download on one of those pay what you want, even nothing type deals. I've not yet had a listen to this, but they are on Song, by Toad so chances are high that it'll be good.

Staying with the freebies, The Mill have added some songs by The Darien Venture gig that I was at a few weeks ago.

In case you haven't heard, there's a pair of good gigs coming up this weekend which I'll be attending. Say hi if you see me (if you want to know what I look like, which admittedly helps when saying hi to strangers, there's a photo on my neglected and rubbish MySpace. No laughing!), drink offers are also welcome.

Also on the gig front, the Stirling and Glasgow dates of Frightened Rabbit's Scottish tour have sold out, leaving me ticketless...

No doubt there's a bunch of other records out this week, there's certainly other gigs on, but I can't cover everything, can I? Better people than me run gig guides, so I'm sure you can find something to keep you occupied. You can always leave a comment if there's something you want to plug.

As always if you want to help make that list of things to listen to and cover longer, do please get in touch. Best way to get something to me is good old email, if you want to send me anything non electronic ask and you can have my address, so long as you promise not to rob me when I'm out.

Finally on a personal note I'd just like to say a massive, massive thank you to Glasgow PodcART who said some really nice things about Aye Tunes at the weekend, Halina made me blush in her piece about blogs.

EP Review: Cast of the Capital - Rotten Kids and Haversacks

Still trying to get caught up on listening to records. This one has been sitting on the to do list for a few weeks, so time to get to it.

Cast of the Capital are a four piece, formed in Aberdeen by brothers Steve and Matthew Morris, joined by Alastair Naylor and Jamie Watt. Since forming in 2006 they've done some intensive gigging, supporting the likes of Xcerts and Trapped In Kansas, playing Rock Ness and Belladrum and catching the ear of Steve Lamacq, Vic Galloway and Jim Gellatly.

The Rotten Kids and Haversacks EP is the band's first full release. It came out on CD in September and will be available through iTunes in November.

The first song, Comiston Springs, is pretty enough, poppy and jangly, with a bit of a Teenage Fanclub feel to it. Catchy, decent stuff so far then. For me the EP really comes to life with the second track, The Witching Hour, slowing things down and stripping it back a bit. This song actually reminds me a good bit of Mitchell Museum, but without making me think I'm listening to a different band than the rest of the songs.
From there we get Passing The Horse, again a jangly sparkly wee thing, which is just fine, once again catchy and danceable before slowing things down again for Crematory Blues. Like The Witching Hour, its the slower more acoustic sounding Crematory Blues that really catches my ear, before we switch back to something more cheery sounding in Tree Sleep to finish off.

A wee bit of a mixed bag then you might think, but it's a good mix. I preferred the quieter, slower songs to the indie-pop ones, but they do their job just fine and the quality never dips below "good". Were it not near the end of October I'd probably enjoyed the poppy songs more, they've got a nice summery feel to them, but since it's dark and freezing my brain isn't quite appreciating them as much as it would when the sun comes out. The EP as a whole is certainly well worth a listen.

Cast of the Capital MySpace
Buy Rotten Kids & Haversacks

Essential New Artists Showcase

There's always a ton of good gigs happening in Glasgow, but over the next few weeks - right up until the end of the year in fact - there's some particularly eye catching events happening. I've already mentioned a couple I'll be going along to, like next week's 17 Seconds Night and the upcoming Define Pop Festival, and here's another one, presented by the lovely folk at Glasgow PodcART.

The gig takes place on November 1st at The Classic Grand in Glasgow. Perfoming on the night are Debutant, esperi, Panda Su and Yahweh.

This promises to be a fantastic gig. I'll be going along and reviewing it, so if you can't make it be sure to swing back here so I can tell you how much you missed out.

Tickets cost £5 and are available from We Got Tickets

Also, aren't those posters pretty?

For a bit more info swing by Glasgow Podcart.

17 Seconds Night

Remember a couple of weeks back I posted about 17 Seconds Records? Well, the whole crew is coming to Glasgow for an evening of music.

Taking place in The 13th Note in Glasgow on the 30th of October there will be sets from Escape Act, The Dirty Cuts, X Lion Tamer and Chris Bradley.
All for a measely £4 entrance fee.
Not a bad way to spend the night before Hallowe'en.
So, we'll see you down there, aye? Don't forget to say hi.

17 Seconds Records MySpace

Define Pop Festival 2 Update

Last week I wrote a wee bit about the mouthwatering line-up for the second Define Pop Festival, taking place on the 14th and 15th of November in The Flying Duck, with a promise of any updates as I got them.

Well, tickets are on sale NOW from Tickets Scotland.

Single Review: French Wives - Halloween/Dogfight

Still got limited computer access, still got the attention span of a goldfish, still job hunting without luck. Due to all that I'm ridiculously behind in reviewing things I've either bought or been sent. One day I'll catch up.

Grabbing something randomly from the "to do" pile throws up the debut double A side single from French Wives. Confusingly they aren't French, and I don't think any of them are wives either. Instead, they are a five piece from Glasgow who have been gigging their wee hearts out for ages now.

Bringing us to this, the debut single, due out next Monday.
Cunning timing then, considering that one of the songs is titled Halloween. It isn't, by the way, a cover version of The Misfits song, even though that would have amused me greatly. Neither is it scary. In fact, it's quite a jolly wee number, with a violin, xylophone and some brass, alongside some jangly guitar and nice harmonies. It's a well crafted wee number that builds, soars, and does other things that make me sound pretentious. After all that soaring and building, there's a strong finish too, which is always handy. As always, my description does the song no justice at all.
The other A side, Dogfight, isn't miles away from Halloween, but is shorter, more direct, and catchy as heck. Nice is a terrible way to describe a song but yeah, this is nice. There's a summery feel to both songs too, which is perfect for times like now, when you are freezing cold and it is pitch black outside.

Sounds a bit like a jaunty My Latest Novel, but just a bit. There's some Aberfeldy, some Camera Obscura, even a bit of Belle & Sebastian in there too. If you likes those bands, you'll almost certainly like French Wives. If you don't, go have a listen to them anyway and stop being so judgmental will you?

For the purposes of reviewing I listened to these songs a few more times tonight and now they've taken up residence in my head and don't seem to want to go away. That makes them highly recommended then.

The single is out next Monday, October 26th, on Instinctive Racoon Records.

French Wives MySpace

French Wives play Bloc in Glasgow on Wednesday 21dt October with the also worth checking out We're Only Afraid Of NYC, before playing The Admiral Bar on the 25th as part of Oxjam Takeover.

Fatcat Want Your Money

Fatcat Records have a good singles coming out over the next wee while from their trifecta of fantastic Scottish bands.

Out today is The Twilight Sad's Seven Years of Letters, taken from the recently released Forget The night Ahead album. The B-side is a cover version of The Wedding Present's Suck, so worth buying for that alone really.

Following that on November 16th is much anticipated new material from Frightened Rabbit, in the shape of their new single Swim Until You Can't See Land. B-side Fun Stuff is a new version of Last Tango In Brooklyn, which has been knocking around for ages. Next year will see a new Frightened Rabbit album, so this'll have to do to tide us over. Sea related pun only half intended.

Finally on November 23rd We Were Promised Jetpacks release another single from debut album These Four Walls, unleashing double A side It's Thunder And It's Lightning / Ships With Holes Will Sink. No new B-sides unfortunately.

Fatcat records are available from record shops, generally show up on eMusic

, or you can get them direct from their website.

Gig Review: Louise McVey and cracks in the concrete and Julia and the Doogans

I hate doing gig reviews, I really do. That's why you hardly ever see one over here. However, for once I'm back rom a gig sober & lucid, so let's give i a go, shall we?

The Place: The 13th Note, Glasgow.
The Time: October 15th, 2009
The Event: Live session for Glasgow PodcART

Two bands playing tonight, both with a female front woman. Y'know, as opposed to a male front woman, like Diva International or Jayne Country. (Don't hit me, I know it was a cheap joke)

First up are Louise McVey and cracks in the concrete. I'm not terribly familiar with this lot, having only really listened to a couple of songs on MySpace and, as I tend to do while listening on MySpace, not paying all that much attention to what I'm listening to.
Withing seconds of the starting I'm transfixed. Is it because Louise is a pretty blonde girl? For once, no. It's because I feel like I've fallen through a wormhole taking me from downstairs in the 13th Note to a David Lynch film. If a midget had brushed past me during the first song I'd have been freaked out, but yet not terribly surprised. I'm fairly convinced Louise has done some kind of shady deal to get her voice, the sound coming out of that girl is quite frankly incredible. Dark, soulful and riveting.
The band have possibly sold some souls too.
But back to the David Lynch bit. It's test way i can think of to describe what I'm hearing, and it's an image that doesn't eave me throughout the whole set. This band would not be even slightly out of place playing in the background in a Lynch film, most likely in somewhere seedy and smokey. this is a Very Good Thing by the way. There's a bit of Badalamenti about the arrangements, obviously, since I'm making the Lynch connection, but there's also an awful lot of Bad Seeds in there too. Again, Good Thing.
Wait, wait. The guitar players has a bow. Oh Shit. Pet hate? Guitars, and bass for that matter, being played with a bow. Hang on... It works. It doesn't annoy me. In fact, it's pretty fucking brilliant. The bow will come into play several times tonight, and it's a testament to the band and the songs that apart from that one brief moment when it was first picked up I loved it.
All in? Very impressed. There might even have been tingles.
Louise McVey & cracks in the concrete were fairly unknown to me before tonight, now they have my full attention. There's an EP scheduled for release in November, and an album due next year. I'll be waiting for both on the strength of that performance.

Next up are the headliners, Julia and the Doogans. I've seen them already, a few weeks ago in Pivo Pivo, and have a copy of their self titled EP tucked away on everything I own that plays music. I loved them that last time I saw them, I love that EP, but were they flukes?
Well, no. Even though the band is short a cellist tonight due to an unfortunate tea accident (no really, and get better soon!) they are still outstanding. Yes, I missed the cello, but only because I've hammered the songs so much that I know it should be there. A few songs in I'm over the missing member and enjoying what I'm getting, which is a wonderful, mellow treat. It's almost like being hugged by music, with a soothing voice whispering in your ear that everything is fine. Even if everything is well and truly screwed you'll believe that everything is fine, for the simple reason that Julia has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.

When Julia later promises not to sue me for posting Glasgow without asking and gives me a free fridge magnet that's a bonus. She could have stolen my pint and kicked me in the shins and I'd have still left happy. They play again in King Tut's on November 2nd, you can do far worse than get yourself along.

Final result? Two fantastic performances, one from a known quality, the other I already had expectations of, neither of which let me down.

Since I'm hopefully not getting sued by Julia, here's Glasgow again, which unlike at Pivo Pivo they played tonight, making me a very happy man.

Define Pop Fest 2

What are you doing on November 14th and 15th? Whatever it is, is it better than the second Define Pop Festival?

Taking place over those two days in The Flying Duck in Glasgow, over two stages, the line up so far looks like this:

Living Room Stage, Saturday
Vendor Defender, Kochka, The Costapeens,Mickey 9's Louise against The Elements, Miniature Dinosaurs, Other People.
Kitchen Stage, Saturday
Young Aviators, Gdansk, The Morgue Party Candidate, Pacific Theatre, Blessed Order Of Fallen Stars, Make Sparks and Little Yellow Ukuleles.

Living Room Stage, Sunday.
Yahweh, Second Hand Marching Band, Lava Experiments, Diamond Sea, Esperi, Incrediboy and The Forget Me Nots, Lovers Turn To Monsters.
Kitchen Stage, Sunday.
Pooch, Vendor Defender, Fridge Magnets, Dead Boy Robotics, Lad Lazarus

There's a few more acts still to be announced too.

That's a whole lot of fantastic bands playing in the one place, I'll be going.

Keep an eye on the Define Pop MySpace for information and ticket details.

Lions.Chase.Tigers EP Giveaway, Quick Gig Roundup

Updates are screwy again this week and probably next too, due to not being able to get at a computer much. Sorry folks, I'll catch up when I can.

Lions.Chase.Tigers ate giving away a free download of their just released debut EP To Their Blood until October 31st if you sign up to their mailing list. You can find the details here. You can also buy a copy from their website.

I've not had a chance to listen to it yet, and am still a bit annoyed with myself at not being able to get along to the EP launch gig last weekend, but the couple of times I've seen Lions.Chase.Tigers I've been pretty impressed, so I'm looking forward to having a listen.

Lions.Chase.Tigers Website - MySpace

Quick Gig Round-Up

I've been doing a good job of sticking to my a gig a week regime recently, think I've managed to get along to at least one show a week since turned 30 now. I'd do more, but well, the jobless bum thing makes that tricky. It's no coincidence that my getting out more has led to more frequent blog posts too, last time I was so excited about getting out and about, seeing new bands I've hardly heard of was about 10 years ago, didn't know how much I missed it until I started doing it again.

Anyway, last week at The Flying Duck I finally had the pleasure of seeing Trapped In Kansas after missing out on their last few Glasgow shows. They were very good, and I'll be writing more about them in future, once I've remembered to pester the band to send me some songs.

Support act City of Statues were also very enjoyable, with riffage aplenty.

Trapped In Kansas are back in Glasgow this weekend, playing at The Captain's Rest with the also excellent The Darien Venture on Sunday. I won't make it along, but if you can, you should.

Last night I dragged myself into Glasgow again, this time to Stereo, to catch The Morgue Party Candidate for the first time. Their set was a bit chaotic, somewhat messy and I don't think the band enjoyed it much. I did though. the band are far from the finished article, but show an awful lot of promise and like i say, even if they didn't enjoy their set last night, I did, and so did others. Eagerly anticipate catching them again when hopefully they'll enjoy it too.

Opening the bill last night were Macabre Scene, playing their first gig. I'd checked them out a little beforehand thanks to a tip from Ross of The Morgue Party Candidate and liked what I'd heard. They played a short set, only six songs, but were really good. Very impressed by this band, especially since it was their first live outing. Again, can't wait to see and here more from them in future.

Jesus H. Foxx

Continuing to fight those accusations of West Coast bias, even though no one has actually made any, let's stay over in Edinburgh for another day shall we?
This was meant to be posted Friday, but has slipped to Sunday. Just when I was becoming almost efficient too. It'll be nice if my computer will behave long enough to let me get this posted. Here's hoping.

Jesus H. Foxx are seven piece from Edinburgh, with two drummer, three guitarists and as their bio puts it a partridge in a pear tree (a cornet player who sometimes plays glockenspiel) with a couple of releases to their name, the most recent of which, Matter, was released by Song, By Toad Records at the start of August.

Matthew of the Song, By Toad blog & label was kind enough to send me over a copy to have a listen to. To be honest, I was completely surprised by what I heard. Between the name and the promise of multiple drummers and guitarists I expected something riff laden, mildly chaotic and quite aggressive, instead I got gentle instrumentation, tender vocals and very sweet harmonies. Gentle and mild, rather than chaotic and aggressive. Not at all what I expected then!

Don't get me wrong, I like myself some chaos and love a bit of riffage, but sometimes I like a nice surprise too. The songs on the Matter EP are a very nice surprise indeed. In fact, they are just all round very nice.

I am however at a loss to explain what they sound like, I can't think of any other bands to compare them too and "melodic and pleasant" doesn't really help much. Instead of me trying to describe them, how about you go listen for yourself then? There's songs on MySpace, and a download of one of the EP tracks, I'm Half The Man You Were, below.

Download Jesus H. Foxx - I'm Half The Man You Were

You can buy the new EP, Matter, here.

Jesus H. Foxx MySpace

(If anyone is counting this post took 3 hours, not including the Friday till Sunday delay, thanks to my computer regularly being a dick. AND my trusty 5 year old MP3 player finally gave up and died today. I hate technology)

A Quick Word About Football

Alright, computer deciding to misbehave this weekend, so a few of the posts lined up need to stay as drafts till it decides to work nice again.

The post title is a bit misleading, I don't really intend to say a thing about a certain game that kicks off in a few hours, I just wanted an excuse to post a track. The first line of the song gives me my excuse to do it today.

Julia & The Doogans - Glasgow

I'll get back to Julia and the Doogans more another time, but for now I'll just say that Julia has one of the most gorgeous voices I've heard in ages.
They've got a few gigs lined up in October, get down to one if you can. I caught them live a few weeks ago in Pivo Pivo in Glasgow and they were really ace.

MySpace - Facebook - Twitter

While you are at it, try and grab a copy of their self titled EP, it's available from eMusic and presumably other places too.

Kid Canaveral EP Launch

Sort of forgot to mention this before now, but after a little prod I'm remembering now.
I deliberatly didn't touch on this one until now, saving it as part of my mini "stuff that's happening over in Edinburgh" fest instead. (I don't think I'm going to get away with that...)

Anyway, Kid Canaveral are a two boy, two girl indie pop combo, with a nice little collection of 7" singles to their name so far. This weekend they play a launch gig for their new EP, Left & Right at The Bowery in Edinburgh. If you click on the wee picture up the top there it should open up at a readable size so you can get the info.

Support comes from Cancel The Astronauts and Popup, two other favourites round these parts - do a search and read what I've written about them before if you don't believe me - so it should be a splendid night of sheer indie joy. One I can't go to...

Get yourself along if you can and tell everyone Jim sent you. All but a few people will stare at you blankly, but that's alright, that's how my whole life feels.

I'll be reviewing Left & Right soon, but in the meantime whet your appetite with an interview Kid Canaveral did with Peenko and see what Glasgow PodcART had to say about the EP.

Album Review: The Gothenburg Address

It seems every time I sat down to do this review something or other has cropped up to stop me finishing it. As a result it's been written in stages, so apologies in advance if that makes it a terrible read. Point out any huge flaws and I'll fix them.

The Gothenburg Address are a four piece from Edinburgh, comprising of Chris Bathgate (guitar), Rob Doig (bass) Luke Joyce (guitar) and David Jeans (drums). If any of those names are name to you, give yourself a point, in the past some of the members have played in other bands, including The Complete Stone Roses, Arab Strap and The Zephyrs. The band themselves first came to my attention back in May around the time of their release of A Lesser Coming Home as a single, mostly thanks to Ed over at 17 Seconds.

If you were paying attention a moment ago you'll have noticed that I didn't mention a vocalist. That's because there isn't one. That in itself maked The Gothenburg Address a bit of a hard sell for me right away. I enjoy an instrumental band, but sometimes it feels like you can't move for them. If a band has a charasmatic singer as a front man, if the songs aren't up to scratch and the band isn't on form, they can hide behind that front man. With an instrumental band there's no hiding place, and believe me, during some of those "can't move for them" bands that I've seen and heard, I've really wanted to hide. However, happily, any fears I initially had were blown out the water upon hearing that first single and from then on I've been keeping an eye and ear on The Gothenburg Address.

Which brings us along to this, their debut album. I'll almost never go out my way to ask a band to send me something - it's a confidence thing, I'm always convinced they'll say no - but when their Facebook page said they were inviting promo requests I couldn't hold myself back, and the album dropped through my door last week and has been getting played regularly since.

The album kick off with the grand sounding Leaving The Last Behind, which is lent further gravitas, as if it needed any, by Alan Barr, who pops up to lend cello. From there on, frankly, the album doesn't put a foot wrong. There's no need for a hiding place when your band sounds this tight and your songs are this well crafted.
There's no sense of the songs being samey, another trap some instrumental bands can fall into, everything sounds different but distinctive.

You can invite comparisons to the likes of Mogwai, even Aereogramme in places, but although those bands are handy reference points, The Gothenburg Address don't really sound anything like them, they sound like The Gothenburg Address, which is just another reason why I'm so in love with this album.

Quite honestly, there's not a single bad thing I can say about this album. It's already pushed its way through the queue of other albums I've loved this year to announce itself as a likely candidate for one of the year's finest. With that in mind it is hard to pick highlights, but just shading it are the tracks that bookend the album, opener Leaving The Last Behind and finale I Am Made Of Hearts + Fire, along with Its Not A Fjord But A Lake just ever so slightly shade it as my favourite tracks.

The album doesn't just live up to the early promise of May's single release, it exceeds it. On the arbitrary, meaningless star scoring system, it gets a solid Five Stars out of five*.

You can find The Gothenburg Address at the following places - Website - MySpace - Twitter

The band have put together a trailer for the album, you can watch that below.


Also, for a bit more of a taster of the band, you can jump over to their website and download their Shimmer In The City EP, made up of a live recording of the band performing at Nice n Sleazys in Glasgow, for the bargain price of nothing.

*I was asked about the scoring system the other day, so I'll go ahead an explain. I don't put an awful lot of faith in stars/numbers to sum up an album and think it can lead to laziness in just looking to see how an album rated. I'm all about catering to everyone though, so I'll include an out of five stars system on a review to keep those that like them happy, I'll just point out that in the grand scheme of things they don't really matter.

Malcolm Middleton's Long Dark Night(s)

Malcolm Middleton is doing a tour in December, look at the poster for dates.

Personally I'd have ranked him as my number one arch-miserablist.

17 Seconds Special

If you wanted to be mean to me (and why would you want to do that? I'm quite nice really) you could point out that Aye Tunes always has a bit of a Glasgowcentric, West Coast bias. It's true, but it's not really my fault. I live hear, so I know more about what is going on at this side of Scotland than I do in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh or wherever. Anyway, just for you hypothetical mean people, let's swing the spotlight outside of Glasgow.

17 Seconds Records is, as the name might suggest, a record company. Run by Ed, who is also the brains behind the long running 17 Seconds blog, they are based over in Edinburgh. Already there's a fine roster of artists signed up to the 17 Seconds Records roster, a couple of whom I'll be talking about a bit today.

Aberfeldy were one of the first acts signed to 17 Seconds, and now one fifth of them, Chris Bradley, is signed up solo too. Chris already has one solo album to his name, Voices, which 17 Seconds will be re releasing next year. Before that though comes a single 'Bored Little Rosie'/'The Man I Love' out on October 5th and a second album, tentatively titled Go On, My Son to follow in November.

Here's a little taster from the new album.
Chris Bradley - Golden Girl
Chris Bradley MySpace

Another early signing to the label is Tony T, better known as X Lion Tamer. Described by himself as "Sounds like the ending credits of low budget 80s teen movies – played on your mate’s Amiga", X Lion Tamer is a world away from the other music on 17 Seconds Records, and from most artists generally featured by Aye Tunes for that matter. There's two download singles available by X Lion Tamer, both of which have now been combined and made available on CD as Neon Hearts EP.
The following song Life Support Machine is available on the Neon Hearts CD and as the second track on the download single.

X Lion Tamer - Life Support Machine
X Lion Tamer MySpace

You can keep up with 17 Seconds, the blog and the label at these places - Blog - MySpace - Website

17 Second Records are available to download at the usual places, including iTunes and eMusic

Upcoming live dates include:
2 Oct 2009 X-Lion Tamer at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
8 Oct 2009 Chris Bradley supporting Dr. Robert at Water Rats, King’s Cross, London
9 Oct 2009 X-Lion Tamer at Devil Disco at The Bongo Club, Edinburgh
17 Oct 2009 Escape Act at Eamonn Dorans, Dublin
23 Oct 2009 Aberfeldy at Cupar Corn Exchange, Cupar
30 Oct 2009 17 Seconds night at the 13th Note,with the Dirty Cuts, Chris Bradley and X-Lion Tamer, Glasgow
27 Nov 2009 The Dirty Cuts @ Pin Up Club at The Flying Duck, Glasgow

The Morgue Party Candidate

Still working on all the catching up and reviewing I'm meant to be doing, but I've been meaning to do something on The Morgue Party Candidate, so let's get to that today shall we?

The Morgue Party Candidate are a three piece, two thirds from Cumbernauld, one third from Glasgow, who take their name from a Grand Theft Auto mission.
They've just stuck out their first EP, which contains three cracking songs. My favourite of the three, and the one that brought the band to my attention in the first place by it's inclusion on Glasgow Podcart a wee bit back - yeah Glasgow Podcart again - is the gorgeous Animal Dance Party. You can download it below. The very title puts all sorts of weird and freaky images in my head, which is always a good thing. Following the band on Twitter also puts some freaky pictures in your mind, which is maybe not such a good thing...

I can't say an awful lot about the band, I've not caught them live yet, something I aim to do soon and only have 4 songs to go on, but I've played the shit out of those songs now and find they've worked their way into my head, which seems as good a reason as any to swing the low powered, dim, barely noticable Aye Tunes spotlight on them. Plus now I can boast that I was in there early when everyone else starts loving The Morgue Party Candidate.

Download Animal Dance Party

If you swing over to the band's MySpace you can listen to all of their new EP, Good Morning, Good Night. If you make friends with them they might even send you a link to download the whole thing for free too, if you ask nice.

Find the band online at: MySpace - Twitter - ReverbNation - Facebook

The Morgue Party Candidate play at Stereo in Glasgow on October 8th, tickets are a lowly four quid, get down there if you can.

Catching Up

Alright then, got a bit of time back on my own computer for a week or so (oh hard drive full of music how I missed you, let's never be parted again!), so I'll attempt to get caught up on the backlog of stuff I've got to get through over the next few days.

Won't get much done tomorrow (Thursday) though, I'm away to see The Darian Venture & Atlas Skye at The Mill. Give me a wave if you are going along.

Speaking of gigs, it was interesting to discover that copying Frightened Rabbit tour dates out of the Sunday Mail magazine pushed me to around 4 times my normal visitor numbers. I almost think no one cares about what I write :P

If you've sent me a press release or anything in the last few days, sorry I've not gotten to it yet, I'll see what I can do, ideally before it's too late.

This pile of records I want to listen to and attempt to review take priority though.

Frightened Rabbit Scottish Tour Dates Announced

Tickets go onsale Monday 21st September at 10am.

27th Nov. BA Club, Fort William
With The Phantom Band and The Moth And The Mirror

28th Nov. Tolbooth, Stirling
With The Phantom Band and Errors

29th Nov. Ironworks, Inverness
With The Phantom Band

1st Dec. Moshulu, Aberdeen

2nd Dec. Fat Sams, Dundee
With The Phantom Band

22nd Dec. ABC, Glasgow
With The Moth And The Mirror

Pin Up Nights Circus

Press release first, quick comments from me at the end.

THE PIN UP NIGHTS CIRCUS FRIDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER, 9PM - 3AM A SAWDUSTED AND SPOTLIT FLYING DUCK, 142 RENFIELD STREET, GLASGOW
GUEST DJ: MIKE FIELDING, AKA NABOO OF THE MIGHTY BOOSH RINGMASTER: PAUL PUPPET (OF LEGENDARY GLASGOW BAND SCUNNER, AND THE MAN BEHIND THE RIO CAFE'S "SPANGLED CABARET")
A SMORGASBORD OF CIRCUS PERFORMERS INCLUDING MAGICIANS, FIRE EATERS, JUGGLERS, STRONG-MEN AND MUCH MUCH MORE - BUT NO CLOWNS - BECAUSE THEY'RE TERRIFYING!!
THE PIN UPS DJS PLAYING THEIR INIMITABLE MIX OF NEW AND CLASSIC INDIE, PUNK, SOUL
ELECTROPOP
PERFORMING LIVE: POOCH, SONNY MARVELLO, MITCHELL MUSEUM AND "QUICK,
RUN"
STALLS RUN BY MEMBERS OF THE GLASGOW CRAFT MAFIA
AND FUNFAIR GAMES (DUCKS! COCONUTS!) A REAL LIVE GORILLA…
A SPLENDID TIME IS GUARANTEED FOR ALL!
TICKETS ARE £6 ON THE DOOR OR £5 IN ADVANCE FROM THE STORE AT WWW.PINUP-NIGHTS.CO.UK

Ladieeeeees and Gentlemen. Roll Up! Roll Up! The Circus is in town!
Yes you lucky scallywags, its time to roll yourself up indeed and make haste to The Big Top!
For one night only, Pin Up Nights is transforming into a good old fashioned circus!
Marvel! - At the line up of terrific live bands – Pooch, Sonny Marvello, Mitchell Museum and “Quick, Run”!
Delight! - In seeing The Flying Duck transformed into an actual circus Big Top!
Wonder! - At the antics of Ringmaster Paul Puppet, and the feats performed before your very eyes by the Pin Ups Circus performers!
Dance! - Till 3am to the usual fantastic mix of tunes you'd expect from Glasgow’s best and longest running indie night!
Gape! - At celebrity guest DJ Naboo from The Mighty Boosh!
Goggle! – At the stalls run by members of the Glasgow Craft Mafia (including Pistol Whip Vintage, We Are The Robots and more) and our Funfair games!
And Gaze! – Longingly! - At dishy Pin Ups DJ James “Butcher” Cassidy!
Mindboggling stuff I'm sure you'll agree!
That’s not all too as we are planning a few more surprises if we can pull it
off, including even a dramatic GORILLA!! If you fancy dressing up and entering
the circus spirit then knock yourself out (not literally I mean, just feel free
to dress up!)
Those of you who are regulars will know we try our best to create terrific events at Pin Up Nights and always give value for money. This year amongst others we've had Florence and The Machine and Friendly Fires DJing in January, a star-studded Ladies Night 2 (Camera Obscura! Victoria Bergsman! Queens of Noize!) and even turned The Flying Duck into a Festival Site in June (complete with Wham Tent!) all at the cost of £5 entry. Despite the jam-packed bill above and obvious costs involved we've kept the price stupidly low. How stupidly low we'll probably only realise on Saturday afternoon when it becomes clear we’ve dropped a zero somewhere in our cost calculations (none of us were brilliant at maths...).
Still, that’s for us to worry about and despite the barrel-load of action we've arranged, we're only charging £5 for advance tickets and £6 on the door.
If you've been to any club night other than Pin Ups recently and paid for entry, hopefully you'll agree this is incredible value!
You can get your advance tickets from the store section of http://www.pinup-nights.co.uk or in-store/online from Tickets Scotland. (Advance sales would be appreciated as we have 101 things to pay for..)
All the pics from August are on the website as well so have a peek and spot yourself
having a boogie. We had originally planned for the Circus to be in August but
the bill was going to be better if we did September so we changed it close to
last minute. This meant that August’s Pin Ups was a tad under-advertised but you
lovely people still turned up in droves so thanks a million.
That’s all for now folks, don't forget to Roll Up Roll Up on 25th!
The Pin Ups chaps.xx
ps we were originally going to write this invite in the style of a mocking run-down of the other events that are happening on Friday 25th September (there’s quite a lot of tacky Freshers Week things), but we decided that there was so much Circus chat
to get though that we didn’t have room and it would get too confusing. A shame
as I already had ideas noted down such as“Experiment with your sexuality at Karbon as you party hard with Duncan from Blue”, "Fear for 87 year old DJ Phil's life as he attempts his Mick Jagger dance at Strathclyde Union's TFI Friday", etc etc

Leaving aside my "I'm 30, I'm too old for clubs" thinking, the bands on offer alone make this worth a look for me. You'll know by know how I feel about Mitchell Museum of course (but in case you don't, I love them). I'm not very familiar with the others, but have heard nothing but good things about Pooch for one.
All in all, if you are at a loose end in Glasgow next Friday, you could do much worse.

Updates Askew

Just a wee heads up, there might not be an awful lot of updates around ere for the next week or so. My computer access is limited at the moment (and I can't get near my hard drive full of music *sob*) so I won't have a chance to do a lot.

No great shock that there's ages between posts I know, but this time I have a good excuse.

Go check out all my friends in the link section in the meantime and get yourself to the next available Bronto Skylift gig. Saw Bronto again the other night in the 13th Note (thanks Podcart!) and the were headfuckingly awesome.

As always, if there's anything I should be covering here when I get a chance send over an email, I can still get into that via my mobile.

Back soon!

EP Review: Bronto Skylift - The Bearded Fish and the Jackalope

I've been hearing about Bronto Skylift for a wee while now, but prior to Friday's instore gig at Avalnce in Glasgow had never managed to catch them play live. I was more than a little surprised to learn there's only two of them. Had I actually paid attention I'd have known this already of course, but I didn't. The make a hell of a lot of noise for a band comprising a singing guitar player and a drummer. A hell of a lot of noise. An instore gig isn't an ideal place to judge a band, but on Friday's evidence I'm totally sold on Bronto Skylift.

It isn't that gig that I'm reviewing here though, I'm talking about the reason for it, the release of The Bearded Fish and the Jackalope EP. Short version of the review - 4 tracks, five quid, worth every penny. Also has really pretty art.

Still here for the longer version of the review? Fantastic! Thanks for sticking around.

After starting off gently for all of around 22 seconds everything kicks off on Lioness, the first track. As soon as the guitar rips in at the 0.22 mark it's best just to hold on and go with it, because that guitar part has no intentions of letting go. There's some fantastic drumming going on there too.
If Lioness was rough, second track Tiger is like being dragged up an alley and beaten, but secretly loving every second of it. Loud, raucous and brilliant.
Hekla, the third track on offer, keeps up the noise levels at first, but changes things up a bit. As the longest song on the EP it takes the chance to offer some breathing space from unrelenting Bront Force Trauma by pulling out the old loud bit, quieter bit, LOUD BIT trick. When done well, I always love that. It's done well here.
Cobblepot is the only song on the EP I had any familiarity with previously, and it is my favourite of the four tracks. Everything just clicks. That boot up the arse riff, the almost Jazz drumming and the pure bloody energy. It very nearly made me dance in my chair when listening to it again for this review.

The first 3 tracks are good, Cobblepot is really good.

What does it is score on the arbitrary and meaningless star system, I hear you fail to ask? Well, it's would only be a four out of five stars release, the reason being that it doesn't quite live up to the full fury of the band firing on all cylinders in a live setting. It comes really bloody close though. However, Cobblepot is good enough to nudge the EP over that extra hypothetical and meaningless star. Five Stars it is then.

No songs from the EP, go buy it. You can have Cobblepot, which appears on the EP, recorded live at The Mill though.
Bronto Skylift - Cobblepot (live)

You can get hold of the EP here, at gigs and in the likes of Avalanche. It comes with a free sticker and everything. Try to pick up Bronto's first single too, it's also fantastic.
Do yourself a favour though, see this band live.

Head over to MySpace to sample songs, get gig dates and all the usual MySpacey type stuff.

Oh, and yet again, massive thanks go to Glasgow Podcart for introducing me to the band in the first place. If you aren't checking out the Podcart yet you are really missing out. One day I'll get round to a full post kissing Ally Sean and Halina's collective arses, but for now I'll stick with thanking them, again, and encouraging everyone with ears to listen to them.

New This Week

Looks like I was wise to keep most of this month's eMusic credits held back till this week, as there's a ton of new stuff out to use them on.

Here's what I'm picking up, reviews might follow later in the week.

The Whisky Works EP Deficit Attention Program
Strike The Colours Single Breathing Exercise
Cuddly Shark Single The Sheriff of Aspen Bay
Randan Discotheque single Daily Record May 18th 1993 see the review for details on where to get this.
God Help The Girl EP Stills
Cybraphon EP Automaton Number One available here.

The Wildhearts aren't Scottish at all, but no have a new album Chutzpah! out today. Ginger is one of my favourite songwriters in the World, so they get love from me despite the lack of country based qualifications.

Bronto Skylift don't technically release their new EP until next Monday, but you can order it online here now. Get yourself along to Avalance in Glasgow on Friday afternoon for an instore performance and buy the EP there too.

Did I miss anything good, or your band? Tell me!

Single Review: Randan Discotheque - Daily Record May 18th 1993

Time for a random single review! A Randan single review at that. See what I did there? This is an unusual one for me, as I'm actually reviewing something from listening to it on MySpace, rather than having a copy of my own. You don't care, I know, but it seemed worth pointing out.

Yet another song that came to my attention through Glasgow Podcart, part of their plan to use all my eMusic credits and make me spend all my money on music I think. That's alright though, I'm always happy to buy stuff that's good.

Daily Record May 18th 1993 is the new single from Randan Discotheque, and it's a fun little thing. Probably the easiest thing I've ever had to describe too, as it essentially headlines and mentions of stuff that appeared in - you guessed it - the May 18th 1993 Daily Record newspaper, half spoken, half sung over a drum machine, keyboard and guitar backdrop.
There's nothing really complicated going on here and I dare say it'll fall into a love it/hate it category, but me, I love it. As further encouragement I'll put forward the tale of my friend. he doesn't know much about music, anything beyond The Doors and The Kinks and he's a bit lost, but he suffers through me playing new stuff at him when we are round his house for beers - I enjoy good music, he drinks himself silly, it's a plan that keeps us both happy. On Saturday I put on the Randan track and for the first time in ages he paid attention, enquired what it was and declared, slightly drunk, "I love this!". Maybe saying that my pal who doesn't like music likes this song isn't really such a good recommendation, but in my head it is a good thing. By the way, on May 18th 1993 I was closing in on the end of my second year at secondary school. I feel old again now.

B-side Time To Waste sounds entirely different, kicking off with an alarm clock, pounding bass then jagged guitars. It's a completely different beast to the A-Side, Magazine to Daily Record's Black Grape, but every bit as good. It also shows that dismissing Randan Discotheque as a novelty act on the basis of the A-Side would be a silly move indeed, they've got range.

Random fairly meaningless star system score - it's a full five out of five!

The single is out on Monday, August 31. You should be able to find it in Avalance and Mono, and buy it online too. (Update, you can get your hands on a copy of the 7" here.)

There's also a launch gig for the single tomorrow night (August 28th) in the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh. Get yourself along to that if you are over that side of the country.

Not posting the song, for obvious reasons. You can head over to MySpace and listen to it there.
Here's a wee video of the song played live though. Warning: shirtless man.


Randan Discotheque MySpace - Facebook - Twitter
Also, if you skip over to Last.fm they've got two albums you can download for the bargain price of free.

The Cinematics Return

Sometimes I complain that no one ever sends me stuff, other times people do send me stuff and it lurks in my inbox for a week before I get round to doing anything with it. This one falls into the latter category, so time to get to it now.

The Cinematics, a Glasgow based, Dingwall spawned four piece, put out their debut album A Strange Education a couple of years ago before heading off on a stream of tours as support acts. Now they are getting set to release their second album Love and Terror at the end of September.

The new album is preceeded by a single, available now through the usual download sites, the title track Love and Terror, which I've been asked to share with you.

It's a pretty decent song.

If you want to read the whole PR blurb you can do so here.

Download Love and Terror

The Cinematics Myspace

The SPL but with bands

So, the new season of the Scottish Premier League kicks off tomorrow. That seems like something I can make into a post.

Plan A was to find a band that supported each team. That plan went right out the window as soon as I realised that I have no idea what bands support anyone but three or four clubs, so instead you are getting a band from the relevant town or city, or as close as I can get at least.

I still ended up struggling a bit, if you support any of the teams in the SPL and have a better suggestion let me know.

Aberdeen: Sorry Dons, right now the best I can offer you is Lily Allen, and I doubt her credentials.

Celtic: Loads to choose from for this one and one of the few Scottish clubs that seem to have musicians happy to admit to supporting. I won't risk pissing off a chunk of my visitors by suggesting that this is because Celtic are brilliant. Oops...
Anyway, our band of choice for Celtic are Mogwai, since they seem to especially enjoy annoying Rangers supporters on their website. In the interest of fairness - see the Rangers entry - we've got some rubbish fans too, Martine McCutcheon for example.

Dundee United: About half of Deacon Blue are Dundee United fans, so that's who you are stuck with.

Falkirk: You've got Arab Strap in the "I don't know who supports you, here's a band from the town" draw.

Hamilton Academical: Right about now I'm thinking this was a terrible idea. You have been randomly selected Teenage Fanclub since Bellshill is near Hamilton, even though at least some of them are Celts.

Hearts: You've got Cicero, you lucky people.

Hibernian: Easy, The Proclaimers.

Kilmarnock: Oooh not a clue. The closest I can get you is Biffy Clyro, since they are Ayrshire

Motherwell: The Delgados. Yay, an easy one. The Delgados even had Dougie Arnott on the cover of their The Weaker Argument Defeats The Stronger single.

Rangers: Sorry Rangers supporters, most of the folk I can think of that support the Gers are rubbish. Wet Wet Wet, Leon Jackson, some of Travis, David Sneddon, Lulu, Amy McDonald... You can have AC/DC.

St. Johnstone: Stuart Cosgrove used to write for the NME, that's as good as I can think of, sorry!

St. Mirren: Struggling again. Well, there's Paulo Nutini, who supports Celtic. Dougie Vipond? I'll just put a band from Paisley for this one I reckon, so St Mirren fans, you get Marvel Heights.

Well, that was a lot less successful than I'd hoped, yet I'm still posting it. Now lets see how many people yell at me (I suspect none, since that would involve people reading me...)

Trapped in Kansas Gig Update

As I mentioned the other day, the Twisted Wheel in Glasgow has shut down, meaning any upcoming gigs in there are having to be rescheduled. As promised, here's another update.

Trapped in Kansas who were meant to be playing on August 22nd with The Whisky Works and Shapes have moved their gig to Blackfriars.

Yet ANOTHER Free Song

I'll stop just posting stuff people have stuck on the internet for free and get back to something more intresting at some point I'm sure, but in the meantime if people keeping letting me know about free downloads, I'll keep spreading the word.

This time round it's Aidan Moffat & the Best-Ofs who treat us to a freebie. This is a live version of Lover's Song from the How To Get To Heaven From Scotland album, recorded earlier this year at Stereo in Glasgow. You can download it here.

In other Aidan news Lullaby For Unborn Child from the album has been overhauled and renamed Knock On The Wall Of Your Womb for an upcoming single release, the B-side of which will feature The Lavender Blue Dress, a children's story written by and narrated by Aidan.

Here's the video:

The Gothenburg Address update

If you are planning on going to see The Gothenburg Address, Airship and I See Shapes at the Twisted Wheel in Glasgow on Friday then update your plans a wee bit. The show has been moved to Capitol, as the Twisted Wheel has seemingly closed down.

There's a few other Twisted Wheel gigs coming up that need to find a new home, I'll try and keep you posted on those.

More Second Hand Songs

The Second Hand Marching Band are spoiling us these days. After putting their debut EP up on their website for free download last week, today they've put up the BBC session they did for Vic Galloway. You can grab it at their website over here. They covered One Armed Scissor by At The Drive-In, go get it!

Saturday marked my first time seeing the band incidentally. They were very good. Berrjacket was brilliant. That's as close as you'll get to a live review from me though, I'm even worse at reviewing gigs than I am at records.

The Second Hand Marching Band play the 13th Note in Glasgow on Saturday.

Saturday Newsround

Beerjacket plays King Tut's tonight, with support from The Second Hand Marching Band and The Seventeenth Century. Due to a fecking useless friend I've got some spare tickets, holler if you need one, otherwise say hello if you go to the gig.

The new Glasgow PodcART podcast is available, this week entitled "Pumped In Venice". Stream it here, get it through iTunes or Right Click & Save As.

Kochka have had to cancel their single launch at the Classic Grand tonight due to ill health. Get well soon!

Speaking of King Tut's, There Will Be Fireworks are playing there on the 20th of August. That reminds me, I never did finish that album review.

More Free Music - The Second Hand Marching Band

The Second Hand Marching Band are a band from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Ayr, Kincardine, Cumbernauld, Neilston, Canada, Airdrie and elsewhere. They have about a million members.

Their first EP - A Dance To Half Death - was released as a limited edition of 150. It has now sold out, so they've made it available through their website, the terribly kind people.

Go here to download the EP and visit them at MySpace for more information.

The Second Hand Marching Band are one of the support acts for the Aye Tunes attending Berrjacket gig on Saturday at King Tut's. As usual if you are going along you'll win the cheapest beverage of your choice if you can find me and say hello. Or in other words, say hi and I'll buy you a pint.

Little Rock Records give away a ton of music

Everyone likes free music, right?
If you are everyone you might be interested in this then.
Glasgow based label Little Rock Records are celebrating their second birthday birthday by giving away a ton of music.

In a giveaway aptly titled TOO MUCH MUSIC they've put up 14 free singles for download. Each single comes with two tracks and artwork from some of the best up and coming artists in the Scottish alternative elecronica scene. It's pretty eclectic, covering disco, ambient, breakcore, jazz, techno, wonky hip-hop and more.

Frankly, that's a scene that is way out of my area of expertise, so I won't even attempt to advise what to download from what's available. At the lost cost price of FREE I'll be diving in and checking out what's on offer though!

You can get more details and the download links over at the label's MySpace and they should be going up on Last.fm as well.

Here's the PR blurb about Little Rock Records, just for good measure

Inspired by Leipzig's Jahtari netlabel, Little Rock Records was officially launched on 07/07/07 with 7 digital 7 inch releases, with an aim to represent the best in Glasgow (and Scotland's) alternative electronica scene. Since then the label has released music by Tayside Mental Health, Eyes, The Niallist, Copyleft and The Evil Eye - not to mention putting out the "quasi-notorious" (Plan B), "dance-music-you-can't-dance-to" compilation/confrontation that is NORAVE.

The label now hosts a weekly radio show on Radio Magnetic with guest slots form the likes of local heroes Jackmaster, Killer Kitsch, Voltergeist,. Frogpocket, Animal Farm and more. There's also occasional Little Rock parties in the Glasgow area, including the annual Halloween Rock'n'Shock bash, this year celebrating its sixth birthday with very special guests The Phantom Band.

Mitchell Museum - Gig Non-Review

In no way, shape or form is this a review of Mitchell Museum's King Tut's gig. Instead, it's a one iner summing up how much fun I had at it.

How good were Mitchell Museum? So good I missed my last train home and had to get the night bus to Paisley, that's how good.

Expect me to continue to cheerlead for the band in future.

Mitchell Museum - New Single & Launch Gig

Mitchell Museum are preparing to release another single, in a somewhat unusual format.
Here's the press release:

Following on from the success of Mitchell Museums debut single “Warning Bells” released on Vinyl and CD earlier this year, the second single features “Tiger Heartbeat” (a track from the forthcoming debut album), with a B-Side specially recorded for tape “In the Bloodwind.”

Released on the musical arm of essential boutique clothing label Electra French, the cassette is available in four colours. For those left confused and looking for the USB port, no need to worry, as each case contains a code to download the tracks as mp3 direct from the Mitchell Museum website.

The initial limited edition run of 100 cassettes will be individually numbered by hand.

Mitchell Museum will launch the single on Sat 1^st Aug at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow.

It's been about a million years since I bought a cassette single, I think.
I should, so long as I have money, be popping along to the launch gig, so if you are going too give me a shour and say hello.

Here's the video for the Tiger Heartbeat:



You can get more info on Mitchell Museum by visiting their website, or MySpace.

Come back later in the week for a typically half-arsed Aye Tunes review of the single too, why don't you?

Night Noise Team - Free Song

Leith's Night Noise Team, fresh from their appearance on the Limbo Live compilation, are giving away a free song for download.

It's called An Innocent Abroad and you can get it here.

For more info on the band head on over to their MySpace.

Single Review - Peter Parker: Swallow The Rockets

Writing a review for the There Will Be Fireworks album is kicking my arse, so here's something else good in the meantime.

Imagine if you will that Elastica came from Glasgow and maybe weren't so obsessed with their Wire and Stranglers records. Now imagine that they've kicked out that annoying singer and hired Clare Grogan instead. The results would be a bit like Peter Parker.

To me, this thought is a wonderful thing. Suitably enough Swallow The Rockets, the debut single by Glasgow quartet Peter Parker - led by Miss the Occupier frontwoman Roz Davies - is also a wonderful thing.

The A-side, Swallow The Rockets, grabs you immediatly with a pounding baseline and scummy guitar riff. It then holds you by the head and doesn't let go for the next 3 minutes. Spikey, snarly and just plain fab.
B-side Temper Temper doesn't do anything the A-side doesn't, it just does in different ways, but we liked the A-side, so that's just fine. Less snarly than Swallow The Rockets, but every bit as catchy and fun.

All in all, great pop music, and a fantastic debut single, it gets Five Stars on the random imaginary star rating system.

The single is out now, you can download it from eMusic
and iTunes. If you want a physical copy the 7" is limited to 500, so you should probably move quite quick. Avalance seems like your best bet at getting a copy.

Peter Parker MySpace

And a video of the A-side:

There Will Be Fireworks

Full album review coming around the weekend, when I get to it.

In the meantime, I'm not long home from the launch gig. It was excellent. Really, really excellent.

If you wnt to buy the album you should be able to find details on the MySpace.
If you want a sample, visit Under The Radar, which had a track by track run through with singer Nicholas earlier today.

I've yet to listen to the album, but on the evidence of that gig, there's a good chance it kicks the arse of most things released so far this year.

And this year has been good for Scots...

Someone Died.

No, not the one that's all over the news (although yeah, he died too). There'll be quite enough written about MJ, I don't feel any need to add anything.

No, the death that hit me this week was that of one Steven Wells.

For those that aren't particularly familiar with me, I, like probably most British folk with an interest in any music that's even slightly "alternative", spent years reading the NME. Generally, I hated the fucking rag. Sometimes though a piece would force your attention and more often than not it was written by Swells.

Whether it was giving racists and homophobes in music and in the World a well deserved kicking, on ripping apart bands you liked - NIN and Belle & Sebastian spring to mind right away - his articles were pretty much always worth reading. Frequently you'd disagree with what he wrote, sometimes I'd be furious after reading a Wells piece, but it was always interesting, regularly laugh out loud funny and of course filled with swear words.

Two things to read. Steven Wells's last column for Philadelphia Weekly and The Guardian's tribute.

And one song. Something I certainly never expected to post anywhere, never mind on a blog generally dedicated to Scottish music...
Daphne & Celeste - Ooh Stick You

Upon learning of the cancer that would kill him Steven Wells wrote, as only he could "Anyhoo. I put the phone down and let out a huge, self-pitying “Why me?” The answer, of course, is the same as the answer to Travis’ shit-awful 1999 international breakthrough hit, “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” Because you’re a fucking dick. Now shut the fuck up and grow a pair."
That says it all really, don't you think?

De Rosa Split

There were murmurs all weekend, but now it's official.

De Rosa announced on their Twitter page that they have indeed split up, giving the following statement : "To all who listened. De Rosa has come to an end. If you liked our music or came to see us play we'd like to thank you all. Goodbye, De Rosa."

Chemikal Underground added the following through their mailing list: "We hate these announcements but they have to be made nevertheless: De Rosa have decided to call it a day after several years, a legion of amazing live shows and two truly exceptional albums.

We count 'Mend' and 'Prevention' among some of the very best albums Chemikal Underground has ever released and it's genuinely sad to know there won't be a third. De Rosa were a uniquely gifted bunch of songwriters and musicians with songs that provided an object lesson in how to meld complex structures around irresistible melodies. Bands of De Rosa's quality are few and far between and they will be sorely missed.

We're very proud that their albums form part of our catalogue and wish them every conceivable success in all their future ventures (musical and otherwise)."

Best of luck to all involved for whatever they do in the future.

Here's a parting sample of their music - Swell and Under the Stairs from this year's fantastic second album, Prevention.

It's my birthday...

If you are reading this I've been in the pub instead of writng a proper post.
If that happens, I'll try and change it later when I sober up/stop drinking.

Go say happy birthday to JC over at The Vinyl Villain too.

EP Review: Cancel The Astronauts - I Am the President of Your Fanclub

Further proof, if any was needed, that I'm a lazy forgetful git. This has been sitting waiting for me to review it for ages and the post has been half written, saved in drafts since mid May, with me only now getting round to finishing and posting it. Apologies to the band who were nice enough to send me a copy and ask for the review in the first place for being crap and slow.

Anyway, leaving my unreliability aside, who are Cancel The Astronauts and what am I reviewing? Well, they are a band and I'm reviewing their (no longer very) recently released debut EP - I Am the President of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home).

The band are a five piece indie-pop outfit, hailing from Edinburgh. If you picked up the recent Limbo Live compilation CD you'll have heard them, their song Slow Dance At The Disco was included on it. It isn't on the EP though. Aside from the title track, astonishingly long title and all, there's four other songs.

The title track is the strongest here, though there's nothing bad about the other tracks. That being said, there's nothing exceptional about them either. That sounds harsher than it's meant to, but it's the best way I can think of to descrive the EP. It's got a solid, tight band, some good songwriting and lyrics and generally well crafted indie-pop tunes, but there's nothing that really smacks you around the head and demands your attention.

A decent first effort though and if the band keep at it they could yet find that killer hook or fantastic set of lyrics that forces you to notice them. Catchy though.

The EP is out now, you can buy a CD from the band at one of the links below, or download it from eMusic
.

Website
MySpace

Try the title track - I Am the President of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home)

Green Man Festival - Green Poll

I'm aware that The Green Man Festival is in Wales, not Scotland, but hey, I was asked to give Green Vote a plug, and there's Scots playing at the festival, so...

Calling all bands and artists – the Green Man needs YOU!

Fancy being the first band to play at Green Man 2009, standing on the main stage on Friday August 21st as the sun beats down over the Black Mountains and opening the festival with one of YOUR songs in front of thousands of people?

How about sharing the bill Animal Collective, Jarvis Cocker, Wilco, Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear, getting airplay on Green Man YouTube for a year, having an opportunity of being included in the festival promotion and press such as giving interviews to Radio 1 and the BBC, or being featured in the esteemed publications and websites such as Mojo, Guardian, NME and Drowned in Sound as well as the many others that follow Green Man?

What if we threw in 6 pairs of free Green Man tickets for your family and friends to witness your big moment live on stage, just for good measure?

Sounds good, right?

Well forget X Factor and all those rubbish TV talent shows - Green Poll 2009 is here and the search is on to find the best new band or act to get the Green Man party started!

How can I enter?

It’s easy! We are asking signed or unsigned acts to register on our special Green Poll microsite and upload a YouTube or MySpace video of your band performing a song. Anyone can enter as long as they do so before June 29 – better get your skates on!

What happens next?

The music-loving Green Man public will choose their favourite bands in two nail-biting rounds of voting. The top 6 acts then go through to a live Battle of the Bands final at The Camden Monarch, in London, on July 23rd where a panel of top music industry boffins will pick one lucky winner to open Green Man 2009!

What’s the catch?

There’s no catch my friends, it’s as easy as one, two, three. To recap:

Round 1 - Voting closes at midnight on June 28 and the top 20 bands with the most votes go through to…

Round 2 - Voting closes at midnight on July 12 and the top 6 bands with the most votes go through to…

Grand Final - A live Battle Of The Bands contest in London on July 23rd to find one lucky winner to open Green Man 2009 judged by a panel of music industry boffins

How can I vote?

The winning band / artist will open the Festival on the main stage on Friday 21st August.

What if I want to cheat?

Cheats never beat so don’t you even bother! Every single vote really counts and the Green poll site will be constantly monitored for irregular or suspicious voting patterns - any underhand activities will lead to automatic disqualification. What do you think this is, the Eurovision Song Contest?

Is there a limit on how often I can vote?

Each user is limited to one vote per day.

Good luck – may the spirit of the Green Man be with you!

Vote Here

There's a choice of many fine bands to vote for. Me? I voted for Mitchell Museum.