This Week's Gigs: 7th - 13th March

There's a few less gigs on than usual this week by the looks of it, but what it lacks it sheer overwhelming quantity is more than made up for in quality. My wallet is unhappy though.

There's a lot of launch gigs again, as well as one farewell this week.

Monday:

Monoganon. Mono.

Album launch gig for the Monoganon album, Songs To Swim To. I've not gotten round to writing up an album review as yet, but the short version goes something like this - buy album, go to gig, enjoy. Songs To Swim To is really, really good. Don't take my word for it, you can stream it at the link above.

Tuesday:

Juan Pablo, Julia and the Doogans, Steven Milne (The Little Kicks), Becca Fox. Captain's Rest.

Launch gig for the new Juan Pablo EP, Loose Lips Sink Ships.

Wednesday:

Oh No Oh My. Nice N Sleazy.

This is a pretty last minute gig, so I have no idea who is supporting.

Thursday:

Get Folked: Shambles Miller, Julia and the Doogans, Andrew Lindsay and the Coat Hooks, The Miss's. The Liquid Ship. Free.

Usually at a folky type gig like this there's at least one person on the bill that I really don't care for. Nice to see this one making an exception then, as everyone involved is really quite splendid indeed.

Friday:

Y'all Is Fantasy Island, Loch Awe, Two Wings. Sneaky Pete's. (Tickets)

The final Y'all Is Fantasy Island gig. Sad times. If you can get there then go, give them a worthy send off.

Black International, Verse Metrics, Little Yellow Ukuleles. The Wee Red Bar.

Another good one for the Edinburgh folks, as Black International launch their debut album, In Debt. It is good, you should think about buying one here.

Caitlin Rose, Treetop Flyers. Stereo. (Tickets)

Saturday:

Black International, Male Pattern Band, Rollor, Ex-Men. The Admiral.

Glasgow leg of the album launch tour. As mentioned above, the album is good. Going to the gig will also get you into the Pretty Ugly club night afterwards.

Saraseto Records Launch: Blue Sky Archives, SAFARI, Poor Things, Little Fire. Stereo.

More launching.

Penguins Kill Polar Bears, Verse Metrics, Little Yellow Ukuleles, The Darien Venture. Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

Yet more launching, as PKPB finish off their tour to promote Vessels and Veins, their new EP.

Vendor Defender, Cancel The Astronauts, Plastic Animals. Cabaret Voltaire.

Sunday:

Words Per Minute 10. The Arches, 4-7pm.

SAFARI, Night Noise Team, Aviation For Kids, Shooting Stansfield. Sneaky Pete's.

Helhesten & Fritz Welch, Blue Sabbath, Black Fiji, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, Hivver. The Liquid Ship. Free.

Album Review: The Great I Am - Real Capital

Well now, here's an album that will send those that like their music to fit into a category easily into conniptions. For the rest of us though, it is a wee belter.

Real Capital is the debut album by The Great I Am, AKA Graham Crossan, who called on a few of his friends, including members of Dirty Keys, Punch and The Apostles and Miaoux Miaoux to put it all together.

The presence of Julian Corrie (Miaoux Miaoux) is particularly noticeable, with him lending all sorts of electro bits and bobs to the odd numbered tracks. The even numbered tracks? Well, that's where things get really interesting. The beats and synths are left aside on these, on some occasions for a more full band treatment, on others for a stripped back guitar and vocals take.

Each style has it charms, and all are very well executed. Le Quark stands out as a highlight on the electro side, while Do Your Best, Pal is a good old fashioned rollicking, foot stomper, with fiddles adding a gorgeous folky feel. Vocally The Great I Am isn't the strongest, but enthusiasm, warmth and charisma comes across in spades, which is always more pleasing to my ears than being technically excellent.

Real Capital is all over the place musically, in the best way possible. The dramatic switch in styles from song to song works well and more importantly feels natural when it could have come across as gimmicky. Clocking in at around 20 minutes in length there's no risk of Real Capital outstaying its welcome either.

People who like their music to fit into a genre pigeonhole might be left scratching their head, but those of us who just like our music good, with a side helping of fun and a lack of pretensions, regardless of style are in for a bit of a treat.

Real Capital by The Great I Am is out now. Listen to and buy it on Bandcamp.

Gig Review: Let's Buy Happiness, Trapped In Kansas, So Many Animal Calls, Two Zebras

Let's Buy Happiness, Trapped In Kansas, So Many Animal Calls, Two Zebras.

The Captain's Rest, Glasgow.

1st March 2011.

Another weeknight, another beer, another basement in a pub in Glasgow. Welcome to my life.

First up tonight is Two Zebras. There's a slight sense of disappointment that there are no zebras on show at all, never mind two of them. At least that doesn't mean we run the risk of breaking any animal cruelty laws. Two Zebras is instead one man - Danny- his guitar and laptop. Most of the music comes from the laptop, with Danny playing and singing along to something he made earlier. There's always a risk that when you watch someone play along to a backing track that the attention can wander, or worse leave you with the feeling that you could have just have listened to a record instead. Thankfully Danny has more than enough energy, charisma and between song chatter that he keeps us in the crowd engaged throughout and stops the mind from wandering. An especially good thing for me, since my mind is far too small to be allowed to wander off unsupervised. Decent songs certainly help keep you interested too, and Two Zebras supply enough lo-fi poppy fun in half an hour to keep me happy.

So Many Animal Calls don't have it particularly easy tonight. A bit of a delayed start due to a wonky mic and a singer with a dodgy throat don't seem to take their toll too much though as SMAC rattle into their set. I often feel like I'm "too old" for So Many Animal Calls, especially since I don't much care for a lot of bands that do similar things as them, but there's a certain something about them that never fails to grab me. They are a charming wee bunch, with minimal egos and a nice line, intentional or not, in self deprecation. When a guitar string goes there's a meek apology for having no banter to fill the gap as guitars are swapped rather than any tantrums or freak outs, though this also results in me being name-checked from the stage with a plea to not be mean to them in my review, putting my impartiality in the bin. I give them a lot of credit for recovering from the technical hitches as the pick up where they left off without missing a beat, when I've seen countless bands lose their composure and confidence entirely when things go against them, and fall apart completely. Material from their forthcoming new EP sounds strong, as does the earlier songs with We Sleep Back To Back still standing out as a highlight. The addition of a forth member to the band recently makes a difference from the earlier gigs I caught when they played as a three piece, giving the band a bigger, fuller sound. For a band arguably having an off night they still played a blinder. So Many Animal Calls might have asked me to be nice, but so long as they keep delivering the goods they don't need to worry.

Trapped In Kansas are a band I've not seen in a while, which might have been a bit of a bonus. Last couple of times I caught Trapped In Kansas things suffered a little bit from over familiarity, through no fault of their own. With new material from a recently completed EP sitting alongside some old favourites I'm given a reminder of what drew me to them in the first place. Being technically excellent often leads to a slightly clinical performance, but there's no hint of that from Trapped In Kansas tonight, with energy and warmth added to the musical quality. There's also an eagerness to get loud enough to shake the crowd into motion, brushing off the "math rock" tag for just plain old rock. Older songs sound fresh, while the new ones make an instant impression. This is probably as good as I've seen Trapped In Kansas, and a nice refresher of what the band are capable of when they are on their game.

Let's Buy Happiness are pretty new to my ears, having only given them a quick listen previously. When they swing into action first impressions are good, and nothing that follows changes those impressions. There's something slightly old fashioned, and right up my street, about the jangly guitars and sweet vocals of Let's Buy Happiness. Their songs are packed with hooks and melodies that wrap themselves around you, before wiggling into your brain and/or heart. They too seem like a charming bunch of people, with a mixture of sweetness and cheekiness adding a little something extra to their songs. In short, lovely stuff. I might be late to the game on Let's Buy Happiness, but they did their job tonight by sending me home a fan, with a smile on my face.

Let's Buy Happiness

Trapped in Kansas

So Many Animal Calls

Two Zebras

News & Bits

Since the regular Sunday gig guide was written and posted much earlier than normal, and since I have an inbox full of press releases and things that likely won't get dealt with elsewhere, here's a wee round of up some news and new releases. I also spend too much time each week trawling Bandcamp for new things, so I might as well report back on what I've came across this week. Exciting, no? Don't answer that.

The other day Debutant surprised a few of us by suddenly releasing his long promised album We Stand Alone Together. Even better, the album has been made available for free. You can download it over at Bandcamp. Less surprisingly, the album is really good.

Spaghetti Anywhere slipped out a free EP at the start of the week, which I forgot to mention. You can get hold of Arrochar here. You should too, we really like them.

Arran Arctic has a new album out too. In My Hands is a DIY effort put together entirely by Arran, available on CD from his website, or a name your price download from Bandcamp.

Black International release their debut album, In Debt, in a few weeks, and will be heading off on tour to launch it. Tour dates are:

4th March 2011- Other Rooms, Newcastle w/ Waiting for Winter & the Prison Library

5th March 2011- Doghouse, Dundee w/ the Heebie Jeebies

11th March 2011- Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh w/ Verse Metrics & Little Yellow Ukuleles

12th March 2011- Admiral Bar, Glasgow w/ Male Pattern Band, Ex-Men & Rollor

16th March 2011- West St. Live, Sheffield w/ Death Rays of Ardilla & the JC Albyn Complex

17th March 2011- Ram & Shackle, Manchester

19th March 2011- Market Bar, Inverness

25th March 2011- Vintner's Parrot, Worthing w/ Vacant Empire & Matron

15th April 2011- Labour Club, Northampton w/ the Sailplanes & Blood Visions

16th April 2011- Upstairs at the Garage, London w/ Verse Metrics, Lightguides & the Sailplanes

The albumis available to pre-order from the band's Bandcamp page, and I'll have a review of it this week.

Le Reno Amps are gearing up to release a new album too. Appetite is released on April 18th, with a limited number of copies coming with a digital EP of six songs that didn't quite make the album. Le Reno Amps will be playing a few pre-release gigs at the following times and places:

10th March - Drummonds, Aberdeen w/ The Scottish Enlightenment & Steven Milne.

11th March - Thunderton, Elgin (An Audience With Le Reno Amps)

12th March - Hootanannys, Inverness (An Audience with Le Reno Amps)

Appetite is available to pre-order now on Bandcamp, and you'll get a download of it right now if you buy. We bought our copy just before writing up this blog post, cause we are eager.

In other album pre-order news, You Already Know unleash their second album, Petrol Money, on the same day as Le Reno Amps, April 18th. There's a number of pre-order options available on Bandcamp, all of which will get you an immediate download of the (brilliant) album.

Not long after one half of Bottle of Evil released a new, free download album (Evil Hand's Huldra, available here) they've now released an instrumental version of their self titled debut album, also for free. You can get that here. The original version made it on to the Aye Tunes favourites of last year, and is still available from Bandcamp and all the usual online places.

The next release from the Eli and Oz label comes from Open Swimmer. Sugar Bowl is released tomorrow, but you can buy it from Bandcamp now. You can also get your hands on a free download of a remix of the title trick by Miaoux Miaoux here.

In the "records I really need to review" column, Real Capital by The Great I Am came out last week. The album is excellent, and available for a minimum price of £1. You can find it here.

Not ones for resting, apparently, How Garbo Died have released their third set of new tracks. A Collection of Things Better Left Unsaid is probably the best stuff I've heard from them yet, and available for free here.

Dananananakroyd have released a teaser of their upcoming second album. E Numbers is available free here. They've also announced their first Glasgow gig in a while, at The Ivy on June 3rd. Tickets are available here, and going fast.

Sonny Marvello are looking to get together some money for their next release, and to do so have put together the 100 Club. Here's the details - membership to the Sonny Marvello 100 Club will entail:

A free download of "Who Needs Somebody".

An exclusive, strictly limited edition acoustic mini-album. This will never be made available online, there will only ever be 100 copies made. The album will be sent out in April.
Access to a special secret show later in the year – only 100 club members will be invited.
An exclusive limited edition Sonny Marvello 100 club pin badge
A permanent mention of gratitude and thanks on the Sonny Marvello website.

You can sign up for the 100 Club here.

Birdhead will be releasing their first EP on March 16th. Available digitally and as a limited run of only 50 CDs, the EP is released with a gig Edinburgh's Electric Circus on that date. Don't worry, I'll remind you in the relevant gig guide too.

There are probably a million other things happening that I've forgotten about, but I think that's enough reading for you for one Sunday afternoon.

This Week's Gigs: 1st - 6th March

How did it get to be March already? I've failed to do anything I planned to in February. Oops.

It is, as usual, a hefty week for gigs. Before I get into it though, a whiny little request: if you have a Facebook page for yourself/your band, and at the rate that MySpace is becoming utterly useless you probably should have, then you can make life a little easier by getting yourself a custom page URL. You only need to have about 20 fans to get one I think, and it is so much less of a pain for me to link to. Also, if you only have a MySpcae page then every Sunday when that blooming thing freezes my browser I will have a lot of hate for you. Ta!

Monday:

She Keeps Bees, Louise McVey and Cracks in the Concrete. Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

Tuesday:

Let's Buy Happiness, Trapped in Kansas, So Many Animal Calls, Two Zebras. Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

Well, that's a pretty sweet way to kick off a month and no mistake, with not a duff band on the bill. This is Trapped In Kansas's first Glasgow gig of the year and to celebrate they are giving away an exclusive new track at it, only available to those that attend the gig.

Miaoux Miaoux. Mono. Free.

If you visit Aye Tunes and don't love Miaoux Miaoux by now we clearly can't be soul mates, sorry.

Wednesday:

Admiral Fallow, Olympic Swimmers. The Arches. (Tickets)

The Heebie Jeebies, Bwani Junction, Johnny Reb, Fiction Faction. 13th Note. (Tickets)

Flats, Aspen Tide, Rosewood. King Tut's. (Tickets)

Thursday:

This Silent Forest, blochestra, Donald McDonald and the Islands. Stereo.

This Silent Forest launch their new single. If I get myself organised there'll be more on the blog about the single before the gig takes place.

Pop Goes The Revolution Live: Mitchell Museum, White Heath, We See Lights, Natalie Holmes & Tom Clarke. Captain's Rest.

Friday:

Wild Palms, Song of Return, Letters. King Tut's. (Tickets)

I dare say a significant slice of the crowd will be there for the supports, rather than Wild Palms.

PAWS, Mondegreen, Male Pattern Band, Lady North. Captain's Rest

PAWS launch their new EP, with a gig line-up I'd bite my hand off to put on myself.

The Leg, Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six, Zed Penguin. Henry's Cellar Bar. (Tickets)

Another Ides of Toad gig. These are coming thick and fast at the moment, which considering the first was the day after the first Aye Tunes Presents gig means I am seriously slacking, and need to put something on soon.

Saturday:

Trapped Mice, Loch Awe, Taken at the Flood. The Wee Red Bar.

Speaking of Aye Tunes Presents, Trapped Mice who played at that first one are launching their second EP. I just might have to make another trip to Edinburgh for this, which is pretty much as high praise as a line up can get from me.

Mocker, The Tenemants, Vendors, The Sneaky Russians, Catie Pilgrim. The Courtyard, West Nile St. 1pm to 6pm. £2

Sunday:

Former Ghosts, Fox Gut Daata, How Garbo Died, Death By Ambition. The Arches. (Tickets)

Bearsuit, Siamese Ghosts, Katerwaul. King Tut's (Tickets)

Panda Su, Esperi, I Build Collapsible Mountains. Captain's Rest.

Mix_Up_Mayhem Returns, and We've Got the Line Up

After being on a bit of a break since last year Mix_Up_Mayhem returns in March.

Moving to it's new home of Bar Bloc, the first return gig takes place on March 25th, and we've snagged a wee exclusive on who will be playing on the night, but first here's a little re-introduction to what it is.

Mix_Up_Mayhem is the brainchild of Glasgow Podcart's Ally Burton and brings something a bit different to the over crowded live scene. Rather than just play their usual sets the bands taking part are presented with a challenge, they have to throw in a few covers too, as they tackle a well known song, along with a song by one of the other bands playing on the night. Past Mix-Ups have seen performances from Make Sparks, The Winter Tradition, Pacific Theatre, Little Yellow Ukuleles, boygirlanimalcolour, Call Me Ishmael, Any Color Black, Nevada Base and Pooch.

When the line-up for the return gig was whispered to me a few weeks back my eyes went wide, my jaw a little slack, and one thought ran through my head - this will be awesome.

Playing at Mix_Up_Mayhem: The Return are... (drum roll)

An acoustic set to open from Jim McNaulty

Otherpeople

Ghosts by otherpeople

Carnivores

01 John Actor Is Monkfish by carnivoresuk

You Already Know

You Already Know - Sunset by YAKtracks

Afterwards Bloc's late license will be put to the test, with Amanda Mitchell DJing until 3am, and it is all free.
Hold on to your face, or it just might be blown off.

There's also the promise of Limited Edition T-shirts on sale and exclusive remixes too by Jamie Daisuke Sturt (Oh You Dancer). These will become available afterwards exclusively to those present via download code.

You can find more information about Mix_Up_Mayhem on the Facebook group.

This Week's Gigs: 21st - 27th February

We've been a bit quiet and crap this week, sorry. Our excuse is that we've been out at loads of gigs instead of sitting at home writing about bands, so let us off this time, please?

Here's what is going on this week, most of which I can't afford to go to.

As usual if I miss something then no one told me about it. You can let me know about any upcoming gigs by emailing gigs@ayetunes.org.uk and I won't miss them out.

Monday:

French Wives. LOVEmusic, 5pm, free.

French Wives release their first EP Feel Safe Small on Monday, and celebrate with an instore gig at LOVEmusic (the shop formerly known as Avalanche for those not paying attention) at 5pm.

Tuesday:

theapplesofenergy. Mono, free.

Wolf People, Figure 5, Hidden Masters. The Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

Innercity Pirates, Wrongnote, Altered Sky. King Tut's. (Tickets)

Wednesday:

The Shape of Folk To Come: Shambles Miller, Shooting Stansfield, Lovers Turn to Monsters. Slouch, free.

Pete Lawrie, Bear Bones. The Captain's Rest.

Thursday:

Kid Canaveral, Randolph's Leap, Martin John Henry. Stereo.

Read a wee bit more about this, and the Edinburgh gig on Saturday here.

Sneak: Le Reno Amps, Male Pattern Band, Rose Parade. Pivo Pivo.

This should be a good one, the line up is ace. Catch some video previews of the bands involved here.

Skinny Villains, Poor Things, Cancel the Astronauts. Captain's Rest

2:54, Johnny Reb. The Arches

Cheap tickets available if you contact Johnny Reb (johnnyrebmusik (at) yahoo.com), tell 'em I sent you

Blonde Louis, The Corleones, The Replay, The Boy Next Door. King Tut's (Tickets)

Friday:

The Scottish Alternative Music Awards. Classic Grand.

Visit the SAMA website for all the details, and to vote.

Pin Ups Ladies Night. The Flying Duck.

You should know by now that we love the Pin Ups crew. As usual there's an excellent selection of DJs along with live sets from Hannah Peel, Any Color Black and Boycotts. All the details and tickets on the Pin Ups website.

Saturday:

Burnt Island. Avalanche, Edinburgh.

Free instore gig as part of Chaffinch Records taking part in Avalanche's Scottish Label week.

John Cage Musicircus. Tramway.

Night Noise Team. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh.

Night Noise Team also happen to have a brand spanking new website, go have a look.

RM Hubbert, Finn LeMarinel. The Arches.

This will also be ace. Being poor is rubbish.

Kid Canaveral, Blue Sky Archives, The Last Battle. Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh.

Sunday:

Popup, Miss the Occupier, Dear Mountaineer. The 13th Note.

More aceness with a trio of bands we really like round here.

John Knox Sex Club. Captain's Rest

Brain Burner Present: Cheer, Cosmic Dead, Mr Peppermint, Tangles, Small Scale Collisions. The Liquid Ship. Free entry.

Help Those Meddling Kid Canaverals

Kid Canaveral are going to America. However since that isn't cheap, they need a little help from you to do so.

The band are playing two fundraiser shows next week to help raise funds (well, obviously) to get them over to New York and Austin for the South By Southwest music festival. Considering how well they did in the Aye Tunes Readers' Poll at the end of last year I know you lot like them as much as I do, so go along to one of the gigs, and take some pals, aye?

On Thursday 24th February Kid canaveral play Stereo in Glasgow, with support from Randolph's Leap and Martin John Henry. Tickets for that one are available here.

Then on Saturday the 26th they play in Edinburgh, at The Wee Red Bar. Support on that night comes from The Last Battle and Blue Sky Archives. Tickets available here.

They also have a rather ace new video for We Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night which you can watch below.

Valentine Treats

Alternate names for this post included "Any excuse to use that card from The Simpsons" and "Oh God, Peenko is going to kill me again"

As you may have noticed from the screaming red shop window displays, lovey dovey couples, and muttering bitter single people (Hiya!) it is apparently Valentine's Day. We at Aye Tunes could care less about it, but some bands have gotten into the spirit and are giving away some free music, so we'll gladly tell you about that.

Spring Offensive are offering a new acoustic EP for one week only. It is available on a pay what you like basis. You can have it for free if you want, but if you feel like splashing out you can get a credit on their next release if you pay more than £4. Get it over at their website.

de Selby is Alistair Beith and some of his fellow Second Hand Marching Band/Benni Hemm Hemm/Tannahil friends, and they have a one day only free download, a cover of Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend". You can find it over on Bandcamp. While you are there check out the recently released Sisyphus EP, which I've forgotten to mention here until now. It is really rather good though.

Taken At The Flood I know nothing about, other than there's a Valentine download from them (Him? Not sure) over on Bandcamp. There's an EP up for grabs there too, and Taken At The Flood will be supporting the excellent Trapped Mice at their upcoming Edinburgh EP launch gig, alongside the also excellent Loch Awe on the 5th of March at The Wee Red Bar.

The Belle Hops have made their wee EP free for this week only as a special treat. Isn't that lovely of them?

Karlyn King is offering up a free download too. Nothing to do with Valentine's Day, but I might forget to mention it later, so it is getting included here anyway. Blue Painted Gates is a collaboration with Bill Wells, and can be found here.

Maple Leaves left their entry till late, but we'll forgive them since it seems churlish to complain about getting really good stuff for free. They've bundled up two of their previous single for a free EP, titled Threads. If like me you already have the singles then it is still worth a look, since the EP includes a previously unreleased Miaoux Miaoux remix. You can download Threads on Bandcamp.

This Week's Gigs: 14th - 19th February

Last night the Aye Tunes team (all one of us) made a rare venture through to Leith for the Come On Gang! album launch/final gig. Pretty sure I had more fun than is medically safe. If I happened to talk to any of you from roughly 10pm onwards I apologise for everything I said. More on the album to come this week, but for now I'll just suguest that you go buy it. You can get Strike a Match from iTunes just now.

Now, on with this week's gigs.

Monday:

Don't take your partner out for dinner, everywhere will be mobbed. Better options for spending your night include:

Harrys Gym, Midnight Harlots, How Garbo Died. Stereo. (Tickets)

United Fruit, Pensioner, Illness, P Is For Persia. 13th Note.

Tuesday:

Tuesday is apparently a good night for the poor, or the cheapskates.

Glasgow Slow Club: Withered Hand, Alan McKim. Bloc, free.

Cheer. Mono, free.

Wednesday:

Aidan Moffat's Valentine Revue. Oran Mor.

Aidan Moffat will be doing three sets - one solo, one with Bill Wells, and one with The Best-Ofs.

Darkstar. Nice N Sleazy (Tickets)

I'm always a wee bit disappointed when I see this name because for a minute I think they are mid 90s group Dark Star. I loved Twenty Twenty Sound. Sleazies might still be shut on wednesday, if it is I'll let you know where the gig moves to.

Detour. Bloc, free.

Stanley Odd, Kitty The Lion. The Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

The Last Battle, Letters, Oso Street Outreach. Henry's Cellar Bar.

Letters launch their debut single. As always, we really like The Last Battle.

Thursday:

French Wives, Pilots, ISwimWithSharks. Nice N Sleazy. (Tickets)

Launch gig for Feel Safe Small, the new French Wives EP. More on the EP coming up during the week, but until then you can pre-order and hear a song from it here.

The Black Atlantic, Blue Sky Archives, Where We Lay Our Heads. (Tickets)

Must confess I know next to nothing about The Black Atlantic, but the levels of love we have round here for Blue Sky Archives and Where We Lay Our Heads borders on the worrying and stalkerish.

Friday:

Black International, Angry vs the Bear. The 13th Note.

We like Black International a lot too.

Barmellodie: The Scottish Enlightenment, Randolph's Leap, 30 Pounds of Bone. Bloc, free before Midnight.

Armellodie hijack Bloc again, with another rather splendid selection of bands.

Saturday:

The Japanese War Effort, Fox Gut Daata, Wounded Knee, Miaoux Miaoux. The Captain's Rest. (Tickets)

If we had some kind of "gig of the week" award then this one might just come out the winner. Belated Glasgow launch gig for the Gerry Loves Records split 12" featuring all the folk playing this gig. You can buy the 12" here. I did and I don't even own a record player. It comes with downloads though, I didn't just go mad and buy something I can't listen to.

The Ides of Toad: Rob St John. Ziggy Campbell, 30 Pounds of Bone. The Wee Red Bar. (Tickets)

The second Ides of Toad gig, which also has an ace line-up.

ALSO!

The Margins Book and Music Festival is running over a few days at the end of the week. I'll quite shamelessly copy/paste the info given by the lovely people at Cargo Publishing.

Over four days, seven shows and over 30 performers, Margins brings you the biggest names in Scottish literature, like Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard, Ewan Morrison, Doug Johnstone, Alan Bissett and Rodge Glass, to brand new talent and collaborations with the most popular regular literary nights in Scotland, including Words Per Minute, Golden Hour and Seeds of Thought.

To cap it all off, the final night has music from the critically acclaimed Withered Hand, joined by Burnt Island and Where We Lay Our Heads.

Here's all the events, with each costing a mere £1. Yes, one pound. Bargain. Afternoon shows start at 4pm, evening shows at 7pm, all taking place in Stereo. Both the venue and the sound, I presume.

THURSDAY 17TH FEBRUARY

Evening:

MONOSYLLABIC-MARGINS OF ERROR POP-UP THEATRE

_________________

FRIDAY 18TH FEBRUARY

Afternoon:

SEEDS OF THOUGHT SPECIAL

Evening:

LIZ LOCHHEAD ALAN BISSETT

ANNELIESE MACKINTOSH

_______________________

SATURDAY 19TH FEBRUARY

Afternoon:

GOLDEN HOUR SPECIAL

(RYAN VAN WINKLE NICK HOLDSTOCK ERICA DUFFY

SMALL FEET LITTLE TOES BILLY LIAR TOBY MOTTERSHEAD)

Evening:

RODGE GLASS DOUG JOHNSTONE KIRSTIN INNES

_______________________

SUNDAY 20TH FEBRUARY

Afternoon:

WORDS PER MINUTE SPECIAL

Evening:

TOM LEONARD WITHERED HAND

EWAN MORRISON BURNT ISLAND

ALLAN WILSON ANDREW RAYMOND DRENNAN

WHERE WE LAY OUR HEADS