This Week's Happenings

Happy St Andrew's Day people. Time for the usual Monday round up of what's out and what gigs look good this week.

Records:
Night Noise Team release their debut single, Menolick, as a download. It's a new version of the song that appeared on the first Night Noise Team album, a live version also appeared on the Limbo Live Vol. 1 compilation. You can find it at all the usual download places, iTunes, Amazon etc.
The Wildhouse have an EP out, released by our pals 17 Seconds Records. Precise Running Order - The Wildhouse Sampler compiles tracks from The Wildhouse's two previous albums, both due to be reissued by 17 Seconds in 2010, and another track, Ficca. This one is slated for a review some time this week, so check back if you want to now what I thought of it.
Tango In The Attic release a new single too, Seven Second Stare. Check the usual download places for that too, and here's another handy Amazon link, because I'm clearly shameless this week.
Duelling Winos released a single at the tail end of last week, but I forgot to flag it up in last week's round up, so I'm doing that now. Someday/One For The Weekend was released on Friday, and all proceeds from it go to Teenage Cancer Trust.
We Were Promised Jetpacks, fresh from playing King Tut's last night, release a double A-side single, It's Thunder And It's Lightening/Ships With Holes Will Sink.

Gigs:
Trapped In Kansas and The Whisky Works are both big favourites round here, and both bands share the bill on Thursday at the Oran Mor as part of The Mill gigs. Text MILL62K to 82500 for tickets.
Strictly speaking this one should go in next week's round up, but just so you have plenty of notice, I'm throwing it in a week early too. Monday December 7th sees The Gothenburg Address launch their critically acclaimed debut album with a gig in Mono. Support comes from The Bucky rage and Loss Leader, with Aiden Moffat doing some DJing for good measure. You du not want to miss the Gothenburg Address album, you can order it here if you can't make the gig.
He Slept on 57 and City of Statues are also playing on the 7th at King Tut's.

As usual, give me a shout if I've missed anything.

EP Review: Sparrow and the Workshop - Into The Wild

Monday saw the release of the second EP by Glasgow based but hailing from all over the place three piece Sparrow and the Workshop. Since I really enjoyed their last EP (or are the mini albums? I'm not sure) Sleight of Hand, I picked up the new one too and now, somewhat obviously, I'm going to write about it a wee bit.

First of all Into The Wild, like Sleight of Hand was, is really good.
The band have a real chemistry together, which is obvious right from the off on opener You’ve Got It All. Jill O'Sullivan has a really powerful, but never overpowering, country tinged voice which is nicely complimented by Gregor Donaldson's vocal contribution.
The songs are dramatic, melodic and unpredictable, often taking twists and turns in the instrumentation that you never saw coming. Add all the parts together and you get something quite thrilling

Swam Like Sharks is probably my favourite of the songs on offer here, starting out gently, before morphing into something altogether rougher. It's only a slight nudge away from being all out metal at times, and all the better for it. There's not a bad song in the bunch, and enough variety across the seven tracks to show that Sparrow and the Workshop won't be going short of ideas any time soon.

As is befitting of a band with members hailing from America and Wales, as well as a Scot, there's no chance of Sparrow and the Workshop ever being tagged as just another Scottish band. Their sound is very distinctive, and stands out a mile from the also rans. They are one of those bands who bring to mind plenty of other songs and other bands, without ever sounding like anyone but themselves.

Into The Wild more than delivers on the promise of Sleight of Hand. Now, can we have something longer next time please?

Sparrow and the Workshop MySpace

Into The Wild is available as a download now from all the usual places. A physical release is due to follow on November 30th. Sparrow and the Workshop have a few gigs coming up, including a freebie in Glasgow for The Mill. Check their MySpace for full dates.

SXSW Announce Scottish Showcase Bands

South By Southwest have announced a list of their showcase acts for the 2010 festival.
Scottish bands playing include:
Broken Records
Frightened Rabbit
The Law
Tommy Reilly
Trembling Bells
Twin Atlantic
The View

Bit of a mixed bag, frankly...

Loch Lomond/The Builders and the Butchers - Split 12"

As promised, I'm attacking my inbox and doing all that stuff I was meant to do ages ago, but forgot about.

I'm not going to claim this is a review, because I don't have an awful lot to say about it, but I will throw in a wee bit.
Before that i should really tell you what I'm talking about first, shouldn't I? Well, it's a slightly unusual release in that it's a vinyl split 12". It's hard to make a 12" CD or download after all, although if you buy the 12" you will get a CDr thrown in, which is handy for folk like me that don't have working record players anymore.
The bands involved are Loch Lomond & The Builders and the Butchers, each contributing four songs. Neither of them are Scottish (although with that name Loch Lomond can at least claim a connection), hailing instead from Portland over in the good ole US of A. Why am I covering the release then? Well firstly because I'm allowed to write about stuff that isn't Scottish if I want, I'm not under a trade embargo you cheeky git, but mostly because the 12" is released over here by Song, by Toad Records. So there.

Both bands featured here are new to me, but after hearing this I'll be doing a bit of hunting down of their other stuff now.
Loch Lomond's songs are both gentle and lovely yet also at times a bit creepy and sinister. In that way they remind me a bit of Lambchop, even though the two sound nothing like each other.
The Builders and the Butchers are a bit rowdier, but the songs are just as good. Their first songs throws a bit of a mariachi flair into proceedings, before Vampire Flair, which you can sample below, goes off in another direction, almost putting me in mind of The Pogues.
Any release that can make me think of both Lambchop and The Pogues is a sure fire winner in my book.

The 12" has a very pretty drawing by Matthew of Song, by Toad on the front too.

Downloads:
Loch Lomond - A Field Report
The Builders & the Butchers - Vampire Lake

Buy from Song, by Toad Records

Album Review - Cuddly Shark

First of all, Cuddly Shark is a brilliant name, therefor to pull off such a name, your band has to be pretty great too. Good thing that Cuddly Shark manage it then. I've had this album a few weeks, and it that time it's had plenty of listens, but as is the way with me it has taken this long for me to get round to writing up a review.

Cuddly Shark caught my attention earlier this year with a trio of very promising singles, some tracks from them make a reappearance here on the album, so I was rather looking forwards to hearing this self titled debut album.

Right from the off the album grabs you and yells in your face, opening track Bowl of Cherries is all thrashy, shouty vocals and even - hurrah - hand claps. I'm a sucker for hand claps, ever since Kenickie released Come Out 2Nite.
From there on in the album is packed with fantastic riffs, razor sharp lyrics and most of all a massive sense of humour, at time the lyrics are so tongue in cheek it's amazing anyone can actually sing them.
Influences are worn of sleeves, but Cuddly Shark have so many different influences that throwing them all together brings out something quite special.
It isn't all manic riffs and shouted vocals either, the band switch things up often enough to keep things from getting stale, showing on Whiteoaks that they can be tender as well as tongue in cheek, and throwing in a cover of old country song Boney Fingers for good measure.

Along with all that this album contains both my favourite celebrity diss of the year with "Jamie Foxx on Later With Jools Holland", and my favourite sweary moment of the year on last single "The Sheriff of Aspen Bay".
AND there's an old fashioned hidden track at the end.

Brilliant stuff quite frankly. Cuddly Shark are clearly having a fantastic time on this record, and so am I.
The album might not have been out for long, but it has already forced it's way into my favourites of 2009.

As a wee sampler here's Cuddly Jim, which was a b-side to The Sheriff of Aspen Bay single. I'm picking this instead of something from the album because (a) it is fab, and the album tracks can be heard on MySpace and (b) it's got my name in it, obviously.

Download Cuddly Shark - Cuddly Jim

Cuddly Shark MySpace - Website
Buy the album here.

This Week's Thing

You know the deal with this post by now. Records out this week, a few gigs I like the look of and so on. It's essentially my shopping list.

Records:
Starting off with a freebie, Steve Mason (The Beta Band/King Biscuit Time) has a single out, called All Come Down. You can buy it, but it's also available as a free download here.
Sparrow and the Workshop follow up last week's download single with a new EP, Into the Wild. Digital release is today, CDs will be out next week.
eMusic has a reissue of Malcolm Middleton's Waxing Gibbous, which includes his "girl band" covers of The Saturdays, Girls Aloud, Ladyhawke and Joan Osbourne. The extra songs are also available without the album, on the Girl Band Pop Songs EP.
Some Scottish wummin off the telly has an album out too I think. Haven't heard much about it, don't expect it to shift many copies.

Gigs:
I'm not expecting to be out this week, in a desperate attempt to save money, so I haven't paid a whole lot of attention. Still, there's a couple that are tempting me.
On Thursday Make Sparks launch their new EP with a gig at Bar Bloc. Support comes from Little Yellow Ukuleles I mostly missed Make Sparks when they played Define Pop 2, so I might try and catch them this time.
Pin Up Nights takes place on Friday and it is having it's 6th birthday to boot. Playing live are The Dirty Cuts, Always Me, Me, Me as well as a pair of Aye Tunes favourites in We're Only Afraid of NYC and Mitchell Museum.
Our other good looking gig this week is on Sunday. The Second Hand Marching Band, Benni Hemm Hemm, theapplesofenergy and Meursault are playing at Stereo. Looks like a good one.
If you are in Dundee or thereabouts on Sunday, why not go along to the latest Manic Pop Thrills Presents night? There's more bands Aye Tunes love playing, like Kid Canaveral and Panda Su.
Also at the weekend there's all that Homecoming stuff going on. Tickets should be easy to get, if you fancy it. I'm still half expecting it to be downsized into taking place at the train station next to the SECC.

On The Blog:
This week I'll attempt to pick out anything in my email I've been meaning to cover but have forgotten about, and possibly catch up on some reviews. There's a vague plan to revive the old A-Z that fell apart back in May, and sometime over the next few weeks I'll be writing about some of my favourite releases of the year. You can make your own Al Megrahi jokes regarding that last one.

Single Review - eagleowl: Sleep The Winter

Somewhat luckily for me I came to the eagleowl party quite late. While all the people that have loved them since their last release, For The Thoughts You Never Had, have had to wait ages for a follow up I only got that EP recently, when the band offered it as a free download (which you can find here) so my wait for new material hasn't been long at all.

Even without the long wait, I was still terribly excited when the new single popped up in my inbox a bit ahead of release.

First reaction? Pretty much just "wow". Followed a few listens later by "this is bloody gorgeous".
I've listened to the single quite a few times since last night, and those two reactions haven't changed. These songs are bloody gorgeous.
On A-Side Sleep The Winter Bart's cracked voice is complimented perfectly by Clarissa's sweet, gentle tones. Likewise guitar and strings work perfectly together. What starts off dark and broody soon becomes warm and uplifting around halfway through, all courtesy of just a few simple changes.
B-Side Laughter is no less gorgeous. Again it keeps things simple, there's no histrionics, no showing off, just a great song.

Your one word review? Back to that first impression then. Wow. You'll struggle to find a more perfect seasonal release.
Now, like all the cool kids who picked up the first EP way back last year, I'm eagerly awaiting more new material from eagleowl. With a second EP due next year, hopefully the wait won't be too long...

The Sleep The Winter 7” single will be launched with a show at The Bowery (2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9SU) on Friday, December 11th. Doors open at 7.30, entry is £5, and early arrival is strongly advised, so’s not to miss the amazing special guests.
From December 14th the single will be available from select independent record stores, and to order via www.eagleowlattack.co.uk and www.kilterschmilter.co.uk. You also can listen to and buy it below.

eagleowl MySpace

Facelift

As you might have noticed I got bored and repainted.
I don't think I broke anything this time, let me know if I did.

Gig Review: The Kays Lavelle & Beerjacket

Glasgow PodcART Live Session, with The Kays Lavelle and Beerjacket.
The 13th Note, Glasgow - 18th November 2009

For someone who claims to hate doing gig reviews I do seem to write an awful lot of them at the moment. The thinking is that if I make myself do them I'll stop hating them so much, and get better at them. I always think my writing is awful, so that second part is down to you fine readers to judge. I'll try not to bore you with details of every gig I go to, and I'll be getting back to the other rambly posts soon.

Last night was another of Glasgow PodcART 's live session gigs, with, as you probably worked out by now, The Kays Lavelle and Beerjacket.

Oh look, it's Chris Lee-Marr, again. I'd forgotten that Chris plays drums with The Kays Lavelle. I swear I've seen him more times recently than I have most of my family members. Anyway...
The Kays were up first, and this was my first time seeing them, or hearing any more from them than a couple of songs on MySpace, so I was looking forward to it. I'm actually more familiar with singer Euan as a blogger than a musician, thanks to his blog TheSteinbergPrinciple, which you should all go visit (after you've finished reading me, of course).

Happily, I wasn't disappointed in them. From the way they sound they are instantly recognisable as an East Coast band. They don't sound much like Broken Records, Meursault or the like, but I can certainly hear them as part of the same "family", for want of a better word. That's a bit of a refreshing change for much. As much as I dearly love all my Glasgow bands that I go to see, something a bit different helps break things up a bit. Song names I'm hazy on, so I'll settle for the one that I do know as a highlight - not just because I know it, but because it was great - in the shape of Aftermath. Live the band sounded fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to their album, due out next year. Euan unintentionally talking about his mum's sex life added a laugh too.

There's not much I can say about Beerjacket that many others haven't said before me, and probably better than me. He is a fantastic artist and as a bonus a really nice man too.
Last night was no different than normal on that score, as Peter battered through his last album Animosity (my review of which we shall never speak of again - love the album, hate my review), threw in a fantastic sounding new song, played that cover version, and treated us to Barricade. A few times Peter berated himself, but I'll go ahead and speak for everyone that was there by saying that no matter what he thinks of himself, he and his songs are brilliant. Here's hoping Beerjacket gets his new material out before he starts hating those songs too!

Links:
Glasgow PodcART
The Kays Lavelle
Beerjacket

Gig review: Define Pop Festival 2

Want all your Define Pop Fest 2 review action in one place? Here you go then.

Oh, and didn't I tell you the football would be rubbish?

Gig Review - Define Pop Fest 2 - Day Two

Day 2 - Sunday

Day two was a bit of a more sedate affair than day one, we can probably put that down to everyone nursing hangovers from the previous day and a general quieter line up. That being said, it wasn't exactly a quiet chat round the campfire. Due to issues the previous day stage times were rejigged again, with some bands switching stages. My brain had pretty much given up trying to process information, so it became a bit of a lucky dip when it came to seeing people. As a result the reviews might be a bit random again.

Lovers Turned To Monsters kicked off the day in the open again Kitchen Stage. Unfortunately Kyle was on before most people had arrived, so played to quite a small audience. Those of us there early enough to see him enjoyed it though. I sometimes feel like I should be too old for Lovers Turn To Monsters, but Kyle does the acoustic lo-fi emo type thing really well. Glad I finally got round to seeing him.
Esperi played again on Sunday and this time there was no distractions from the other room. Once again I'm going to fall over myself praising Chris, simply because I find his live show both brilliant and utterly fascinating. I hope I'm not putting too much expectation on Chris now! Rather than me try to sum up the esperi set thanks to Sean from Glasgow Podcart you can go see some of it for yourself. Even when Chris steps away from the loop pedal he's still an excellent musician though, as he showed at the end of the set by finishing sat out in front of the stage, relying just on his guitar and voice, and held the crowd in silence listening.
Lad Lazarus was a band I didn't know much about beforehand, and only caught a bit of their set (my quest to try and see a bit of everyone backfired on me a few times). What I saw was really good, and left me kicking myself a bit that I hadn't seen more. I'll be keeping an eye out for another gig by them.
Little Eskimos I almost completely missed. Think i only caught about half a song. Shame, I'd quite fancied seeing them! Ah well, yet another band I'll need to catch another time.
Dead Boy Robotics - hey guess what? Yeah, missed most of their set too. The couple of songs I caught? Brilliant.
Diamond Sea - even though my by this point overfull brain kept trying to tell me were King Diamond - did what they did very well. On most days I'd have really enjoyed them too, but on Sunday I just couldn't get into it. That's entirely my fault, not a slant on them by the way. I'll make a point of checking them out further, Sunday evening was just a bad time for me to see them.
Julia and the Doogans I've seen a few times now, and never get bored of. They were a pretty much perfect pick me up on Sunday night when energy levels were running low. As I'm sure I've said other times I've reviewed them they write great songs and Julia has one of the most gorgeous voices I think I've ever heard.
The Second Hand Marching Band played with a stripped back line-up. I think I counted only 14 of them. I was a little concerned actually, they played in the Kitchen and I was right next to the stage, got a little bit worried I might get absorbed into the band. They were excellent though, as they have been previous times I've seen them. There's something about them makes me grin like a loon. Oh, and go check out a wee video of them here, which is just adorable.
The Lava Experiments ended up closing the weekend for me, and did so really well. They mix electronica with a sort of shoegazy sound, and are really good at it too. again, my enjoyment of them suffered from a combination of being knackered, wondering how to get home, and having seen so many bands. When I managed to get myself to pay attention they were magic though. The Release was a real highlight for me, it's a fantastic song.
Nevada Base were on last, things over running so much that sadly Yahweh's set was scrapped. Due to a desire to actually get home from Glasgow I opted to miss Nevada Base entirely. Sorry folks, hope it went well.
Err, sorry to everyone else too. Reading this back I realise that I've spent more time talking about missing your sets and my head being screwed than about how good you all were.

All in all it was an excellent weekend with a ton of excellent bands. I saw some full sets and a load of bits & pieces, I've ended up with a lengthy list of acts I need to go see again. I don't think I saw one duff act, and that's quite a result. It's a bit of a shame I never get to see Kochka, who had to pull out through illness, and Yahweh, who time ran out on, but stuff like that happens. (Oh, and I hope Sheryll from Kochka, as well as the ill Poochette, are both feeling better soon.)

Massive thanks have to go to Wull Swales for putting the event on and for seemingly keeping his calm throughout. I'm fairly sure if I'd been him I'd have exploded from stress at some point. I probably wouldn't even have made it through Saturday in fact.

Unrelated to the main post, but interesting to me - the day one review was seen by a frightening number of people. It's the third most visited post I've ever made on Aye Tunes and has only been up a few days. So thanks everyone for visiting, hope you've come back for this post and will stop by and see me now and then.

Gig Review - Define Pop Day One

Another attempt at writing up a review of Define Pop Fest 2.
Hopefully this one will be a bit more coherent, but don't count on it...

Oh, and didn't I tell you the football would be rubbish?

Day One - Saturday

Due to a couple of line up changes the running times I posted the other day pretty much went out the window early on. They were later picked up off the street outside the window and torn into little bits when Environmental Health shut down one of the stages for being too loud, meaning everyone had to be crammed into the Living Room stage. I've tried to remember the order I saw folk in, but it'll no doubt go awry at some point. It doesn't really matter anyway.

First band I caught were Little Yellow Ukuleles, although I missed the start of their set due to thinking they were still soundchecking, not actually playing... Good start to the weekend with this band. Good set of indie rock, not exactly reinventing the wheel or anything but still plenty entertaining.

Off to the other stage to catch esperi next, who was a late addition to Saturday. I could pretty much copy and paste my review of esperi from the Classic Grand in here, as it was once again entertaining, mesmerising and all kinds of brilliant. It did however suffer from being up against a loud band next door. It's quite distracting during those quiet moments when a door opens and all you can hear are the band in the other room. Esperi played again on Sunday, so he'll get another mention in the Day 2 review later.

Briefly caught a bit of Make Sparks, sounded really good. Sorry I didn't stick around for the whole set. Skipped next door to see Miniature Dinosaurs instead who I was very impressed with. Had heard a couple of songs before and dug them, but the band performing live exceeded expectations. I had a feeling that I'd either enjoy them, or they'd really annoy me. Thankfully I enjoyed them. Very good stuff.

The Morgue Party Candidate were good again, still somewhat chaotic but endearingly so. My only quibble was that the vocals got a bit lost in the mix. Other than that I enjoyed them.

Macabre Scene were a late addition to the bill. Saw them a wee while ago in Stereo and thought they had a lot of potential, on Saturday I was even more impressed. It hasn't been that long since I saw them, but they'd already improved a lot. Really like this band, and they do a killer Smiths cover. Get along to Pivo Pivo on Thursday to see them with The Morgue Party Candidate if you can, and swing by their MySpace, where they've just added a couple of new songs for download.

I didn't see enough of Other People to form an opinion. First sound sounded good though. Despite my efforts to see at least a little bit of everyone playing I somehow completely missed Pacific Theatre. Sorry guys.

Mickey 9s I'd barely heard before seeing, so they were a bit of a surprise package for me. Again, I missed the start of their set. Wandered in while they were covering Daft Punk's Da Funk and was hooked from there on. Massively entertaining and also really quite scary too. To say their frontman is interesting would be an understatement. He's certainly not shy... Anyway, really good stuff from them, and I'll pay more attention to them in future.

It's round about this time that we lost a stage and my brain started to get overloaded, so it'll be even briefer from here on in.

Gdansk were completely different from what I expected, reckon I had them confused with someone else. I really should pay more attention I know. They were much better than whatever band I thought I was going to see, which worked out nicely. Really good set from them.

Vendor Defender made me dance a bit. Excellent. I'm sorry i tried to say hello afterwards and called you totally the wrong band name, I'm an idiot...

Young Aviators are another band I'd only heard a little of before seeing, but was dead impressed with. I missed out on CDs and a cheap t-shirt, so if any of you happen to read this give me a wee shout.

Kid Canaveral were fantastic, and made me dance more. Had to risk death by stabbing on the night bus to Paisley to stick around for them, but it was worth it. As a bonus, I got home alive. Obviously.

Also, if anyone went home with a snare drum that wasn't actually theirs can they let me or Kid Canaveral know please? Their snare went missing on Saturday.

Day 2 review will follow. Sorry this is all a bit thrown together, and sorry to any bands I missed.

This Week's Thing

While I work on properly reviewing the weekend's Define Pop Fest 2, here's my semi-regular round up on stuff happening and records out this week.

Records: New singles aplenty this week. Frightened Rabbit (not White Rabbit, like the News of the World called them yesterday) release Swim Until You Can't See Land. Kitty The Lion have their debut single out, Lion in the Bed. Sparrow and the Workshop have a download only single, A Horse's Grin. Finally, The King Hats release Was A Riot At The Art School Last Night.
After it's physical release a few weeks ago, Paul Haig's new album Relive is now available from the usual download shops too.

Gigs: Frankly I'm too done in from the weekend to have paid much attention to what's happening this week, but there are a few that have caught me eye.
On Wednesday Glasgow Podcart are doing another of their live sessions, with The Kays Lavelle and the fantastic Beerjacket. You might struggle to get in to that one, but have a look over on PodcART's website for more info if you feel like chancing it.
On Thursday there are two interesting gigs worth checking out. Mitchell Museum and Lovers Turn To Monsters are playing acosutic sets at Bar Brel.
In the city centre Campfires In Winter, The Morgue Party Candidate and Macabre Scene are playing at Pivo Pivo. It'll be £3 well spent.

10 Reasons To Go To Define Pop 2

Still not sure if you should get out to Define Pop this weekend? Here's some reasons why you should.

1. Be the envy of children. Kyle Wood, AKA Lovers Turn To Monsters, sings the theme tune to Dennis and Gnasher, CBBC's new Dennis the Menace cartoon. Theme tune written by Iain Cook, formerly of Aereogramme for extra Scottish indie cred. See him on Sunday and tell your children/nieces & nephews/random kids at the swing park* Also, download that theme tune here.
2. Meet me. Alright, rubbish reason, but I'm a fairly nice guy really. Feel free to buy me a pint, I'll be your pal forever. Or you can just mock my bunny ears.
3. See Glasgow's biggest band. The Second Hand Marching Band play on Sunday. At last count there was about 500 of them. If bored you can play "spot the member of SHMB" and kill time between acts.
4. Meet the Glasgow PodcART crew. Ali, Sean, Halina, Nicola and Louise are significantly more awesome than me. Go say hi to them, you might even get on their next podcast.
5. The football will be rubbish. Wales Vs Scotland will be a terrible game of football, avoid the end of it by getting yourself into The Flying Duck in time for Little Yellow Ukuleles at 4.40.
6. Value for money. Seven quid a day for a whole bunch of bands (maybe cheaper if you ask the right people) is hard to argue with. The Flying Duck doesn't gouge you on drink prices either.
7. Great bands. Making that low price even more tempting is the line up. There's some really great bands playing over the weekend. If you can find a better selection of up and coming unsigned artists playing under one roof I'll be very surprised. In a few years time you'll be able to boast that you saw them in a tiny wee place in Glasgow. Define Pop's Wull Swales has done an excellent job putting this together, you should reward him by going along.
8. Pretty people. Shallow enough to only care about a band if they are attractive? Well you are in luck, there's some good looking folks playing. It's a better deal if you like boys admittedly, but there's some lovely ladies playing too.
9. Marvel at one man's noise. Sunday, 5.30pm. With apologies to Lad Lazarus who are on the other stage at the same time I advise everyone who can to see Esperi. After blowing me away the other week I can't stress enough how mesmerising it is to see esperi perform live. Especially if Chris plays Cats and Dogs.
10. Two stages, one place. No need to be out in the cold. Unless, like me, you smoke that is.

*Aye Tunes does not condone hanging round swing parks and talking to strange children. Apart from anything else they are likely to bottle you.

Frightened Rabbit News

First of all, the new Frightened Rabbit album The Winter of Mixed Drinks is set for release on March 1st 2010. That seems so far away...
The tracklisting goes like this :
1.Things
2. Swim Until You Can't See Land
3. The Loneliness & The Scream
4. The Wrestle
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/ Bag Of Sand
8. Foot Shooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living In Colour
11. Yes I Would

To make the wait a little bit easier there's a new single - Swim Until You Can’t See Land - out on Monday, November 16th.

Lead singer Scott Hutchison has this to say about the new album: ‘We've broadened our horizons sonically and it feels like a natural move forward. Most importantly, it’s better than the last one. That's all I wanted, really.’ Produced once again by Peter Katis, at Tarquin Studios in Connecticut, and engineered by Stuart Hamilton at Castlesound Studios in Scotland, ‘The Winter Of Mixed Drinks’ boasts stunning string arrangments from labelmate, Teutonic ivory-botherer, Hauschka. ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ takes up where we left off - metaphorically (or otherwise) floating in the Forth - and is pivotal to the new record. ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ was the title I had in my mind before I even started writing the album’, says Scott ‘I was becoming more and more interested in the idea of a rejection of the habits and behaviour most people see as normal. It’s about losing your mind in order to reset the mind and the body. Forget what’s gone before and wash it out. It’s a good introduction to the record’s themes”

Frightened Rabbit have added an extra member to their line up too, former Make Model member Gordon Skene. Scott says "We want to do the recordings justice when we play them live. Gordon will be playing a bundle of instruments - we just bought a tasty wee mandolin for him to fiddle with today. We're really excited to have him involved."

Frightened Rabbit are off on a national tour at the moment, playing in support of both Gomez and Modest Mouse, as well as a handful of headline Scottish shows.

Frightened Rabbit MySpace

Define Pop Fest 2 - Stage Times

For those planning on getting down to the Flying Duck this weekend for Define Pop 2, here's the stage times for both days:

Living Room Stage - Saturday
5.20 Miniature Dinosaurs
6.10 Louise Against The Elements
7.00 Mickey 9's
7.50 The Costapeens
8.40 Kochka
9.30 Vendor Defender
10.20 Kid Canaveral

Kitchen Stage - Saturday
4.40 Little Yellow Ukuleles
5.30 Make Sparks
6.20 Blessed Order Of Fallen Stars
7.10 The Morgue Party Candidate
8.00 Other People
8.50 Pacific Theatre
9.40 Gdansk
10.30 Young Aviators

Living Room Stage - Sunday
4.30 Lovers Turn To Monsters
5.20 Esperi
6.10 Incrediboy and The Forget Me Nots
7.00 Julia and the Doogans
7.50 Diamond Sea
8.40 The Lava Experiments
9.30 Second Hand Marching Band
10.20 Yahweh

Kitchen Stage - Sunday
4.40 Marshall Chipped
5.30 Lad Lazarus
7.10 Little Eskimos
8.00 Dead Boy Robotics
8.50 Stereo Grand
9.40 Nevada Base
10.30 Pooch

I'll be kicking about both days, come say hello.

Haven't had a chance to have a more in depth look at the acts playing unfortunately. I'll try to squeeze in a couple of features before the weekend, but don't count on it.
Sorry to the people I miss out. Sorry if I miss you playing too, it won't be anything personal (probably)

Manic Pop Thrills Presents:

Another gig to flag up, this time one away from Glasgow.

Presented by our friends over at Manic Pop Thrills, taking place on November 29th upstairs in the Westport Bar in Dundee.

Tickets are £5 from Groucho's and the first 50 advance purchasers will also get a free EP on arrival. Pop over to Manic Pop Thrills if you need any more details.

I must confess to knowing nothing about Hookers For Jesus, but Panda Su and Kid Canaveral re both big favourites round here. Haven't heard much of Saint Jude's Infirmary - their albums are patiently waiting for me to have money to buy them - but what I've heard sounds pretty lovely.

This Week's Happenings

Time for one of those weekly round up things I do when I feel i should write a post, but am too lazy to use my brain for anything special.

New records this week include an album from Roddy Hart, a digital release of Cast of the Capital's Rotten Kids and Haversacks EP, which I reviewed a few weeks ago here, and the debut album by Cuddly Shark, which I've been looking forward to hearing.
There's a new single out from Escape Act too, called Cabin Fever. They are from Northern Ireland rather than Scotland, but I like them, and it's out on 17 Seconds Records, a Scottish label.
Also releasing a single, Zagora Road, are The Ray Summers.
A more high profile release comes in the shape of the latest Biffy Clyro album. Haven't heard it myself, but I'm hearing encouraging things about it.
The latest EP by Go Away Birds s due to be available for free download here today, but as I write this isn't up yet.

Tons of gigs on this week. Meursalt play The 13th Note on Tuesday the 10th. Bronto Skylift and Lions.Chase.Tigers at the Detour Podcast launch I've mentioned already. On Friday night you can catch The Darien Venture at Capitol in Glasgow, and on Saturday the quite fantastic You Already Know play The 13th Note. I can't make it to the YAK show sadly, as I'll be at Define Pop in the Flying Duck, don't forget to come say hi to me if you are going there too.

There will be releases I've missed, and gigs I've not listed, there always is. If you want me to mention something, don't forget to tell me.

Detour Podcast Launch Night

As I've said before, I prefer to leave gig guides to other sites that can do it better than me, but some things I'll post up here, mostly things I'm going to.

This is one I might not get to, but if I don't I'll be kicking myself.
The occasion of the night is, as the poster suggests, to launch the new Detour Podcast. The podcast itself sounds like something worth keeping an ear out for.
Even if it turns out rubbish, which I really doubt it will, Bronto Skylift and Lions.Chase.Tigers are both excellent bands, well worth seeing.

Detour Scotland Website - MySpace - Facebook

Kochka - Dacha/Summer House EP Review

Kochka are a band I've been meaning to write about for ages, but for on reason or another I've never quite gotten round to it. Since they are one of the bands playing Define Pop 2, and since they really cheered me up on a bad day by sending me badges, it's about time I finally gave them the coverage I've been intending to.

Kochka (Czech for "cat" I believe) are a four piece, formed in Glasgow. Made up of two girls and two boys - Sheryll, Mhairi , Stewart and Markk - they make music, funnily enough. Since forming in 2008 they've kept themselves busy gigging extensively, both on their own and supporting the likes of The Phantom Band, and slipping out a couple of EPs and a single. Second EP, Dacha/Summer House was released way back in August. I picked it up from eMusic on release, loved it, and promptly forgot to review it.

The Dacha/Summer House EP holds the distinction for the release I've taken the longest to get round to reviewing then. I'll point out now that that is no reflection on the quality of it - as the review will show - but is all down to my good old fashioned forgetfulness and circumstances too boring to detail.
The first thing that struck me about the EP was that even though it hadn't been that long since I'd gotten their previous release, The Dead Room Party single, they'd improved quite a bit, and I say that as someone who loved that earlier single (Sadly I don't have debut EP Numbers. Wonder if the band have any left they could sell me?). Maybe improved is the wrong word. If so, take your pick from evolved or matured instead. Stop looking at me like that, I've always said I'm rubbish at writing reviews... The other thing that struck me was that I was struck with a sudden urge to dance around the room. Good work by the songs, but not pretty for anyone who may have the misfortune to see my shimmy.

Right from the off lead track Cowards and Kings grabs you with a jangling, Television-esque guitar line, before Markk's distinctive vocals kick in. Next thing you know you've been dragged along for the ride through a song while changes direction several times and remains infectious throughout.
So far so good then, but things get even better with the next track, Dacha (In The Summer). Outstanding bass and percussion threaten to steal the show for a while before falling back around half way through to allow Stewie to take centre stage with his guitar. It brings about 50 different songs to the back of my head, just enough for me to think "that sounds a bit like..." before shoving them away before I can think of what. The lesson I'm taking from this is that it might remind me a bit of something, but it just sounds like Kochka.
Memory Box / Personal Effects has a darker tone to it, and a lot going on in the background. I swear there's a typewriter in there somewhere. It's a bit sleazy, very funky, and an awful lot excellent.
Finally Black Cat closes proceedings and goodness, they've quite possibly saved the best for last. Quite a trick considering the previous three songs, as you can hopefully tell, left quite an impression. Distorted guitars, Markk's vioce threatening to venture into Pixies territory, percussion all over the place tapping out a beat straight into your urge, defying you not to move.

All the songs from Dacha/Summer House - and a few not from it - can be heard on the band's MySpace. I urge you to have a listen.
Kochka don't do indie by the numbers. There music might initially sound simple enough, but that's all part of their diabolical plan to make your body move before you've noticed you aren't listening to another plain, run of the mill band. There's some fantastic musicianship going on in there, and careful or repeated listen will make you notice that things are a lot more complex than you initially thought. These aren't disposable, sing-along 3 minute pop songs, they are smart, sexy, funky and oh-so-groovy.
If listening at home close the curtains, make sure the dog isn't watching, and dance your arse off to this fantastic little EP.

For the next few days you can snag a free download of Man Of Letters here.
Find Kochka on MySpace - Last.fm

Kochka's records are available at shows, in the usual independent shops, and to download from the like of eMusic and iTunes.
They play The Living Room stage of Define Pop 2 on Saturday Nov. 14, Sleazies in Glasgow on the 20th and in Stirling on Dec. 20th. Go see them.