May 14, 2010: The Wickerman Festival has added a few more bands to its line-up on July 23-24, i.e. The Charlatans, Tony Christie, Goldie Lookin Chain, 808 State, Buzzcocks, Erland & The Carnival and Pama International.
Dusk To Dawn is a music charity event which will take place at Glasgow’s Buff Club on May 28-29 to raise funds for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. Acts on show include (Friday) Admiral Fallow, Louise McVey & Cracks In The Concrete and Loki, plus (Saturday) Alan McKim, Findlay Napier, Heather Downie and Aaron Wright And The Aprils. Tickets are available here.
Speaking of Admiral Fallow (who are probably the greatest new band in Scotland right now), they are playing on STV’s The Hour show at 5pm today and also feature in the line-up for The Wee Chill festival alongside a bill of predominantly clubber-friendly talent at The Glasshouse in Glasgow’s Queens Park on May 29. Tickets on sale here.
If you’re not all good-caused out, Edinburgh-based music event Charity Baw returns to the city’s Roxy Art House on July 17 with some top acts, namely King Creosote, Panda Su, Ballboy, Found , Three Blind Wolves, The Sexual Objects , Over The Wall and Maple Leaves. Tickets are available here with all proceeds going towards local charity Artlink.
May 13, 2010: If you’re going to the Stag & Dagger multi-venue festival in Glasgow on May 22, you might want to help yourself to The Pop Cop’s custom-made, printer-friendly running order to find out where and when the 50 acts are playing. Tickets are available to buy here.
RockNess is running a competition to find a budding DJ to play at the festival next month. Entrants should submit a 30-minute mix CD including tracklisting and full contact details to RockNess DJ Competition, AEG Live, 29 Great Guildford Street, London, SE1 0ES.
American deep house pioneer Kerri Chandler will be spinning records at Glasgow’s Club Milan on May 27 to launch the new Xile clothes store. Email murray@xileclothing.com to get free tickets.
May 12, 2010: Aberdeen musicians aged between 12-18 are being offered the chance to get 40% off the cost of using the city’s Marywell Centre recording studio, rehearsal room and DJ room, while 19 to 25-year-olds can get 20% off. See here for details.
Pre-sale tickets for The National’s gig at Glasgow’s Academy on November 26 are available to buy here.
May 11, 2010: Ayr music venue Libertine, which only opened last October, has closed down.
Unsigned-Upfront is a new online venture which sees local Scottish bands filmed in unusual settings, often in the living room of one of the musicians. Time will tell if it can scale the heights of the tremendous video-podcasters Detour Scotland.
Radio DJ Jim Gellatly will be hosting a new show on Clyde 1 every Saturday from 2pm while SPL football takes a break for the summer.
May 10, 2010: The National are playing Glasgow’s Academy on November 26, tickets go on sale from Friday. Excited? Yes!
Part 3 of the They Shoot Music Don’t They video tour of Scotland is online – click here to see Beerjacket playing in a phonebox and a barber’s shop in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.
The line-up for this year’s goNorth festival in Inverness, which showcases new Scottish talent, has found its way on to the internet ahead of the official announcement. Chosen acts for June 10-11 include: Astronot, Black International, Bluefields, Bronto Skylift, Colin MacIntyre, Employee Of The Month, Fartbarf, Fiona Soe Paing, Greyline, Healthy Minds Collapse, He Slept On 57, Iain McLaughlin & The Outsiders, James Mackenzie And The Aquascene, Jesus H. Foxx, Jo Hamilton, Kitty The Lion, Metaltech, Miaoux Miaoux, Mothercoat, Nobody’s Slaves, Paws, Pensioner, Sean Harrison, Shy & DRS, Sinead Cunningham, Skibunny, Sophie Delila, Stanley Odd, The King Hats, The LaFontaines, The Law, The Mountains & The Trees, The Seventeenth Century, Tobias Froberg, Willow, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers, Woodhands and Zombie Militia.
May 7, 2010: The extensive music line-up for the West End Festival in Glasgow next month has been announced. Highlights include Ian McCulloch at Oran Mor on June 15, King Creosote at Oran Mor on June 16, Beerjacket at Oran Mor on June 18, Astral Planes (who recently changed their name from Paper Planes) at Brel on June 18, Kitty The Lion/The Seventeenth Century at Captain’s Rest on June 18, Three Blind Wolves at Oran Mor on June 19, French Wives at Brel on June 22, Washington Irving at Brel on June 23, Vendor Defender at Captain’s Rest on June 24, and Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers/Maple Leaves at Brel on June 27.
May 6, 2010: Tommy Reilly’s second album will be called Hello! I’m Tommy Reilly and comes out in June on Euphonios, with the first single being Take Me Away For The Night.
May 5, 2010: The T in the Park cast list just keeps on growing. The latest confirmed acts are Diana Vickers, Darwin Deez, Everything Everything, Kele, Kid Adrift, Local Natives, Scouting For Girls, The Big Pink and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun.
Tickets for The Garden Party at Kelburn Castle near Largs on July 3-4 are on sale here for the early-bird amount of £40 (£8 less than full price) plus booking fees. The festival, which hosted The Aliens and James Yorkston last year, has reduced its capacity from 2,000 to 500.
Edinburgh-based filmaking company Thought Out Media are looking to attract artists and promoters with their professional music video production service. Prices start from £150. See here for more information.
May 4, 2010: Glasgow Airport is inviting musicians to play in its terminal building as part of its new Airplay sessions this summer. Video highlights will be posted online with a prize of £1,000 going to the best act. Anyone interested in taking part should email a website link to flightpath@baa.com or post a CD with a selection of recordings to Airplay, Glasgow Airport, St Andrew’s Drive, Paisley, PA3 2SW.
Lanarkshire studio Chem19 are looking for five unsigned acts between the ages of 16-24 to come in and record a demo free of charge as part of its involvement with the Scottish Arts Council Demo Fund. The chosen artists will also be invited to perform as part of a showcase put on in the local area by Chem19 and SAC. Anyone interested in applying should contact the studio via info@chem19.co.uk or 01698 324246.
May 3, 2010: Fence Records have announced details of a new 150-capacity music festival called Away Game, which will take place from September 24-26 in Eigg, an island in the Inner Hebrides. Tickets go on sale on May 24 and cost £90, which includes camping and return ferry from Arisaig. More info is available here.
April 30, 2010: Biffy Clyro have added an extra date at Glasgow’s SECC on November 27 after tickets for their November 26 show sold out in 30 minutes this morning.
Miller-sponsored night The Mill, which put on over 200 local acts in Glasgow (Oran Mor) and Edinburgh (Caves then Cabaret Voltaire) for free from August 2008 to March 2010, is rebranding itself as Miller Filtered Music. Launching in September, the new event will see an established act supported by two emerging Scottish bands with the promise of cheap ticket prices, a free cloakroom service and fast-track queues. On the downside, you’ll only have one choice of lager and it ain’t Kronenbourg.
April 29, 2010: Our blogging and soon-to-be DJing colleague Peenko has featured The Pop Cop in his excellent Community Service series, check it out here.
The Brunswick Hotel in Glasgow is hosting a charity night called Get A Room on Sunday. The event covers all eight floors and includes three live music stages. Acts on show include Pooch, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers, Peter Parker, The Black Hand Gang, Emma’s Imagination, Bonar Hutchison, Mike & Solveig, Leigh Myles, Button Up and Captain Slackship’s Mezzanine Allstars. Tickets are available to buy here.
April 28, 2010: Tickets are on sale here for Beirut at Edinburgh’s Picture House on August 22, which is one of two official Edge Festival gigs that have been announced, the other being The Low Anthem in the capital’s Queen’s Hall on August 30.
April 27, 2010: T in the Park have added yet more acts to this year’s line-up. They should do this in one go to make things much simpler. The latest recruits are 3OH!3, Bombay Bicycle Club, Corinne Bailey Rae, D12, Detroit Social Club, Drake, Hilltop Hoods, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Joshua Radin, Kids In Glass Houses, Pearl And The Puppets, The Knux, Unicorn Kid and Yeasayer.
Here’s the best music festival bargain of all time… Paisley’s UWS Union is hosting 18 Scottish acts on May 20 for just £2. The event takes places from 5pm to midnight and is also open to non-students, as long as they are over 18. The Live Stage has The Xcerts, The LaFontaines, Marvel Heights, Carnivores, Tempercalm, Pacific Theatre, One Good Reason and Dilectrics, while the Unplugged Stage has Alan McKim, Julia And The Doogans, Ryan Bisland, Gallus Fever, Jonathan Carr, John Rush, Lynsey Dolan, Michael Cassidy, Majestic Dandelion and The Busker. More information is available here.
April 26, 2010: The Xcerts are streaming Slackerpop, the first single from their forthcoming second album, on their website. Click on the band’s name to hear it. You can see The Xcerts at Stirling’s Tolbooth on May 19 and Paisley’s UWS Union on May 20.
Part 2 of the They Shoot Music Don’t They video tour of Scotland is online – click here to see The Fence Collective’s King Creosote, James Yorkston and Pictish Trail in action.
April 25, 2010: Happy birthday to Biffy Clyro twins James and Ben Johnston, who turned 30 today.
April 23, 2010: Tommy Reilly has been dropped by Polydor Records but the good news is that he will release his second album this summer on Glasgow-based label Euphonios.
Biffy Clyro are playing Aberdeen’s AECC on November 25 and Glasgow’s SECC on November 26. Tickets go on sale next Friday.
April 22, 2010: DF Concerts are offering anyone stranded in Scotland due to the volcanic ash cloud free entry to any of their shows from April 23-30. To take advantage of the offer, go along to the relevant venue box office on the night of the gig and present your flight delay information and photographic ID. Entry is subject to availability and based on a first come, first served basis.
The Fratellis have split up. They actually announced it on their website on April 15 but such is the general indifference surrounding the band that nobody in the media noticed for a week.
Jonsi is playing Glasgow’s Academy on September 5, James are at Glasgow’s SECC on December 17 and Plan B will visit Dundee’s Fat Sams on October 20 and Glasgow’s Academy on October 23. Click on any of the dates to buy pre-sale tickets a day before they go on public sale.
April 21, 2010: MGMT have announced a second date at Glasgow’s Barrowland this autumn. Tickets for the September 21 show are available here.
April 20, 2010: Aphex Twin has been added to this year’s Rockness line-up.
April 19, 2010: The Kays Lavelle have made their new single Ten Times available as a free download. Get it here. It’s taken from their tremendous forthcoming debut album Be Still, This Gentle Morning, which they are launching with gigs at Glasgow’s Stereo on May 7 and Edinburgh’s Wee Red Bar on May 8.
April 16, 2010: You may remember us telling you Austrian videobloggers They Shoot Music Don’t They had completed a two-week tour of Scotland, filming a dozen artists in Edinburgh, Fife and Glasgow (check February 19)… well, they’ve started posting some of the videos, so click on the band names to see east coasters Ballboy, Benni Hemm Hemm, Jesus H. Foxx, Meursault and Withered Hand playing in unusual locations. You can also check out the videos of Camera Obscura and We Were Promised Jetpacks they shot a few months ago in Vienna.
April 15, 2010: Click here to buy pre-sale tickets for the last ever Supergrass gig in Scotland, on June 8 at Glasgow’s Barrowland.
April 14, 2010: Scottish graphic design agency Small-Media-Large are offering to create free band logos for any band who wants one – as long as they like the music. See here for details.
The latest additions to the T in the Park line-up are: Julian Casablancas, Babyshambles, Laura Marling, Echo And The Bunnymen, Ash, General Fiasco, The Drums, Airbourne, Chapel Club, Example, Tricky, Mystery Jets and Hurts. So Reading/Leeds Festival gets The Libertines while TITP are stuck with Babyshambles… that’s pretty shoddy.
April 13, 2010: Supergrass and Keane have both announced gigs at Glasgow’s Barrowland, on June 8 and June 21 respectively. It will be Supergrass’ last show in Scotland before they split up (so expect a reunion tour in 2015). Tickets go on public sale from Friday.
April 12, 2010: If you’ve not got anything planned for the last Friday of the month then do this.
April 9, 2010: Mumford & Sons recorded a session for Edinburgh blog Song, By Toad last month and it’s rather wonderful. Check it out here.
Kassidy and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, who were both interviewed for The Pop Cop’s major label feature, have announced a joint tour. Their Scottish stops will see them play at Inverness’ Hootananny on May 22, Aberdeen’s Warehouse on May 23, Dundee’s Doghouse on May 25, Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on May 26, Greenock’s Rico’s on May 27 and Glaagow’s Oran Mor on May 28.
April 8, 2010: Pre-sale tickets are available NOW for Blink-182’s shows at Aberdeen’s AECC on August 16 and Glasgow’s SECC on August 17. Better be quick, though.
This year’s Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival in Inverness-shire will be headlined by Feeder (August 6) and Amy Macdonald (August 7). Also on the bill are The Divine Comedy, Wailers, Candi Staton, Levellers, Stornoway, Erland & The Carnival, Alex Gardner, Egyptian Hip Hop, Young Fathers, Unicorn Kid, The Woodentops, Wolfstone, The Vatersay Boys, Dick Gaughan, John Otway and Beth Jeans Houghton. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.
April 7, 2010: The net-label of our Music Alliance Pact blogging representatives from Norway, Eardrums Pop, are about to release an ambitious compilation album called Between Two Waves, in which every song is a collaboration. As a sneak preview, they’ve made one of the tracks (under the artist name Baffin Island) available as a free download and it features Glasgow twee-pop group The Hermit Crabs collaborating with The Very Most from Idaho, USA. Baffin Island refers to the exact midpoint between the two bands’ hometowns.
April 6, 2010: The line-up for next’s month’s Stag & Dagger festival in Glasgow is taking shape, with 40 acts confirmed so far: The Antlers, Blood Red Shoes, Chapel Club, Crocodiles, Divorce, Django Django, Egyptian Hip Hop, El Rancho Relaxo, Erland & The Carnival, Esben And The Witch, Frankie & The Heartstrings, Fun, Gold Panda, The Hot Club, Islet, Jesca Hoop, Joker, Kid Adrift, Kong, Male Bonding, Men And Machines, My Latest Novel, Olympic Swimmers, A Place To Bury Strangers, Schnapps, She’s Hit, Silver Columns, Sky Larkin, Sleigh Bells, Sparrow And The Workshop, Taz Buckfaster, Telegraphs, Titus Andronicus, Tripwires, The Unwinding Hours, We Were Promised Jetpacks, White Hinterland, Wild Beasts, Wilder and Wilson Tan. Tickets for the May 22 extravaganza are available here.
April 5, 2010: Here’s a tip-off for you. Irish singer Ultan Conlon is coming across the water for a few gigs in Scotland, playing Glasgow’s Bloc on April 13, Glasgow’s Nice ‘n’ Sleazy on April 14 (a very fine bill with The Seventeenth Century, Washington Irving and This Silent Forest), Edinburgh’s Three Sisters on April 15, Stornoway’s Era on April 16, Stornoway’s The Star Inn on April 17 and finally Inverness’ Market Bar on April 19.
April 2, 2010: Beerjacket will play his first gig in seven months at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on June 18, tickets are available here.
RockNess have added Blondie, The Maccabees, Dananananaykroyd and Crystal Castles to their line-up on June 11-13 as well as Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges, who is bloody hilarious.
Tickets are on sale here for the Wizard Festival in Aberdeenshire on August 27-28, headlined by Happy Mondays.
Cabaret Voltaire manager Martin Gordon, who disappeared after heading to work in Edinburgh, is “safe and well” in Newcastle. More than 50,000 people joined a Facebook group to help find him after he had not been seen for eight days. His flatmate and friend Richard Duff said: “From all accounts he is in perfect health and acting of his own accord.”
April 1, 2010: MGMT are playing Glasgow’s Barrowland on September 20. Tickets go on general sale from April 9.
The seventh annual Tigerfest takes place from May 5-21 with almost a dozen gigs spread throughout Edinbugh, Dunfermline and Aberdeen. Acts on show include Malcolm Middleton, King Creosote, The Unwinding Hours, There Will Be Fireworks, Boycotts, Withered Hand, Jesus H. Foxx, Martin Stephenson and TV21. The full line-up can be seen here.
Avalanche in Glasgow are hosting free instore performances next week from Bear Bones (Monday, 3pm), Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers (Tuesday, 5pm), Chris Bradley (Wednesday, 5pm) and Three Blind Wolves (Thursday, 5pm).
The Phantom Band are also playing for free on April 15 at Glasgow’s King Tut’s in a gig being organised under the banner of BBC Radio 1’s United Nations. You can apply for tickets here.
March 31, 2010: The Scotsman’s Under The Radar music blog has changed its name to Radar, backed with a revamp and new website address here, so check it out.
The lucky winners of The Pop Cop’s Hinterland competition are Chris Wallace from Glasgow and Lorna Kerr from Strathblane. Tickets heading your way. Thanks to everyone who emailed, we had more entries than any other competition we’ve run in the past.
Glasvegas drummer Caroline McKay has quit the band, no reason has been given.
March 30, 2010: You can find out the running order for the Hinterland festival in Glasgow on Saturday by checking out The Pop Cop’s amended post here. Alan McKim and Emma’s Imagination have been added to the line-up, Fenech-Soler are out. Tickets are on sale here.
March 29, 2010: Under the banner of Wide Days, Edinburgh’s Shanghai Club is hosting four music industry seminars (‘How To Get On A Festival Bill’, ‘I Am The Law – Essential Legal Advice In The Digital Age’, ‘What Next? Preparing For The Future’ and ‘Speak To The Management’) plus a Q&A with Gavin Bain, who fooled the music industry into believing he and fellow Dundonian Billy Boy were American rappers and toured with Eminem’s band D12. The April 8 event is being organised by Born To Be Wide and attendees will also be taken on a tour of venues in the city where Meursault, Panda Su, Found, Carrie Mac, Holden, Aaron Wright and Hopeless Heroic will be playing short showcases. More info and tickets are available here.
March 26, 2010: The inaugural Haddow Fest takes place in Edinburgh on Sunday but one of its attractions, The Xcerts, have been forced to pull out due to illness. The band have also cancelled their gig at Harley’s in Bathgate scheduled for tomorrow night. Sergeant are another no-show for Haddow Fest, although The Law and Penguins Kill Polar Bears have been added to the line-up.
Findo Gask have released a farewell statement, but they have vowed to complete their debut album and play one last gig in Glasgow… so they’ve not actually split up.
March 25, 2010: Edinburgh’s Liquid Room have had to scrap four gigs scheduled for May as the venue will not be ready in time to reopen following fire damage in December. The Alarm on May 1 has been moved to The Citrus Club, Marina And The Diamonds (May 30) switches to the Assembly Rooms, while new venues have still to be found for Diana Vickers (May 20) and Justin Currie (May 22).
March 24, 2010: Ten more acts have been added to this year’s T in the Park line-up: Groove Armada, Kate Nash, Shed Seven, We Are Scientists, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, The Black Keys, plus Sven Vath, DJ Yoda and Adam Beyer in the Slam Tent.
March 23, 2010: Congratulations to G Fraser from Kilbarchan, who won the Amy Macdonald competition. Two tickets in the post.
March 22, 2010: The Wickerman Festival in Dumfries and Galloway has announced details of its line-up for July 23-24, with Ocean Colour Scene, The Saw Doctors, The Futureheads, Sons & Daughters and Codeine Velvet Club all on the bill. Tickets are available here.
March 19, 2010: Our blogging comrades Peenko and Aye Tunes have combined their might to put on their first ever gig, which sees Kid Canaveral, Mitchell Museum and Campfires In Winter play Glasgow’s Captain’s Rest on April 30. Get your tickets here for just £4 delivered. Well, go on. New York buzz band The Drums are playing a free acoustic gig at Glasgow’s Avalanche Records on March 29 at 5.15pm, ahead of their headlining show at the city’s Classic Grand (tickets on sale from Monday) that night.
March 18, 2010: Unsigned Scottish acts wanting to play at T in the Park should submit three of their songs via the T Break homepage before April 16. The chosen 16 will be announced in May.
Kill It Kid are the latest band to be confirmed for the Insider festival in Aviemore on June 17-20. Other acts heading to Inshriach House are Three Blind Wolves, Over The Wall, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers, Sparrow And The Workshop, Joe Acheson Quartet, King Arthur’s Men, Mike & Solveig, Jo Mango, Donna Maciocia, The Banana Sessions, Horndog Brass Band, Jack Sandison And The Holy Ghosts, Injuns, Claes Cem and The John Langan Band. The first 100 tickets are on sale at £60 then it’s £70 for the next 400 (the price includes camping). Go to the top right of the Insider website to book.
March 17, 2010: Pre-sale tickets are now available for the Glasgow gigs we told you about a couple of days ago. There’s a website called Artist Ticket who have one of the lowest booking fees of any online UK ticket agency (which is strange as they are owned by daylight robbers See Tickets) – it’s worth paying them a visit here if you want tickets for Two Door Cinema Club at Oran Mor on September 17. Get tickets here for Doves at Academy on May 1, and here for Teenage Fanclub at ABC on June 2.
March 16, 2010: The Guardian wrote a big piece about the Music Alliance Pact, which was very nice of them. You can read it here.
March 15, 2010: Teenage Fanclub are playing Aberdeen’s Warehouse on June 1, Glasgow’s ABC on June 2 and Edinburgh’s Liquid Room on June 3 to coincide with the release of their new album Shadows. Two Door Cinema Club have already booked a return trip to Glasgow following their raucous gig at King Tut’s last night with a show at Oran Mor on September 17. Doves are playing Glasgow’s Academy on May 1 as part of their UK tour to promote forthcoming greatest hits album The Places Between. Tickets go on sale on Friday.
A new T in the Park fansite called P in the Dark has launched and its most useful feature is a guide to which bands are playing which of the three days, something the official website is notoriously slow to provide.
March 14, 2010: The Performing Rights Society (PRS) has published a list of the top 10 cities in Britain that have generated the most musicians relative to the size of its population – and three of them are in Scotland. The results were based on the PRS’ 65,000-strong database: 1 Bristol; 2 Cardiff; 3 Wakefield; 4 Glasgow; 5 Cheltenham; 6 Edinburgh; 7 Manchester; 8 Paisley; 9 Doncaster; 10 Londonderry.
March 12, 2010: Amy Macdonald will be playing a rather exclusive gig at Glasgow’s Classic Grand on March 25 for 400 competition winners. You can get your hands on tickets by entering a prize draw in USC stores or by listening to the In Demand evening radio programme from March 15-19 on Forth One, MFR, Northsound 1, Tay FM, Clyde 1, West FM and Radio Borders… or by reading The Pop Cop. The promoters have just handed us a pair of tickets so they’re going straight on eBay. That was a joke, by the way. We’ll have details of how to win them on this site very soon…
March 11, 2010: The Charlatans will be playing their 1990 debut album Some Friendly (you remember… The Only One I Know, Then, Sproston Green) in its entirety at Glasgow’s Barrowland on May 14. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am from here, or if you fancy forking out £100 for VIP entry which includes meeting the band then see here.
March 10, 2010: Blink-182 are playing Aberdeen’s AECC on August 16 and Glasgow’s SECC on August 17. Ticket details will be announced soon. The first (and only) time I visited Braehead Arena was to see this band at their last Scottish gig six years ago and the sound was diabolical, so hopefully these shows won’t be such a letdown.
The twice-yearly One Creative Scotland new music/visual art event is taking place at Glasgow’s Tollhouse Studio on March 27. The music side of things includes live sets from Kochka, Haight-Ashbury, Sharon Martin, Laura Healy, Julia And The Doogans, Daedalian, Miaoux Miaoux, Be Like Pablo and Nacional. Doors open at 7pm, entry is £6 and the first 50 people to arrive and sign up for the mailing list get a free Urban Outfitters goodie bag. Can’t say fairer than that.
March 9, 2010: The Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) is offering free membership to anyone connected with the music scene in Scotland – performers, composers, record labels, venues, producers, agents, managers, engineers, promoters, publicists, broadcasters, bloggers, DJs, distributors, rehearsal rooms, publishers, pluggers, developers, consultants, policy makers, etc. The newly-established body will work in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Enterprise to represent the country’s music interests.
A collection of Glasgow acts have come together for a charity album called Here Comes The Sun to raise funds and awareness for the Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres event, Love Maggie’s Day. The compilation will be available to buy for £5 from Maggie’s Glasgow or via the Maggie’s website from March 28.
Tracklisting: 1. The Moth & The Mirror – Closing Doors
2. Sonny Marvello – Made Of Magic
3. Mitchell Museum – Room For Improvement
4. Little Eskimos – Get Yourself Together Kid
5. The Ray Summers – Zagora Road
6. The Cinnamons – Armed Robbery
7. Madaleine Pritchard – Too Close To The Sun
8. Geoff Martyn – Summer Flower
9. Roddy Hart – Map Of Your Heart
10. Julia And The Doogans – Maps Of The World
11. The Seventeenth Century – Traffic
12. Stevie And The Moon – These Old Traditions
13. Futuristic Retro Champions – Told Ya
14. Pooch – Masquerade
15. The Second Hand Marching Band – Love Is A Fragile
Thing Here Comes The Sun will be launched at Maggie’s Glasgow on March 28 with acoustic sets from Pooch (whose singer, Laura Boyd, is currently being treated for leukaemia), Sonny Marvello, Little Eskimos and The Cinnamons. Doors open at 6pm with tickets costing £5. The organiser is also hoping to compile an Edinburgh album and launch gig, so email murray.easton@maggiescentres.org if you want to contribute.
March 8, 2010: Frightened Rabbit – The Winter Of Mixed Drinks: straight in at No.61 in the UK album charts (sandwiched between Rod Stewart and Stereophonics). Small victories, eh?
March 5, 2010: Reverend And The Makers frontman and all-round cock Jon McClure was arrested by police for cannabis possession at the Inverness Ramada hotel yesterday. After successfully begging to get let off with a caution, he acted all hard to the NME: “They were dead happy because it was the first famous person they had arrested. They are going to write me a letter telling me off, I might bun up a fat one with the letter.”
Johnny Flynn has announced a few new Scottish dates. He plays Glasgow’s Oran Mor with his band The Sussex Wit on May 20 (tickets), before going on a solo tour of the Highlands, visiting Ullapool’s The Ceilidh Place on May 28, Stornoway’s Era on May 29, Inverness’ Hootananny on May 31, Aberdeen’s Cafe Drummond on June 1 and Dundee’s Duke’s Corner on June 2.
March 4, 2010: The video for Le Reno Amps single The Stand Off has been nominated for Best Music Video at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards on March 19. You can watch it here. A 20-track We ? UTG compilation album featuring local bands in support of the petition to stop Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen being turned into a shopping complex instead of a contemporary arts centre is available to download from here for just £1. All proceeds go to the I ? UTG campaign.
March 3, 2010: You can help yourself to pre-sale tickets for Wilco at Glasgow’s Barrowland on September 16 from here (you need to register to complete the purchase). You can also submit a request for the band to play a specific song on the night, which is a pretty neat idea.
March 2, 2010: This could turn out to be another Courtney Love car-crash, but pre-sale tickets for Hole at Glasgow’s Academy on May 3 are available now from here, priced £21.50 plus booking fees. Foals are playing Glasgow’s ABC on May 2, tickets for that one go on sale on Friday.
March 1, 2010: Fancy watching The Futureheads for a fiver (booking/postage fees take it up to a less alliteration-friendly £7.85)? They’re playing at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on April 29 and tickets are on sale now from here. It’s officially billed as a gig for The Mill, which usually puts on free shows, such as the debut gig of Union Of Knives’ new project Song Of Return on March 25. The band also features members of local acts Take A Worm For A Walk Week, Galchen and Brother Louis Collective.
Frightened Rabbit’s new album The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is out today, on sale for £7.99 delivered from Play or £6.99 downloaded from Amazon. You really should buy it, it’s a belter.
February 26, 2010: Following on from our major label feature, you can get free downloads from the Scottish artists mentioned by joining their mailing lists: sign up here for Pearl And The Puppets – Blossom (demo); here for The Boy Who Trapped The Sun – Fragile Eyes; here for Kassidy – Secrets Tell A Lie (demo); and here for Alex Gardner – There Goes My Heart. You can also subscribe to Kid Adrift’s mailing list here but you won’t get any tunes.
If you want a scientific way to gauge the popularity of a band, you could look at some recent venue changes for upcoming Glasgow concerts: Hockey tonight has moved down from QMU to Oran Mor; Brendan Benson on March 3 has moved down from QMU to ABC 2; Paloma Faith on March 17 has moved up from ABC 1 to Academy; Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on April 17 has moved up from ABC 1 to Barrowland; and The Gaslight Anthem on June 23 has moved up from ABC 1 to Academy.
The Red Bull Music Academy dance music project is heading to Glasgow, offering free workshop sessions, lectures and DJ sets from Slam, DJ Buckley and Marco Bernardi (live) tonight at SWG3 (5pm-1am) and live demonstrations tomorrow at the Buchanan Street Apple Store (4pm-5.30pm).
February 25, 2010: You can help yourself to a free download of A Far Cry – that new We Were Promised Jetpacks song we were telling you about a few days ago – by right-clicking here. We nicked the link from Stereogum by the way.
The Big Tent festival in Fife has announced King Creosote, Found, Aberfeldy, Joe Acheson Quartet, Mr McFalls Chamber, Sharon King and Nuala Kennedy as confirmed acts for the July 23-25 event at Falkland, north of Glenrothes. One-day, weekend and camping tickets are available at an early-bird rate (10% reduction) until April 30 from here.
February 24, 2010: A couple of low-key shows for you. Kate Nash is playing Glasgow’s Classic Grand on March 6 (pre-sale tickets link here), while Twin Atlantic are doing a free instore gig at Avalanche Records in Glasgow on March 2 (see here for ticket details). Dinosaur Jr and Built To Spill visit Glasgow’s ABC 1 on May 13 (tickets) as part of their joint tour.
February 23, 2010: Okay-dokey, so today was a bit of a festival frenzy. T in the Park revealed the identity of over 40 confirmed acts bound for Balado on July 9-11, with the headliners being Muse (Friday), Eminem (Saturday) and Kasabian (Sunday). Other big names include Jay-Z, Black Eyed Peas, The Prodigy, Stereophonics, Faithless, Biffy Clyro, Paolo Nutini, Florence And The Machine, Dizzee Rascal, Vampire Weekend, Calvin Harris, Mumford & Sons, The View, Hot Chip, The Proclaimers, Gossip, The Temper Trap, Broken Social Scene and Two Door Cinema Club. Oh, and one other band who is definitely on the bill but haven’t been officially announced yet are Madness. The next batch of TITP tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am.
RockNess managed to bury good news by choosing the same day to announce that Vampire Weekend are playing in the Highlands on Sunday, June 13 – just before The Strokes headline.
February 22, 2010: We Were Promised Jetpacks are selling a new EP called The Last Place You’ll Look on their current American tour. The tracklisting is: 1 A Far Cry. 2 Short Bursts (alternate version) 3. The Walls Are Wearing Thin 4. With The Benefit Of Hindsight 5. This Is My House, This Is My Home (alternate version). You can hear the first song on their MySpace page. The EP will be available to purchase as a download on March 9.
Green Day are playing Glasgow’s SECC on June 21 so you can rule them out as possible T in the Park headliners ahead of tomorrow’s line-up announcement (we’ll be Tweeting live from the launch event so follow us here if you don’t already). Green Day tickets go on sale on Wednesday at 9am from here.
February 19, 2010: Off-the-wall Vienna-based videobloggers They Shoot Music Don’t They have just completed a two-week tour of Scotland, filming a dozen artists on location in Edinburgh, Fife and Glasgow with a little help along the way from Song, By Toad, Fence Records and The Pop Cop. I’ll give you a heads-up on when our Austrian chums put the unplugged sessions online, but in the meantime check out these photos to get a flavour of what to expect: Beerjacket inside a phonebooth on Sauchiehall Street, There Will Be Fireworks on a rooftop after dark, and The Second Hand Marching Band in Royal Exchange Square last night.
February 18, 2010: Kassidy are playing a free instore set at Avalanche Records in Glasgow at 5pm this afternoon, before moving on to the Classic Grand for a proper gig. They round off their Scottish tour with shows at The Greenside in Glenrothes tomorrow and Stirling’s Tolbooth on Saturday as they promote this week’s release of The Rubbergum EP.
February 17, 2010: Chart-bothering indie synth-pop sensations Owl City are playing Glasgow’s Barrowland on May 8. Pre-sale tickets are available to buy now from here priced £20.50 each plus £5.25 postage.
If you’re an Aberdeen musician and want your music to be considered for a compilation CD in support of the I ? UTG (Union Terrace Gardens) campaign, then upload your fully-tagged mp3s here or email them to carmichaeljayne@hotmail.com before Saturday.
February 16, 2010: According to Peenko’s detective skills, The Mill’s series of free gigs is about to come to an end. The Miller-sponsored night has been hosting local acts in Glasgow (Oran Mor) and Edinburgh (Caves then Cabaret Voltaire) since August 2008.
The Kays Lavelle are giving away new song The Hours to whet the appetite for their forthcoming debut album, which comes out in May. Download the track here. Go on, it’s tremendous.
February 15, 2010: An online petition has been set up to save Strathclyde University’s popular BA Applied Music course, which university chiefs want to scrap.
Urban Studios in Glasgow is offering musicians rehearsal time for the very cheap price of £5 for three hours (solo practice) or £15 for three hours (full band rate).
February 14, 2010: Roddy Hart’s new video for his single Take Me Home could double up as a tourism advert for a winter break in Scotland. Check it out here. He was also interviewed and performed live on STV show The Hour last week. Go here then click on Part 4.
February 12, 2010: As well as the bands we told you about on November 27 (The View, Frightened Rabbit, Twin Atlantic, Tommy Reilly, Broken Records, The Law and Trembling Bells), the following Scottish acts are playing at next month’s SXSW music industry shingdig in Austin: Colin MacIntyre, Fangs, St Deluxe, Unicorn Kid, Young Fathers, Kid Adrift, Hudson Mohawke, Codeine Velvet Club and Django Djang. Also heading to Texas will be Brighton-based group Gloria Cycles, whose frontman is Glaswegian, and Ayrshire-born singer David Francey, who now lives in Canada.
February 11, 2010: Noisy neighbours The View are playing a couple of smaller-than-usual gigs (see, you don’t have to describe them as “intimate”) at Glasgow’s Stereo on March 1 and Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on March 5.
February 10, 2010: Some more big names have been added to the RockNess festival on June 11-13, so you’ve now got The Strokes, Fatboy Slim, Leftfield, Doves, Ian Brown, 2 Many DJs, Soulwax, Chase & Status, Friendly Fires, Enter Shikari, Hadouken, Boys Noize, Bookashade, The Bloody Beetroots, Vitalic, Aeroplane, Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, The Cuban Brothers, The Dub Pistols, Japanese Popstars and Club 75.
February 9, 2010: If you want to get £10 off the price of a three-day RockNess ticket (includes camping and festival entry) PLUS free return coach travel from Inverness, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Stirling then click here and enter the code MYR2LQ.
Early-bird tickets for the Hinterland festival in Glasgow April 4 are available here for a pretty reasonable £11.75. So far the line-up includes British Sea Power, Jeffrey Lewis, Hot Club de Paris, Wave Pictures, GrecoRoman Soundsystem, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Fenech Soler, Johnny Foreigner, French Wives, Ambulances, Bleech, Kitty And The Lion, Midnight Lion, Make Sparks, Little Yellow Ukuleles and a few bands masquerading as DJs, but they don’t count.
The Dundee Concert For Haiti at Fat Sams on February 20 is taking shape, with the following acts confirmed for the benefit gig: Laviewall (members of The View and The Law), Michael Marra, Tommy Reilly, The Hazey Janes, Roddy Hart, Lost Todorovs, Revolver, Boogalusa, Mr Gavin McGinty, Miami Vince, Lefty & Friends, Dead Like Harry, Luva Anna and Roberto Cassani. Tickets costing £15 plus postage are available here from tomorrow morning.
The Twilight Sad bass player Craig Orza has quit the band, with the official explanation for his decision being “after a particularly heavy night out which resulted in me waking up baw deep in a granny”.
A new vinyl-only Aberdeen label called Tuff Wax Records has just launched, with their first release being Be Like Pablo single The Post-It Song.
February 8, 2010: Glasgow bar The Goat is hosting the Raw Music Festival – a month-long series of gigs every Thursday with just 80 tickets on sale for each show. The headliners are Roddy Hart (March 4), Tommy Reilly (March 11), Kitty The Lion (March 18), The Gillyflowers (March 25) and Aberfeldy (April 1). Tickets cost £13.50 each plus £1.50 postage fee. The Gaslight Anthem will play Glasgow’s ABC 1 on June 23 in support of their third album American Slang, due out this summer.
February 5, 2010: Read this: Why Everybody Hurts is the last thing Haiti needs, courtesy of The Quietus.
February 4, 2010: Snow Patrol are playing Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on June 12, with support from Band Of Horses, Frightened Rabbit and a special guest TBC. You can buy pre-sale tickets here costing £47 (main arena) or £52.50 (inner arena) before they go on general sale tomorrow. Idlewild have announced dates at Glasgow’s ABC 1 on April 30 and Dunfermline’s Velocity on May 1. Alphabeat are playing Edinburgh’s Picture House on April 22 and Glasgow’s ABC 1 on April 23 to promote their forthcoming second album The Beat Is. They’re also supporting Lady Gaga at Glasgow’s SECC on March 1.
February 3, 2010: Alternative arts festival Kill Your Timid Notion takes place from February 21-28 at Dundee’s DCA. Everything is free from Feb 21-25, although some events recommend you reserve places in advance. If you want to see anything after 5pm on February 26, three-day (£20) and one-day (£7.50) passes can be purchased online here.
February 2, 2010: How about this for talent… Kris McDowall aka Baby G is doing a gig at Glasgow’s ABC 2 this month at the age of SEVEN. The Saltcoats kid plays acoustic guitar and does covers of The View’s Same Jeans, La Bamba, Wild Thing and When You Say Nothing At All as well as his own material. Click here for a YouTube clip. His dad is in the headlining band Less Than Sober. You can buy tickets for the February 27 gig here.
February 1, 2010: We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Antlers and Wild Beasts are the first three acts to be confirmed for the Stag & Dagger festival in Glasgow on May 22. Tickets costing £11.20 are available here. Canadian indie-rock band Wolf Parade are playing Glasgow’s Oran Mor on May 19.
January 29, 2010: Radio DJ and broadcaster Jim Gellatly has decided to hire out his services as a consultant to any unsigned or up-and-coming acts who want to tap into his knowledge and experience in the music industry. Potential areas Jim could advise on include rehearsal feedback, media training, interview techniques and writing press releases. If you want to find out more, email jimgellatly@btinternet.com or see here.
January 28, 2010: Amy Macdonald will visit the Ironworks in Inverness on March 28 and Edinburgh’s Picture House on March 29 in support of her new album A Curious Thing. The legendary Crowded House are playing Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium on May 19, Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on May 21 and Aberdeen’s Music Hall on May 22. Florence And The Machine are doing two nights at Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange on May 5-6. Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning.
January 27, 2010: There is a Haiti fundraiser on February 5 at Creation Studios in Glasgow’s Trongate with acoustic sets from John Knox Sex Club, The Cinnamons and Suspire. Entry is £3 on the door. The night is BYOB and all corkage donations will go towards a very worthy cause.
January 26, 2010: Avalanche Records are calling for Scottish bands to sign up to their online database which allows musicians to add biography and discography information and sell their music on the shop’s website.
Broken Records (acoustic), James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley (playing the songs of Daniel Johnson), Meursault, Zoey Van Goey, Martin John Henry, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers and Eagleowl are among the acts playing the Sick Kids Sunday 2 charity all-dayer at The GRV in Edinburgh on Sunday. Tickets cost £8 from here or £10 on the door (first band is on at 1.30pm).
American alt-country singer Josh Rouse is playing Edinburgh’s Picture House on March 26. Tickets cost £20 from here.
January 25, 2010: Glasgow newcomers Galleries (one of the The Pop Cop’s 10 tips of 2010 and this month’s MAP choice) have made their debut five-track EP available as a free download via Slow Receiver Records.
Manic Street Preachers are playing King Tut’s on February 18 as part of the Glasgow venue’s 20th anniversary celebrations. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, costing £25 plus booking fees.
January 22, 2010: Oxford band Stornoway have lined up their first ever gig in the Isle of Lewis town that shares their name – they play the Woodland Centre on April 9, as well as gigs at Hootananny in Inverness on April 8, Aberdeen’s Snafu on April 11 and Glasgow’s King Tut’s on April 13. LCD Soundsystem are doing two nights at Glasgow’s Barrowland on April 28-29.
January 21, 2010: Acts confirmed for the sold-out Homegame festival on March 12-14 are François & The Atlas Mountains (Friday headliner), Jon Hopkins (Saturday headliner), Four Tet (Sunday headliner), King Creosote, James Yorkston, The Bluebells, Meursault, The Pictish Trail, Found, Remember Remember, Adem, Kid Canaveral, Panda Su, Withered Hand, Findo Gask, Eagleowl, Pip Dylan, Lone Pigeon, Benni Hemm Hemm, Uncle Jelly Fish, Rocketnumbernine, Pantha Du Prince, Django Django, Silver Columns, Ray Rumours, Rozi Plain, OLO Worms, Romanhead, OnTheFly, Little Pebble, HMS Ginafore, Love.Stop.Repeat, Gummi Bako, The Wee Baby Jesuses, Player Piano, The Red Well and Animal Magic Tricks.
The rather tremendous American band The Features are returning to the UK for the first time in four years and playing Glasgow’s King Tut’s on April 21. The Bluetones are also heading north of the border with gigs at Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on April 10, Aberdeen’s Warehouse on April 11 and Dundee’s Doghouse on April 12.
January 20, 2010: If you are an unsigned act and would like your music to be used in a TV advert then check out the Wickerman Festival competition. Tracks must be submitted for consideration before March 15 and the winner will also open the main stage at this year’s festival on July 23.
Have you ever noticed that when a big artist plays a small venue, the gig is always described as “intimate”? Well, if you want to get intimate with Paolo Nutini, he’s appearing at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on February 17. A ticket will set you back £28.75 (ouch) and they go on general sale here at 9am on Friday.
January 19, 2010: Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison will play an acoustic gig in aid of the Haiti appeal fund on Thursday at Glasgow’s Variety Bar. Support comes from Pioneers Of Anaesthetic. Tickets are currently on sale at the venue. Canadian gay church folk (their words) band The Hidden Cameras are visiting Glasgow’s Stereo on March 20 for the only Scottish date of their UK tour.
January 18, 2010: Footballer’s fiancée Amy Macdonald has used her Facebook page to stick the boot into Rangers goalkeeper Allan McGregor, who is being investigated by police over a claim he sexually assaulted a woman. The singer described McGregor as a “compete cretin” and a “twat”.
January 15, 2010: If you’d like to be in the video for Frightened Rabbit’s new single Nothing Like You, head to the top of Byres Road outside Oran Mor in Glasgow at 7pm this evening with a white T-shirt with the word “Tumour” written/painted on the front. Seriously.
January 14, 2010: Other than an under-12s pool tournament at the Cherry Tree Haven Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth, I have never won anything (cue violins). So how about voting for The Pop Cop in the Scotblogs Awards 2010 run by Scottish Roundup? Vote here.
On the subject of competitions, don’t forget the deadline to submit an entry for the Best Scottish live music photo of 2009 is tomorrow.
January 13, 2010: The very fine American power-pop band Motion City Soundtrack are playing Glasgow’s Oran Mor on March 30 in support of their new album My Dinosaur Life. Pre-sale tickets costing £15.35 are available here by entering the username “motion” and password “soundtrack”.
Biffy Clyro are signing copies of their new single Many Of Horrors on Tuesday at 1pm in HMV Edinburgh (Princes Street) and 6pm in HMV Glasgow (Buchanan Street), where they will also give a live performance. Access is limited to fans who pick up free wristbands from the store on the day.
January 12, 2010: Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms will host a German-themed music seminar on February 4. The night includes guest speakers, a quiz, DJs and live music from Berlin duo Jeans Team. Tickets costing £5 are available from Born To Be Wide, who are organising the event. Here’s the flyer:
January 11, 2010: Live Music Now Scotland are recruiting musicians to give paid performances in unusual settings (care homes, prisons, schools, hospitals, rural communities etc). Interested artists should email development officer Judith Walsh (judith@livemusicnow.org) no later than tomorrow. Auditions to join the scheme will take place in February.
January 8, 2010: Pre-sale tickets are available here for Ash on April 27 at Glasgow’s ABC 1 (a wise choice of venue since it was a sad sight to watch them at a half-empty Barras when they last played in the city).
Fancy watching Feeder at King Tut’s in Glasgow on January 25? Fancy paying £37.75 to get in? Thought as much. But wait! The ticket not only includes a four-track EP under the band’s temporary pseudonym Renegades, but also a T-shirt and a badge set. Yip, still a rip-off.
While we’re on the subject of misguided ventures, Paolo Nutini is publicly backing a fan’s Facebook campaign to get his new single 10/10 to No.1 in the UK charts. Please say we’re not going to have to put up with this nonsense all year – it was funny the first time but the novelty has already worn off.
January 7, 2010: Broken Records, Jesus H. Foxx, Panda Su, RBRBR and Foxgang are among the acts who have signed up to play at Hidden Door, a multi-sensory mini-festival featuring 30 bands, 40 artists (the non-musical type), 10 poets and 10 filmmakers on the weekend of January 30/31 at Edinburgh’s Roxy Art House. Tickets costing £11.50 + postage are separated into four time slots (1pm-8pm and 6pm-midnight each day) and also entitle you to a free downloadable compilation from Ten Tracks featuring some of the bands on show. Here’s a poster:
January 6, 2010: Frightened Rabbit’s all-important pre-album single Nothing Like You is streaming on their MySpace and it’s quite simply the best song with “cancer” in the lyrics since Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer. B-side Learned Your Name was recorded by Scott Hutchison for a BBC session but never broadcast. The single is released on February 22.
Edinburgh-based listings and events magazine The Skinny is currently advertising various job vacancies, including a new Editor (£15k-20k salary). Closing date for all applications is January 20.
January 5, 2010: Paisley’s Paolo Nutini scored the first No.1 album of the decade with Sunny Side Up, helped in no small part to his performance Jools Holland’s Hootenanny show.
Exhibition The Link runs at Edinburgh’s Music Library on George IV Bridge, from today till January 16 and will exhibit art by Scottish musicians such as King Creosote, James Yorkston, Gordon Anderson (The Aliens), Duglas T Stewart (BMX Bandits) and gig sketcher Jenny Soep. An auction of some of the pieces will take place on the 16th, when Found will also perform live. Here’s a drawing of King Creosote by Christian Ward to add some much-needed colour to this text-heavy segment:

January 4, 2010: You can download a brand new – and typically excellent – Beerjacket song called Island for free from his Bandcamp page. His much-feted 2009 album Animosity is also available to buy on there for £5.
January 1, 2010: Happy New Year, pop kids! Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones is offering fans the chance to pre-order a limited edition version of his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, up till January 26. The advance pressing will contain two exclusive tracks that won’t be on the general release CD which will come out later in the year. If you’ve got £11 to spare then find out more here.
December 31, 2009: Edinburgh teenager Alex Gardner has been named by HMV as one of the top 10 artists to look out for in 2010 (alongside predictable choices such as The Drums, Ellie Goulding, Marina And The Diamonds and Delphic). Gardner, who has been compared to George Michael, Marti Pellow and Duffy, has been taken under the wing of the Xenomania hit factory, who write songs for Girls Aloud and Sugababes. You can see what the fuss is about at Glasgow’s ABC 2 on March 11 (tickets), Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on March 12 (tickets), Dundee’s Doghouse on March 13 (tickets) and Aberdeen’s Snafu on March 14 (tickets).
December 30, 2009: More free stuff for you, this time courtesy of Domino, who are giving away a downloadable eight-track compilation including King Creosote – Rims and Franz Ferdinand – Can’t Stop Feeling (Emperor Machine remix). Click here to snag it in exchange for your email address.
December 29, 2009: Hope you had a merry Christmas. Now that you’ve cleaned out your bank account with present buying and/or sales shopping, here are a few FREE gigs coming up at the Apple Store in Glasgow… Scottish folk-pop singer Horse, January 21 (7pm); New York beatboxing troupe Naturally 7, January 26 (5.30pm); multi-stringed acoustic Americana from The Deadly Gentlemen, January 28 (7pm). All thee acts are also playing Celtic Connections shows.
December 23, 2009: Punk veteran Patti Smith is doing an all-seated gig at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on March 24, with tickets at a gasp-inducing £25 on sale here.
Broken Records, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers and ceilidh band Whisky Kiss are playing a Burns night special at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on January 24, with the £14.75 ticket also entitling you to a plate of haggis, neeps and tatties. Mmmm.
December 22, 2009: Multi-venue indie festival Stag And Dagger will take place in Glasgow on May 22. Tickets cost £11.20 from here, although no acts have been announced yet.
December 21, 2009: The Black Hang Gang have secured a spot on Glasgow’s Hogmanay bill at George Square after polling more votes than Variety Suite, Foxgang, Acutone, Boycotts, Nevada Base, Make Sparks, Action Group and Alex Wayt to win the Road To Hogmanay competition.
December 18, 2009: The View have announced a coming-home-for-Christmas gig at Dundee’s Caird Hall on Monday (tickets), which is rather short notice so you might have to cancel some plans. American singer Brendan Benson is playing Glasgow’s QMU on March 3 (tickets). His solo stuff is much better than The Raconteurs so don’t go heckling for Steady, As She Goes.
December 17, 2009: The winner of the inaugural Scottish Bloggers and Music Sites Award (“BAMS” apparently) for the Best Album of 2009 is The Phantom Band’s Checkmate Savage. The Pop Cop was one of about 25 contributors to the survey, which was conducted and compiled by Peenko. Check out the top-20 albums list here.
December 16, 2009: Broken Records track If Eilert Lovborg Wrote A Song, It Would Sound Like This and Camera Obscura’s French Navy are two of the 12 tracks being given away on a 4AD compilation which is available to download for free here (in exchange for your email address). The National’s excellent So Far Around The Bend is also on there.
December 15, 2009: The four white boys of Cassidy have changed their name to Kassidy to avoid fans confusing them with a black American rapper who has served time for manslaughter. The Scottish band have also announced a mammoth tour: February 11, Rialto, Falkirk; Feb 12, Harleys, Bathgate; Feb 13, Doghouse, Dundee; Feb 14, Warehouse, Aberdeen; Feb 16, Hootananny, Inverness; Feb 17, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh; Feb 18, Classic Grand, Glasgow; Feb 19, Greenside, Glenrothes; Feb 20, Tolbooth, Stirling. Kassidy are also playing the Darvel ‘4’ Seasons Music Festival in Ayrshire on May 8.
December 14, 2009: The Twilight Sad are doing a free acoustic set in Avalanche Records in Edinburgh tomorrow at 1pm.
December 11, 2009: Scottish chanteuse Amy Macdonald is making her comeback next month with a show at Glasgow’s Barrowland on January 28 ahead of the release of her new single Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over. Tickets available here priced at an usually reasonable £12.75.
December 10, 2009: The Avalanche Records shop in Edinburgh has just released a charity CD that brings together some of the country’s brightest up-and-coming talent. The 15-track album, which features several tracks recorded exclusively for the compilation, contains:
Frightened Rabbit – It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop
Broken Records – All So Tired
Meursault – Christmas In Kirkcaldy
There Will Be Fireworks – In Excelsis Deo
Ballboy – Shallow Footprints In The Snow
Zoey Van Goey – In Scotland It Never Snowed, In Canada It Did
Pictish Trail – But Once A Year
Withered Hand – It’s A Wonderful Lie
Rob St John – December & Whisky
Eagleowl – Sleep The Winter
Emily Scott – Holy
Saint Jude’s Infirmary – Xmas In New York
X-Lion Tamer – Little Drum Machine Boy
The Savings And Loan – Christmastime In The Mountains
Money Can’t Buy Music – Atoms
The CD costs £5 and proceeds go to Sick Kids Edinburgh and Street Invest.
December 9, 2009: Biffy Clyro will begin their next UK tour at the Perth Concert Hall on April 29, which is the only Scottish date. Tickets go on sale on Friday.
A video has surfaced of Regina Spektor getting hit in the face in Glasgow last week by a flying T-shirt as described in The Pop Cop’s live review. It happens at 2:57.
December 8, 2009: Glaswegian artist Richard Wright has won the 2009 Turner Prize. This is relevant to readers of a music blog because he was the guitarist of shortlived band Correcto, who released a self-titled album of mediocre scuzzy pop on Domino Records last year and featured Franz Ferdinand’s Paul Thompson on drums. Here’s the gold leaf wall painting that won him £25,000:

December 7, 2009: The BBC have announced their Sound of 2010 longlist (the annual music industry-selected predictions for fame) and it contains zero Scottish acts which isn’t a surprise since of their 165 ‘tastemakers’, just one is based in Scotland. But how could we not be appreciative as four of the chosen 15 artists are gracing Glasgow with their presence soon: Ellie Goulding at ABC, March 6 and King Tut’s, April 8; The Drums at Barrowland, February 5; Delphic at The Sub Club, December 13 and King Tut’s, January 22; and Stornoway at ABC, January 20.
December 4, 2009: One of the headliners of next year’s T in the Park festival on July 9-11 has been confirmed as Kasabian, which The Pop Cop predicted back on July 14 (scroll down…way down). A limited batch of early bird tickets are on sale at 9am this morning from here, just in case you need a Christmas prezzie for little Johnny.
December 3, 2009: Glasgow’s Hogmanay bash at George Square will be headlined by Deacon Blue, with support from Tommy Reilly, Bahookie and the winner of the Road to Hogmanay competition featuring Variety Suite, The Black Hand Gang, Foxgang, Acutone, Boycotts, Nevada Base and three more bands TBC.
December 2, 2009: The Strokes have been announced as headliners of next year’s RockNess, which is a major coup for the increasingly-popular festival near Inverness. Tickets can be purchased now from here, costing £113 for all three days (June 11-13) including camping.
Tickets for Pavement’s reunion gig at the Glasgow Barrowland on May 5 are also available to buy now from here, though probably for not much longer.
The Skinny have named Idlewild’s 100 Broken Windows as the best Scottish album of the decade. Good choice.
December 1, 2009: James, who are probably one of the greatest bands ever, are starting their next UK tour at Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange on April 5 in support of The Night Before, the first of two mini-albums they plan to release in 2010. Tickets go on sale on Thursday morning. That’s my Christmas present to me sorted then.
November 30, 2009: The amazing Dotjr is making a rare appearance outside of his native Isle of Lewis to play a gig at Glasgow’s Brel on Thursday as part of the venue’s weekly Concrete Fire acoustic night. The Pop Cop will refund your ticket price if you don’t love him. (Yes, it’s free.)
November 27, 2009: 230 artists have been invited to play at next year’s South By Southwest music showcase in Texas and seven of them are Scottish (that’s 3% for any maths fans out there): The View, Frightened Rabbit, Twin Atlantic, Tommy Reilly, Broken Records, The Law and Trembling Bells.
November 26, 2009: Mumford & Sons have announced a new tour for next spring including two dates in Scotland – Glasgow’s ABC on March 3 and Edinburgh’s Queens Hall on March 16. A limited amount of pre-sale tickets are available for the Glasgow show now from here. Both shows go on general sale at 9am tomorrow.
November 25, 2009: The Pop Cop would like to wish Barrie O’Neill from Glasgow band Cassidy a speedy recovery after he was seriously injured in an accident in London yesterday. Get well soon, mate.
November 24, 2009: The List are looking for a new Music Editor. Application details can be found in the magazine’s current issue.
November 23, 2009: King Creosote will perform his new, never-to-be-studio recorded album, My Nth Bit Of Strange In Umpteen Years, from start to finish at the seventh annual Homegame festival in Fife on March 12-14. There’s a twist, though: KC will play the same set seven times over the weekend to groups of 40 and all ticket holders must bring a device with which to record the gig (a mobile phone will do), with online sharing encouraged. Tickets for Homegame go on sale on December 1 via the Fence Records website.
November 20, 2009: Stereophonics will be playing an intimate gig at Glasgow’s Classic Grand on December 12 for 400 competition winners picked via 18 radio stations across the UK including Forth One (Edinburgh), MFR (Inverness), Northsound 1 (Aberdeen), Tay FM (Dundee), Clyde 1 (Glasgow), West FM (Ayr) and Radio Borders (Galashiels).
Up-and-coming acts have the chance to get themselves on the bill of Glasgow’s Hogmanay celebrations at George Square. Nine shortlisted artists will take part in public showcases on November 26, December 3 and December 10, with each heat followed by a week of online voting. Apply here to get involved.
Big In Falkirk has been scrapped by the local council due to cost-cutting measures. The free outdoor festival ran for 10 years.
November 19, 2009: Pre-sale tickets are available now for Twin Atlantic’s gig at Glasgow’s ABC on February 6. If that wasn’t exciting enough, street dance troupe Diversity are playing Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium on March 30. Yes! Tickets go on sale on Saturday priced £18.50 (not including booking fees).
November 18, 2009: The Tartan Clef Awards at Glasgow’s SECC on November 27 will feature live performances from The View, King Creosote, Mott The Hoople and Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. The annual event raises money for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland.
November 17, 2009: A new Edinburgh-based music event called Charity Baw celebrates its launch night on Saturday at the city’s Roxy Art House with three rooms of live bands and DJs. Acts on show include headliners The Real Tuesday Weld, Aberfeldy, Withered Hand, The Parsonage, Come On Gang!, Big Ned, Little Eskimos and Benni Hemm Hemm. Tickets are available from Avalanche and We Got Tickets for £10. The inaugural Baw will be in aid of Oxfam.
November 16, 2009: Frightened Rabbit’s crazily-addictive new song Swim Until You Can’t See Land is released today – buy it here. With a bit of support it could even be their first top 40 single.
November 13, 2009: The much-maligned Homecoming Live flagship event set to take place on November 28 in Glasgow has been downscaled due to poor ticket sales. Acts who were due to play in the SECC’s Hall 4 (Deacon Blue, The Skids, Hue And Cry, Midge Ure, The Bluebells, etc) have been moved to the Clyde Auditorium. Those who were originally earmarked for the Clyde Auditorium (Mike Scott, Eddi Reader, etc) will now play in the SECC’s Lomond Suite. The indie acts in the SECC’s Hall 3 (The View, Teenage Fanclub, Idlewild, etc) are staying put. Remaining tickets (of which there are many) can be bought here.
November 12, 2009: The Define Pop Festival 2 takes place this weekend at The Flying Duck in Glasgow, with a plethora of unsigned Scottish talent to support and discover. Here are the stage times:
SATURDAY (tickets)
Living Room Stage
22.20 Kid Canaveral
21.30 Vendor Defender
20.40 Kochka
19.50 The Costapeens
19.00 Mickey 9’s
18.10 Louise Against The Elements
17.20 Miniature Dinosaurs
Kitchen Stage
22.30 Young Aviators
21.40 Gdansk
20.50 Pacific Theatre
20.00 Other People
19.10 The Morgue Party Candidate
18.20 The Blessed Order Of Fallen Stars
17.30 Make Sparks
16.40 Little Yellow Ukuleles

SUNDAY (tickets)
Living Room Stage
22.20 Yahweh
21.30 The Second Hand Marching Band
20.40 The Lava Experiments
19.50 Diamond Sea
19.00 Julia And The Doogans
18.10 Incrediboy And The Forget Me Nots
17.20 Esperi
16.30 Lovers Turn To Monsters
Kitchen Stage
22.30 Pooch
21.40 Nevada Base
20.50 Stereo Grand
20.00 Dead Boy Robotics
19.10 Little Eskimos
17.30 Lad Lazarus
16.40 Marshall Chipped
November 11, 2009: Edinburgh’s Hogmanay line-up has been fleshed out a bit with some new names and now looks like this:
Concert in the Gardens: Madness, Noisettes, Codeine Velvet Club (general admission tickets / enclosure tickets).
The Waverley Stage: The Enemy, Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Stanley Odd (Street Party tickets).
The Mound Party Stage: The Cuban Brothers, Glitterbanditz.
West End DJ Stage: Mylo, Gary & Tom (Snow Patrol), Richard Colburn (Belle & Sebastian).

November 10, 2009: We’re back! Did you miss us? After three weeks without internet, the unread tally in The Pop Cop’s inbox has spiralled out of control. It could take us another three weeks just to restore normality. OK, the following information might not be hot off the press, but here are some diary-worthy gigs that have been announced recently…
Glasgow: Kevin Devine at Captain’s Rest on December 8; Julian Casablancas at ABC on December 12; Adam Green at Stereo on January 29; Hot Chip at Academy on February 13; Vampire Weekend at Barrowlands on February 13; Midlake at ABC on February 15; The Temper Trap at ABC on May 13; and Cara Dillon at Classic Grand on May 27.
An extensive programme for Celtic Connections 2010 has also been released, with the indie highlights of the festival being Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian), Lisa Hannigan and Co singing the songs of Nick Drake on January 20 at the Royal Concert Hall, Fyfe Dangerfield (Guillemots) and Stornoway (The Pop Cop’s first ever Weekend Anthem picks) at ABC on January 20, and Chemikal Undergound’s 15th birthday party at ABC on January 31.
Edinburgh: Thomas Western has a residency at The Bowery every Friday in November; In addition, check out Hot Chip at Picture House on February 13; Vampire Weekend at Picture House on February 14; and The Temper Trap at Picture House on May 14.
October 18, 2009: The Pop Cop is taking its own advice and stepping away from the computer. Yes, we’re going on holiday! The bad news is that The Goss won’t be updated till November 9. But the good news is that we’ve scheduled a whole load of posts to be published in our absence, with a couple of guest columnists thrown in to boot. So you might not really notice much difference…
October 16, 2009: Half-decent newly-announced gigs on sale today include The Magic Numbers at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on December 9 and Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on December 10, and The Cinematics at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on December 23.
Oh, and if you haven’t already seen the Under The Radar vs The Pop Cop article, ‘How many new bands is too many?’ then you might want to take a look. Judging by the comments so far, the good Pop Cop name appears to be getting dragged through the mud! Ho-hum ;o)
October 15, 2009: Top Scottish snooker player Stephen Maguire is playing an exhibition match this weekend against Krystof Michal, who is famous in the Czech Republic for being the frontman of rock group Support Lesbiens. You can’t get more random than that!
October 14, 2009: Three out of the 33 bands heading to Manchester next week play at In The City’s unsigned showcase are Scottish. They are Unicorn Kid, Copy Haho and Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers. In addition, fellow Scots acts Frightened Rabbit, Twin Atlantic, Fangs, The Ray Summers, Esther O’Connor and the shockingly bad The Law are doing live shows as part of the British music industry’s talent-spotting shindig.
October 13, 2009: The xx will play Studio 24 in Edinburgh on March 9 as part of their UK tour. Tickets go on sale on Friday.
October 12, 2009: The full line-up for the Oxjam Glasgow Takeover on October 24/25 is listed below. Tickets cost £8.80 from here – you then exchange that for a wristband which gives you access to all venues on both days.
Saturday, October 24 – 13th Note: Dave Hughes And The Renegade Folk Punk Band, Roscoe Vacant, El Bastardos, Judith Harron, Jimmy Richards, Billy Liar, Roberto Cassani, The Moth And The Mirror, Shambles Miller; Metropolitan: Martin John Henry, Mike Nisbet, Jamie Keenan, Malcolm Ross ABC – Polar Bar: Brother Louis Collective, John B McKenna, Full House, Ben Chaddock, Mike And Solveig; Britannia Panopticon Music Hall: Jonny Jack, Paul McGranaghan, Pure Brass; Blackfriars: The Xcerts, Cuba Cuba, The Lafontaines, Atlas Skye, The Marder, Young States; The V Club: My Cousin I Bid You Farewell, Esperanza, Lions.Chase.Tigers., Glider, Hidden Masters; The Vale: Vendor Defender, Homework, Ben TD, Gong Fei, The Reveres, Endor; Sloan: Strike The Colours, Zoey Van Goey, The Low Miffs, Yahweh, Le Reno Amps, The Seventeenth Century.
Sunday, October 25 – Brunswick Hotel Penthouse Suite: Emma Curran, Andrea Marini, David Bova, Mark McCabe; Pivo Pivo: Tango In The Attic, The Deals, Schnapps, The Dull Fudds, Big Ned, Bwani Juntion, Wilson Tan, Eddy And The T Bolts, The Black Delorian, The 123s, Three Blind Wolves, The Deneros, The Cellophanes; The Admiral: Be A Familiar, Yoshi, The Social Services, Haight Ashbury, The Apologists, Alex Wayt, The French Wives, Castaway; Capitol: Tempercalm, Nacional, Ming Ming And The Ching Chings, Call Me Ishmael, Barn Owl, Maple Leaves, Boycotts, Casino Brag; McChuills: Nine Circles, My Actions Your Exit, Little Eskimos, Reginald, Bad Day?, Albino Monk, Fanzine Hero; Mono: Attic Lights, El Dog, United Fruit, The Mode, Fox Gang, Odeon Beatclub, Dbass Collective, Man At The Window; Basuro Blanco (Brunswick Hotel Basement): Lowreck, Jan Cree, Gareth Whitehead, My Evil Twin, Chris Coulston.
October 9, 2009: Here’s today’s gig news – Cassidy have added a couple of free in-store gigs to their Scottish tour, namely October 22 in Avalanche, Edinburgh and October 26 in Avalanche, Glasgow… Fionn Regan is playing Glasgow’s Captain’s Rest on November 9 (tickets) – go along, if only to hear him play his beautiful song Hey Rabbit… Mika is heading to Glasgow’s Academy on February 22 (tickets)… and finally, the Borders Music and Comedy Festival sees Idlewild at Victoria Hall, Selkirk on November 1 (tickets), McIntosh Ross (ex-Deacon Blue) at Melrose’s Corn Exchange on November 3 (tickets), Broken Records at Tait Hall, Kelso on November 7 (tickets), and Trashcan Sinatras, Brother Louis Collective and The Seventeenth Century at Tait Hall, Kelso on November 13 (tickets).
October 8, 2009: EXCLUSIVE: The full line-up for Oxjam Edinburgh on October 23 looks like this – Cabaret Voltaire: Dead Boy Robotics, Boycotts, Three Blind Wolves, Frightened Rabbit (Scott Hutchison solo set), Song, By Toad DJ set; The Bowery: The Occasional Flickers, Y’All Is Fantasy Island, Jesus H. Foxx, Meursault, Cammy Watts DJ set; Sneaky Pete’s: Chutes, The Little Kicks, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers; City Cafe: Conquering Animal Sound, The Last Battle, Pose Victorious, Paper Beats Rock, Le Reno Amps, Come On Gang!; The Wee Red Bar: Snide Rhythms, The Shellsuit Massacre, My Electric Love Affair. Tickets cost £7.70 from here – you then exchange that for a wristband which gives you access to all venues on the day.
October 7, 2009: If ever there was a story that showed record labels are screwed up beyond belief, this is it. Edwyn Collins has been barred from streaming his song, A Girl Like You, in full through his own MySpace page because the website is under the impression the copyright is held by Warners, when it is in fact owned by the Scot himself. Furthermore, the song is being sold illegally on the internet by “major labels whose license to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him”, according to his wife and manager, Grace Maxwell. You can read messages of support from various sources including, somewhat randomly, Wheatus of Teenage Dirtbag fame, here.
October 6, 2009: Madness will headline this year’s Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh. Try to contain your excitement. Tickets go on sale on Saturday. The rest of the line-up will be announced on November 12.
October 5, 2009: Taio Cruz has given the thumbs-up to Aberdeen-based band Outbox after hearing their cover of his current No.1 single Break Your Heart. You can compare both versions on Cruz’s YouTube page.
October 2, 2009: Reloaded Fest takes place at Stirling’s Tolbooth venue tomorrow. There are 16 acts over three stages including Twin Atlantic, Tommy Reilly and Jack Butler. Doors open at 4pm and tickets cost £10. You can check availability by calling 01786 274000.
October 1, 2009: Sergeant will be self-releasing their self-titled debut album on October 12 on their own Shy Recordings label. Produced by John Leckie, it includes the singles they brought out on Mercury before they were dropped, Sunshine and K-Ok, as well as recent release Counting Down The Days. Right-click here to download a free mp3 of album closer It All Comes Back To Me, which is a very pleasant taster of what the jangly Glenrothes band do best.
September 30, 2009: Fanfarlo are playing a free “guerilla gig” in The Cloisters area of the main building of Glasgow University at 1pm tomorrow (Thursday). See here for a photo of the exact location.
September 29, 2009: Hearts Football Club have launched an admirable new music initiative for kids who may be involved or at risk of becoming involved in antisocial or criminal behaviour. Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh will house guitars, drum kits, keyboards, PA system, SmartBoard and other equipment that will motivate and inspire learning. Music tutors will be on hand to provide lessons, while Mike Daniel aka M.A.D. from Groove Armada is also assisting in the Hearts Music Project’s development.
September 25, 2009: It’s moving day. General Fiasco’s gig in Dundee on Tuesday has been switched from The Doghouse to Dexters; Fanfarlo’s show in Glasgow on Wednesday is now at King Tut’s instead of ABC2; and the NME Radar Tour featuring Golden Silvers, Marina And The Diamonds, Local Natives and Yes Giantess on Thursday has also been moved to King Tut’s from Oran Mor.
September 24, 2009: The two-day Scotcampus Freshers’ Festival at George Square in Glasgow will see Exile Parade, Pooch, The Meat Men, Nevada Base, Suspire, Little Eskimos, Annie Stevenson, My Cousin I Bid You Farewell and Sinister Flynn play on October 1, while Lost In Audio, The Black Hang Gang, Tango In The Attic, Nixa, Ardent John, Epic 26, Isa & The Filthy Tongues, Bronto Skylift and Must Be Something play on October 2. Bands are on stage from 10am until 6pm and entry is free.
September 23, 2009: Tommy Reilly’s debut album Words On The Floor is out this week. You know what? It’s actually a really good listen. He’s doing free instore performances this week at HMV stores in Stiring (today, 1pm), Livingston (today, 5pm), Dundee (tomorrow, 5pm) and Glasgow Buchanan Street (Friday, 5pm).
September 22, 2009: EXCLUSIVE: Roddy Hart’s Scottish tour with his band The Lonesome Fire in support of his incredible forthcoming album Sign Language looks like this: November 17, Inverness Hootananny; November 18, Perth Red Rooms; November 19, Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s; November 20, Glasgow Oran Mor; November 22, Ayr Libertine.
September 21, 2009: Does anyone fancy a night out at the opera? We’ve got two free tickets for Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal on Wednesday evening to give away. Just send us a direct message on Twitter with your name and they can be yours.
September 19, 2009: EXCLUSIVE: Frightened Rabbit’s full Scottish headlining tour looks like this: November 27, BA Club, Fort William; November 28, Tolbooth, Stirling; November 29, Ironworks, Inverness; December 1, Moshulu, Aberdeen; December 2, Fat Sams, Dundee; and finally for the big Christmas finale… December 22, ABC, Glasgow.
Soulwax/2 Many DJs are playing Braehead Arena on December 18. Pre-sale tickets are available here ahead of general release on Wednesday.
September 18, 2009: Other Glasgow venues have got in on the Homecoming Live shenanigans. On November 28, the Clyde Auditorium will host Eddi Reader, Mike Scott (The Waterboys), Evelyn Glennie & Philip Smith and Dougie MacLean. King Tut’s has The Pastels and 1990s on November 27, Sergeant on November 28 and We Were Promised Jetpacks on November 29. And the bill for SECC Hall 3 (i.e. not the over-40s hall – see September 7 bulletin) has been bolstered by the additions of Codeine Velvet Club and The Dykeenies. Tickets on sale now for the lot of them from here.
September 17, 2009: Glasgow superstar-in-waiting Roddy Hart has only just gone and made the best pop single of the year. Here’s the video for Send A Message.
September 16, 2009: The beautiful people at One Little Indian Records have given The Pop Cop a pair of tickets to give away for each of Kill It Kid’s two gigs in Scotland next month as well as a free copy of the band’s soon-to-be-released debut album. To be in with a chance of winning, just email thepopcop@gmail.com with your name, address and which venue you want to see them in – your choices are Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on October 7 or Glasgow’s Captain’s Rest on October 8. Support on both night comes from the abysmal Sparrow And The Workshop. Closing date for comp is September 24.
September 15, 2009: EXCLUSIVE: The first single from Frightened Rabbit’s new album will be Swim Until You Can’t See Land. Its release date is November 16 and it is augmented by a string arrangement from German musician Hauschka. Scott Hutchison describes it thus: “‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ was the title I had in my mind before I even started writing the album; I was becoming more and more interested in the idea of a rejection of the habits and behaviour most people see as normal, and in turn embracing a certain madness. It’s about losing your mind in order to reset the mind and the body. Forget what’s gone before and wash it out. This is not necessarily a geographical journey, as the ’swim’ can involve any activity in which you can lose yourself. It’s a good introduction to the record as the theme unravels therein.” The b-side will be Fun Stuff, which was previously known as Last Tango In Brooklyn. The new album is scheduled for a spring 2010 release.
September 14, 2009: A fair few acts have been announced for the Oxjam Glasgow Takeover Festival which takes place across various venues throughout the city on October 24/25. Confirmed on the bill are Alex Wayt, Andrea Marini, The Black Hand Gang, Call Me Ishmael, Casino Brag, Dave Hughes & The Renegade Folk Punk Band, Emma Curran, Homework, The LaFontaines, The Marder, Martin John Henry (formerly of De Rosa), Mike Nisbet, The Mode, The Moth & The Mirror, Nacional, Out Of Samsara, Reginald, The Reveres, Tempercalm and Trapped In Kansas.
September 11, 2009: The relentless Broken Records have announced a new tour for November which includes six Scottish dates: Nov 7 Tait Hall, Kelso; Nov 8 Oran Mor, Glasgow; Nov 10 Perth Theatre, Perth; Nov 11 Cafe Drummond, Aberdeen; Nov 12 Ironworks, Inverness; Nov 13 Skinandi’s, Thurso.
September 10, 2009: Want to hear arguably the best Vic Galloway session ever? Do yourself a favour and download Beerjacket’s two-song Radio 1 set via Peenko. Incredible stuff.
September 9, 2009: Teenage Fanclub and Edwyn Collins are teaming up tomorrow night for a free gig at Mono at 10.30pm.
Turin Brakes are heading north for gigs at Stornoway Woodland Centre on October 2, Inverness Ironworks on October 3 and Aberdeen Snafu on October 5. Tickets available here.
And if you want pre-sale tickets for Florence And The Machine at Glasgow’s Academy on December 9, click here.
September 8, 2009: Arctic Monkeys are playing Glasgow’s SECC on November 24, with support from Eagles of Death Metal. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am. Better still, the sublime Tegan And Sara are playing Edinburgh’s Picture House on November 15, with tickets available on Thursday. Or there’s always Marilyn Manson at the Glasgow Academy on December 15. O2 priority pre-sale tickets are buyable now by slyly clicking here.
September 7, 2009: Details of the showpiece event for the Homecoming Scotland celebrations on November 28 have been announced. Dubbed ‘Homecoming Live – The Final Fling’, Glasgow’s SECC will host Deacon Blue, Lloyd Cole, Hue And Cry, Midge Ure, The Bluebells, James Grant, Kevin McDermott and Tommy Reilly in Hall 4. While in Hall 3, you will find The Vaselines, Idlewild and King Creosote. Hall 3 it is, then. Tickets are available from here on Friday.
September 6, 2009: Tickets are on sale tomorrow for Modest Mouse at Glasgow’s ABC on December 10. Them Crooked Vultures – the rock supergroup featuring Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) and Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) – are playing Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange on December 15 but that one is already sold out so hard cheese.
September 4, 2009: Local musicians hoping to go to the SXSW festival in Texas next March can get advice at free seminars run by the Scottish Arts Council and Cultural Enterprise Office. The sessions take place on September 17 (Glasgow ABC2, 7pm) and September 18 (Edinburgh Scottish Arts Council office, 2pm) and will cover applications, visas, the Showcase Scotland events and funding. Speakers at the Glasgow event include Sons And Daughters frontman Scott Paterson and Camera Obscura manager Francis Macdonald. The Edinburgh event has members of Found. To attend, email events@culturalenterpriseoffice.co.uk or call 0844 544 9990.
September 3, 2009: Pre-sale tickets are available NOW for Regina Spektor’s gig at the Glaagow Academy on December 1 – fill your boots here. Get in. Tickets go on general sale tomorrow.
September 2, 2009: The Freak Music website has just had a major revamp. It’s a one-stop shop for booking Scottish bands and DJs for private functions as well as bars and clubs. It offers a ‘try before you buy’ service so you can see and hear what you might be letting yourself in for – always advisable to weed out any potential covers of Mustang Sally.
September 1, 2009: Idlewild are playing six Scottish dates: November 1, Victoria Hall, Selkirk; November 2, Fat Sams, Dundee; November 4, Picture House, Edinburgh; November 5, Ironworks, Inverness; November 6, Moshulu, Aberdeen; November 7, BA Club, Fort William.
August 28, 2009: The Glasgow Film Theatre will be showing the Noah And The Whale film that accompanies their new album The First Days Of Spring on Tuesday at 8.30pm. Singer Charlie Fink, who wrote and directed the film, will be doing a Q&A afterwards. You can buy tickets for the screening here.
August 27, 2009: Cassidy fans are being offered a two-in-one deal that lets them get the band’s debut single Night In The Box and a ticket for the launch gig at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on October 25 for £8.
Pearl And The Puppets have been added to the bill for the free Irn-Bru Can Clan event at Glasgow Green on September 13.
August 26, 2009: Ash have announced details of a rather unique UK tour that will see them will play towns in alphabetical order, beginning in Aldershot on October 19 and ending in the village of Zennor on November 23. The jaunt includes three Scottish dates: Dundee’s Fat Sams on October 23, East Grange’s The Loft on October 24 and Falkirk’s Behind The Wall on October 25. Clever, huh? Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am.
August 25, 2009: You can now hear the first fruits of Jon Fratelli’s side-project Codeine Velvet Club – a collaboration with Glaswegian cabaret-jazz singer Lou Hickey. A video of Vanity Kills, the first single from their self-titled album out in November, is online here. The band, who were briefly known as The Codeine Breakfast Club, play their debut gig at Glasgow’s Classic Grand on September 15. Tickets available here.
August 24, 2009: Broken Records have covered The Beatles song Oh! Darling to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road. You can find it on the CD given away with this month’s Mojo magazine.
August 21, 2009: Chemikal Underground will be re-releasing albums by their two newest signings. Glasgow-based twee-pop trio Zoey Van Goey’s debut The Cage Was Unlocked All Along comes out in October, while Dublin singer Adrian Crowley’s fifth record Season Of The Sparks is scheduled for November.
August 20, 2009: Couple more newly-announced gig dates for your diary: San Franciscan space-rockers LoveLikeFire will be at Glasgow’s Capitol (moved from the now-closed Twisted Wheel venue) on September 22. Popular emo types You Me At Six are playing Dundee’s Fat Sam’s on September 11, Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on September 12 and Aberdeen’s Moshulu on September 13. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.
August 19, 2009: Snow Patrol will play Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium on November 30 as part of the most over-priced tour ever. Ticket prices for the all-seated gig range from £35-£55, not including booking fees, and go on general sale tomorrow at 9am. The show will incorporate songs from (and members of) Gary Lightbody’s side-project The Reindeer Section.
August 18, 2009: The Cave Singers, who made the 9th best album of 2008, are playing Glasgow’s Stereo on November 13 and Edinburgh’s Electric Circus on November 14 as part of the Shred Yr Face tour with fellow American bands Espers and Woods.
August 17, 2009: There Will Be Fireworks are offering tickets for their headline show at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on Thursday for £5 – which is cheaper than you’ll pay on the door. Just email the band if you want to reserve any. Support comes from Lions.Chase.Tigers and Baldego.
August 15, 2009: The Streets’ gig at the Edinburgh Picture House which was due to take place tonight has been postponed as bassist Wayne Vibes has swine flu. NOTE: The promoters have rescheduled the show to August 31.
August 14, 2009: Tickets on sale today include The Mars Volta at Edinburgh’s Picture House on December 9, Gomez at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on November 27 and – this will bring back memories of a misspent youth – A at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on December 7.
August 13, 2009: The Skinny are looking for a Listings Editor to work in their Edinburgh office. They’ll pay you £300 per month. Closing date is August 18.
August 12, 2009: The Cinematics’ PR team have just emailed us the band’s new single Love And Terror and told us to “let The Pop Cop’s readers in on it too”. Does that mean offer it to you as a free download? If so, here it is. If not… oh well.
August 11, 2009: The View will headline the first night of the Loopallu festival in Ullapool which takes place on September 18/19.
August 7, 2009: The Zutons and Cassidy are playing a free gig at Glasgow Green on September 13 as part of an Irn-Bru-organised bid to break the world record for the most amount of people doing a can-can simultaneously, although nobody seems to know what the existing record actually is. If that’s doesn’t sound like a phenomenally shite day out, you can read more about it here.
Camera Obscura are playing the Glasgow Barrowland on October 29 – just six months after they last played there. Maybe that’s a record too.
August 6, 2009: Super Furry Animals are playing Glasgow’s ABC 1 on October 15. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.
The Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival has sold out its 12,000 tickets in advance for the first time in its history.
August 5, 2009: The singer of Glasgow band Salon Society has been criticised by the Pope. Roxanne Claxton appears in a video at the Made In God’s Image exhibition at the city’s Gallery of Modern Art. In the clip, she rips pages out of a bible and stuffs them down her knickers and bra, as well as eating them. An adviser to Pope Benedict XVI condemned the exhibition as “disgusting and offensive”, adding “they would not think of doing it to the Koran”.
August 4, 2009: The world seems to have gone Beerjacket-crazy. Rolling Stone magazine have reviewed (and gushed about) his cover of Dancing In The Dark alongside Jay-Z, Katy Perry and Eminem – see here. There is also a full-page feature on him in today’s Daily Record – see here.
August 3, 2009: The wonderful Slow Club have announced two gigs in Scotland – September 26 at Glasgow’s Classic Grand and September 27 at Aberdeen’s Tunnels. Noah And The Whale are playing Glasgow’s Oran Mor on October 15.
July 31, 2009: As well as the Edinburgh date listed in today’s post, The Bluetones are playing King Tut’s on December 16 & 17 – and those gigs aren’t being billed as ‘one-album only’ performances. Tickets are available to buy now from here
July 30, 2009: Twin Atlantic and The Joy Formidable have been added to the line-up for the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival on August 7/8. Howling Bells have pulled out.
July 29, 2009: Happy days. We Were Promised Jetpacks, Broken Records, Sparrow And The Workshop and Some Young Pedro are playing a free gig at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on August 27 to celebrate The Mill’s first birthday. To get a pair of tickets just text MILL27N to 82500 (it’s the cost of a normal text). Thanks to Peenko for the tip-off.
July 28, 2009: Beerjacket’s spellbinding cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark has been given a brief, but no less impressive seal of approval by Steve Van Zandt, the E Street Band’s guitarist, who wrote that he “liked it” on his Facebook page. You can download an mp3 of the Glasgow musician’s version by right-clicking here or watch a fan-made YouTube video of it here.
July 27, 2009: James Yorkston, Alasdair Roberts and Adrian Crowley have been added to the Music Like A Vitamin bill in Glasgow. The Edinburgh leg at the Picture House on October 21 features Frightened Rabbit, Attic Lights, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Rod Jones (Idlewild) and Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci). Tickets costing just £5 are available to buy from here for Glasgow and here for Edinburgh.
July 24, 2009: Emma Pollock and Karine Polwart are on the bill for Music Like A Vitamin – the opening concert of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket on October 1. Tickets cost just £5 + bf. Details can be found here.
Also just noticed that Mew are playing Glasgow’s ABC on November 5. Tickets available here.
July 23, 2009: Broken Records are supporting The National on the American band’s only UK date of the year at London’s Royal Festival Hall on August 10.
July 22, 2009: 2manydjs have announced a gig at Glasgow’s Academy on August 29. Tickets on sale now from Ticketweb.
Frightened Rabbit are making an appearance at Glasgow’s Concert Hall on October 8 as part of the inaugural Scottish Royal Variety Performance. Tickets start at £65. Ouch.
July 21, 2009: Radio Scotland’s Morning Extra team investigated whether Scottish festivals have reached “saturation point”. You can listen back to the programme and read a supplementary article from the editor eFestivals.co.uk.
July 20, 2009: You can watch Beerjacket playing songs from his new album Animosity at a free instore gig tomorrow (5pm) in Avalanche, Glasgow. He’s also playing the city’s King Tut’s on August 8 (with support from hotly-tipped The Seventeenth Century) and Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on September 24.
July 17, 2009: The Xcerts will release a live mini-album called Live At King Tut’s through iTunes on July 27. The eight-track record includes the previously unreleased song Beige. The concert itself took place on March 8.
A few new acts have been announced for the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival on August 7/8: Howling Bells, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, Aberfeldy and Jonathan Jeremiah.
July 16, 2009: There are a heap of live videos from T in the Park available to watch on the BBC’s TITP website. Several of them (particularly the Scottish acts) can be downloaded in mp3 format from Peenko.
July 15, 2009: Golden Silvers, Marina And The Diamonds, Local Natives and Yes Giantess will play Glasgow’s Oran Mor on October 1 as part of the NME Radar Tour. Tickets priced £16.45 are available to buy now from here.
The The Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival has announced the up-and-coming acts who will be playing their Seedlings Stage: Friday – The Side, Sergeant, St Deluxe, Flood Of Red, Bronto Skylift, Healthy Minds Collpase, Cast Of The Capital, Washington Irvine and Colour Coded. Saturday – Our Lunar Activities, Punch & The Apostles, Theatre Fall, Party Horse, Sucioperro, Naked Strangers, Cruiser, Cassidy and Three Times Daily.
July 14, 2009: No sooner is one T in the Park over than you can buy tickets for next year’s festival. A limited batch are on sale here – rumoured headliners include the likes of Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Green Day, Blink-182 and Biffy Clyro. Our favourite TITP chancer story from the weekend involved a Mancunian who told box office staff that “Danny Radcliffe” was thinking of coming on Saturday and that he was just waiting on word from Harry Potter himself. Needless to say, the actor didn’t appear and the shameless blagger nonchalantly told staff that he and other members of ‘Radcliffe’s entourage’ would just go in anyway. They were pointed in the direction of the exit.
July 13, 2009: You can download the Twin Atlantic song Lightspeed here for free. It’s a taster for the band’s new mini-album Vivarium which comes out in September.
July 10, 2009: Well done to Gong Fei, who have been voted best T Break act by 46% of The Pop Cop readers. You can see the Dundee band at T in the Park tomorrow from 12.00-12.30pm.
July 9, 2009: The List magazine have handily published the full running order and stage times for T in the Park here.
Jack’s Mannequin’s Glasgow gig on August 31 has been moved up from King Tut’s to the QMU.
July 8, 2009: Follow me, follow me, leave your home and family. The Pop Cop is now on Twitter. Join us here.
July 7, 2009: Yeah Yeahs Yeahs are playing Glasgow’s O2 Academy on December 4. Tickets go on sale on Friday.
July 6, 2009: Your Sound, the unsigned network run by King Tut’s, will fund a five-date Scottish tour for two bands in September. There is a shortlist of six candidates so it’s up to you to vote for who you want to see most. Your choice are Barn Owl, Bronto Skylift, Call To Mind, Lions. chase. tigers, My Cousin I Bid You Farewell and RBRBR. We’re rooting for MCIBYF.
July 3, 2009: More cracking gigs to look forward to in Scotland have just been announced: There Will Be Fireworks are at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus on July 14 and Aberdeen’s Drummonds on July 15; Beerjacket is at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on August 8; Metric are at Edinburgh’s Picture House on August 25; Jamie T is at Glasgow’s Barrowlands on October 9; Bat For Lashes is at Glasgow’s Academy on October 19 and Edinburgh’s Picture House on October 20.
July 2, 2009: Holy shiz! Jack’s Mannequin are playing their first ever gig in Scotland on August 31 to kick-off a four-date UK tour. Tickets for King Tut’s, Glasgow go on sale at 9am today from here. We might just burst with excitement.
July 1, 2009: Maximo Park will play Glasgow Barrowlands on October 7. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am from the usual outlets.
June 30, 2009: The Gap, a small radio and promotions group based in West Lothian, are putting on a three-day festival called SOSfest at The GRV in Edinburgh from August 21-23, with headliners Tommy Reilly, The Xcerts and Sergeant. All shows are over-14s and there are loads of up-and-coming Scottish artists on each bill. Tickets cost £13.50 per day.
June 29, 2009: The Pixies are playing Glasgow’s SECC on October 4. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am.
June 26, 2009: So RIP not just Michael Jackson but Steven Wells, a legendary writer at NME in the 80s and 90s. He once described Belle & Sebastian as “self-loving, knock-kneed, passive aggressive, dressed-up-in-kiddy-clothes, mock-pop-creepiness peddling, smug, underachieving, real-pop-hating no-talents celebrating their own inadequacy with music so white it’s translucent”.
June 25, 2009: The Pop Cop chose Roddy Hart as the first Scottish ambassador of the Music Alliance Pact and next week he’ll be representing the nation again. The Glaswegian will be playing at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday to mark its 10th anniversary, just after the Queen addresses the chamber.
June 24, 2009: The Twilight Sad will perform their first Scottish headline gig of the year at Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on July 2. Tickets are available here.
June 23, 2009: The Flying Duck venue in Glasgow is hosting a 16-band mini-festival on Sunday called Define Pop vs Club Overdrive. The full line-up is: CLUB OVERDRIVE STAGE: 16.30 Rollor, 17.20 Arca Felix, 18.10 United Fruit, 19.00 Hey Vampires, 19.50 Hey Enemy, 20.40 Das Filth, 21.30 Any Color Black, 22.20 Super Adventure Club; DEFINE POP STAGE: 16.40 My Cousin I Bid You Farewell, 17.30 The Martial Arts, 18.20 Free Korps, 19.10 Dirty Cuts, 20.00 Fridge Magnets, 20.50 Futuristic Reto Champions, 21.40 The Debuts, 22.30 Sugar Crisis. Tickets can be purchased for £8 from here.
June 22, 2009: De Rosa have split up. The gig they had scheduled for tomorrow at Glasgow’s Oran Mor is therefore not happening.
June 19, 2009: Some newly-announced concerts to tell you about: Frightened Rabbit are playing a semi-secret free gig at The Goat in Glasgow on June 21, Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds) is at Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on August 25, The Rumble Strips play Glasgow’s ABC2 on September 28 and Grizzly Bear are at Glasgow’s ABC1 on November 2.
June 18, 2009: Stuart Murdoch’s God Help The Girl group made their first live outing yesterday afternoon at Lansdowne Parish Church in Glasgow, playing six songs to an invite-only audience. The performance was filmed so it should be up on their website in the near future.
June 17, 2009: Biffy Clyro have announced some Scottish dates: August 21 at Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange, November 1 at Dundee’s Caird Hall and November 2-3 at Glasgow’s Barrowland. Tickets go on sale on Friday… or you could click here to access exclusive pre-sale tickets right now. Don’t say we’re not good to you.
June 16, 2009: Idlewild have begun mailing out copies of their new album Post Electric Blues to the 3,000 fans who pre-ordered it on their website. It is expected to get a conventional retail release in the next couple of months.
June 15, 2009: EXCLUSIVE: Perez Hilton’s scheduled appearance at the Edinburgh International Television Festival at the end of August has been cancelled. No explanation has been given yet.
June 12, 2009: Tickets are on sale today for Editors at the Edinburgh Picture House on October 12 and Glasgow Barrowland on October 13.
June 10, 2009: The line-up for The Edge Festival in Edinburgh has just been announced and there’s a disappointing lack of genuinely big names, although plenty of talent. The full rollcall is: David Byrne, The Stranglers, Calvin Harris, The Streets, Amanda Palmer, Enter Shikari, Emiliana Torrini, Broken Records, Frightened Rabbit, The Bluetones, Múm, Andrew Bird, Mumford & Sons, SOMA Night, Young Fathers, Unicorn Kid, Foy Vance, Your Sound Showcase and Malcolm Middleton. Gigs are scheduled from August 8-27 at the Playhouse, Picture House, Queens Hall, Studio 24 and Cabaret Voltaire. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster.
June 9, 2009: Organisers of this year’s Scotcampus Freshers’ Festival are looking for bands/artists to play at George Square, Glasgow on October 1-2. Anyone interested should email nicole@scotcampus.com with their band name, photo, web link and 50 words on why they should play.
June 8, 2009: Paisley boy Paolo Nutini has scored his first No.1 album with Sunny Side Up, which is a pretty brave departure from his debut pop album so fair play to him.
June 6, 2009: Biffy Clyro are playing at the Alhambra Theatre in Dunfermline on June 13 as a warm-up for Rockness. Tickets are on sale here priced £20.30.
June 5, 2009: We Were Promised Jetpacks and The Twilight Sad will both be performing short sets at HMV Buchanan Street, Glasgow on June 15 at 5pm. They’ll also be signing stuff, preferably their CDs.
June 4, 2009: The line-up for The Edge Festival, the music arm of the Edinburgh Fringe which runs throughout August, will be unveiled on June 10.
June 3, 2009: Katy Perry has moved her imminent sell-out date at the Glasgow Barrowlands from June 6 to August 21 because she can make more money by going to a Russian awards show in Moscow instead. Muse are playing Glasgow’s SECC on November 9. Tickets are available to buy from 9am on Friday and cost £41.25. Ouch. Also on sale that morning are tickets for the MOBO Awards at the SECC on September 30.
June 2, 2009: Silversun Pickups’ Glasgow gig on July 1 has been moved from Stereo to Oran Mor.
June 1, 2009: Youth music project The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle is looking for five Glasgow acts of any genre to arrange, record and perform their own music, accompanied by members of eclectic group Music At The Brewhouse, for a special showcase gig at the Old Fruitmarket on November 25. Applicants must be between 16-25, resident in Glasgow and have been playing their own material for over a year. Interested bands/musicians can apply here before the June 22 deadline.
May 29, 2009: Stirling isn’t known as being a hotbed for avant-garde music, but it will become precisely that with Le Weekend Festival which runs from this evening until Sunday and is now in its 12th year. Acts playing include Jazzsteppa & The Moody Boyz and Trembling Bells but not Broadcast, who cancelled their scheduled appearance at the last minute because they are “working on their next album” (i.e. they couldn’t be arsed).
May 28, 2009: Calvin Harris is playing a few Scottish dates at the end of the year, namely The Picture House, Edinburgh on November 1; The Ironworks, Inverness on November 2; Fat Sam’s, Dundee on November 3; and O2 Academy, Glasgow on November 4. Tickets will be going on sale soon.
May 27, 2009: A new 250-capacity venue is opening on June 2 in Market Street, Edinburgh called The Electric Circus. Even if you’re not bothered about live music and club nights, you can’t say no to private karaoke rooms.
May 26, 2009: There are a blizzard of album launches in Glasgow to stick in your diary: Malcolm Middleton (Waxing Gibbous) at Mono on May 31 (free); My Latest Novel (Deaths & Entrances) at Stereo on June 6; We Were Promised Jetpacks (These Four Walls) at King Tut’s on June 15; Beerjacket (Animosity) at Oran Mor on June 17; There Will Be Fireworks (There Will Be Fireworks) at Nice ‘n’ Sleazy on July 1.
May 25, 2009: Glasgow band Cassidy have signed a £400,000, four-album deal with Mercury Records. Good on ‘em.
May 22, 2009: Lock up your sons. Ubiquitous celebrity blogger Perez Hilton will give a talk at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. But even that won’t top the appearance of The Wire actor Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty) and show creator David Simon. The festival runs from August 28-30.
May 21, 2009: Kirkintilloch lass Katie Sutherland, who was told to change her name to Pearl And The Puppets because it would improve her chances of getting a record deal (hey, it worked for Florence, Noah and Reverend) has signed to Universal. It’s reassuring to know major labels are still run by imbeciles.
May 20, 2009: OK, so you spend more time than is healthy than on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo… now you can get paid for it. The Arches in Glasgow are looking for an Online Officer to generate publicity for their events through social networking sites and blogging. The job is 3 days per week, 10am-6pm, £15-17k pro rata. The application form is available here. If you’d prefer a job that’s more likely to change people’s lives, Live Music Now Scotland have a vacancy for a Development Officer in Edinburgh. See here for details.
May 19, 2009: Paolo Nutini, who sings like a jakey in his new single Candy, is playing two free in-store gigs on June 1 – HMV Buchanan Street, Glasgow at 1pm and HMV Lothian Road, Edinburgh at 7pm. Wristbands are available from 8am on the day.
May 18, 2009: A petition calling for Scotland to have its own entry in the Eurovision Song Contest has been lodged at Holyrood. Lynn Allan, one of the founders of the group Scotland In Eurovision, summed up the mood of the nation thus: “We have some spectacular talent in Scotland. Susan Boyle is testament to that.” Twat.
May 15, 2009: Line-up details for next month’s West End Festival in Glasgow are beginning to emerge. Acts playing at Òran Mór include Beerjacket on June 17, De Rosa on June 23, Emiliana Torrini on June 24 (in Auditorium) and the long-awaited live return of MAP favourites There Will Be Fireworks on June 24.
May 14, 2009: The Belladrum Tartan Heart festival in Inverness-shire on August 7/8 has been boosted by the additions of Noah And The Whale and Broken Records.
May 13, 2009: Robert Hubbert, former guitarist of Glasgow band El Hombre Trajeado, has launched a new kind of show, Will Play For Food – which is exactly how it sounds. He will do an acoustic set for you and your friends at your house for free as long as you make him dinner in return. Who knows, maybe you’ll get an encore if you bring out the dessert.
May 12, 2009: The Sauchiehall Crawl is going ahead on Saturday, October 24. Last year’s inaugural one-street event in Glasgow saw almost a dozen acts play across ABC 2, Nice ‘n’ Sleazy and The Beat Club. No word yet on which bands and venues will be involved this time.
May 11, 2009: T in the Park has added Camera Obscura (Friday, July 10, Futures Stage), Mumford & Sons (Saturday, July 11, King Tut’s Tent) and The Maccabees (Friday, July 10, King Tut’s Tent) to its festival line-up.
May 9, 2009: First it was the Homecoming festival on Irvine Beach then Beepfest and now The Outsider Festival has been cancelled. The event near Aviemore was due to be headlined by Teenage Fanclub and Sharleen Spiteri on June 27-28.
May 8, 2009: Dotjr song Where Stars Fall Down is featured in the trailer (fast-forward 35 seconds) for What Goes Up, a summer movie featuring Hilary Duff and Steve Coogan.
May 7, 2009: Beepfest has been cancelled. The all-day event had been due to take place on Saturday at the Glasgow School of Art with over a dozen acts including Aberfeldy and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub). Manchester-based curators The Beep Seals, who were planning to split up after playing at the festival, blamed “various reasons beyond our control” for scrapping it.
May 6, 2009: The sixth annual Tigerfest gets underway today, with gigs in Edinburgh this week, Dunfermline next week and Aberdeen the week after. Artists on show include King Creosote, James Yorkston, Lord Cut-Glass, Ballboy, Aberfeldy, Meursault and Found. Click here for full line-up details.
May 5, 2009: Scottish post-punk new wave band TV21, who split up in 1982 immediately after supporting The Rolling Stones, will play a launch gig at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms on May 24 to celebrate the release of their second album, Forever 22, almost three decades after their debut came out. Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison and We Were Promised Jetpacks counterpart Adam Thompson will also be playing acoustic sets on the night. TV21 member Ally Palmer happens to be the dad of Jetpacks guitarist Michael. Tickets cost £6 plus postage.
May 4, 2009: EXCLUSIVE(always wanted to write that): Those Dancing Days singer Linnea Jönsson is jetting in from Sweden tomorrow to add vocals to a new God Help The Girl song that won’t be on the forthcoming album. Look out for The Pop Cop’s interview with Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch very soon.
May 3, 2009: It’s not often that Doves make the front page of a national newspaper but the Sunday Mail and News of the World both reported that the first guy in Scotland to be confirmed with swine flu had been in the crowd at the Edinburgh Picture House for the Manchester band’s gig on April 23. Before he was quarantined. It’s just a wee cough, you’ll get over it.
May 1, 2009: Hockey are playing Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire (tickets) on September 19 and Glasgow’s King Tut’s (tickets) on September 20. It’ll set you back £9.52 + postage.
April 30, 2009: Free music time, wooh! To download a 26-song compilation of bands playing at Hinterland just visit here, click the Ticket Holders button, enter the download code 63H9HG77 and your email address. Check your email for a link from 7digital and click the Download Now button. The tracklisting is as follows:
Broken Records – Lies
Little Man Tate – Hey Little Sweetie
The Answering Machine – Another City, Another Sorry
Jesus H. Foxx – I’m Half The Man You Were
Eugene McGuinness – Moscow State Circus
Fangs – S.I.C.K.O. (remix)
Remember Remember – Up In A Blue Light
Three Trapped Tigers – 1
Theophilus London – Cold Pillow
Come On Gang! – Wheels
The Wave Pictures – Puncture My Ride
Edie Sedgwick – Sissy Spacek
Elks – Four Pale Letters
Phantom – We Float
Guanoman – Kaiseki
Geordi La Force – If They Ain’t Vertical, They Are Horizontal
Panama Kings – Children
The Ray Summers – Ballad Of The Bitter Man
Soft Toy Emergency – White Lights
The Lines – Tracey
Manda Rin – Do The Static
Burn The Negative – Lights
The Lovely Eggs – Have You Ever Heard A Digital Accordion?
Desalvo – Ripper Situation
Wintermute – Disco Load-Out
These Monsters – Fleets Of Black Hovercraft
April 29, 2009: Far be it from us to suggest that tickets for Hinterland aren’t selling very well, but the organisers are literally giving away a “limited number” of two-day passes for free if you email info@hinterlandfestival.com today with your name and how many wristbands you want. You will get email confirmation if your request is successful. Thanks to Peenko for the heads-up.
April 28, 2009: Green Day are playing at Glasgow’s SECC on October 19. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am. Their new album 21st Century Breakdown is out on May 15.
April 27, 2009: The latest additions to T in the Park are Doves, Idlewild, Iglu & Hartly, Patrick Wolf, Dinosaur Pile-Up and Vagabond.
April 26, 2009: Uber-cool LA band Silversun Pickups, who gave us the six-minute modern classic Lazy Eye, are playing at Glasgow’s Stereo on July 1. Tickets are on sale here priced £10.08, not including delivery.
April 25, 2009: Malcolm Middleton has pretty much guaranteed his place in The Pop Cop’s best songs of 2009 list with Red Travellin’ Socks, the first single from his new album Waxing Gibbous out in June. It’s pop heaven.
April 24, 2009: Hot young things Boycotts will be appearing at the Montrose Music Festival, headlined by the mighty Deacon Blue on May 28/29. And they will also be supporting Cage The Elephant at Glasgow’s QMU on May 18.
April 23, 2009: Cumbernauld favourites The Dykeenies will mark the release of their new single Sounds Of The City (which incidentally is the best thing they’ve done) with a secret over-18s fan-only gig in Glasgow on Monday. We could probably procure a couple of guesties if anyone fancies it – just email us at the usual address.
Limbo Live Vol 01 – a compilation featuring Scottish bands Zoey Van Goey, Found, Punch And The Apostles, Meursault, Over The Wall, Come On Gang!, Kid Canaveral, Night Noise Team, Haight Ashbury, Thieves In Suits, Sparrow And The Workshop, Cancel The Astronauts, A-lix and Isosceles – is released today. All 14 tracks were recorded live at The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh and can be bought here for £6.30 – or £4 if you go to the launch party tonight when nine of the bands are playing.
April 22, 2009: Must-see YouTube video time. Check out trial cyclist Danny MacAskill doing insane stunts on the streets of Edinburgh to the stirring strains of The Funeral by Band Of Horses here.
April 21, 2009: Edinburgh heroes Broken Records will kickstart their UK summer tour with three Scottish dates: June 2: Aberdeen Moshulu; June 3: Glasgow King Tut’s; June 4: Dundee Doghouse.
April 20, 2009: The full schedule for next week’s Hinterland festival is now online here with stage times and venues. Two new additions to the line-up are Beerjacket and Cassidy.
Camera Obscura are not playing at Hinterland, but they are on the telly tonight. You can catch them on Channel 4 at 12.55am (so technically Tuesday morning) for a 15-minute live performance and interview.
April 18, 2009: Scotland, a country that has produced no music of black origin that we know of, will host this year’s MOBO Awards. The star-studded ceremony (Lemar! JLS!) will take place on September 30 at Glasgow’s SECC. Our cyncism might disappear if we get invited.
April 17, 2009: Crikey, it’s all happening on the festival front. The Homecoming Festival, due to take place at Irvine Beach on May 2-3 has been cancelled due to “financial” problems. Charging £100 for a weekend ticket to see Reverend And The Makers and Ms Dynamite probably wasn’t the most sound business plan.
If you bought tickets (seriously?), we suggest you divert your refund towards Hinterland. Tickets are on sale here for the reduced price of £33.75 (weekend) and £18.75 (one day) until midnight tonight.
The latest acts to sign up for T in the Park are Noisettes, VV Brown, The Horrors, The Twang, Tommy Reilly, The Temper Trap and Will And The People.
April 16, 2009: Edinburgh/Glasgow events magazine The List is advertising for a new editor. Candidates must be “calm and good-humoured”. If that’s you then apply here before the April 24 deadline.
April 15, 2009: The Pop Cop can exclusively reveal some line-up details for the Hinterland festival in Glasgow. On April 30, The Fall are at The Arches, The Xcerts are at The Art School and Tommy Reilly is at King Tut’s. On May 1, Sons & Daughters are at The Arches, Broken Records are at The Classic Grand and We Were Promised Jetpacks are at ABC2.
April 14, 2009: The line-up for annual indie shindig Tigerfest has been announced. Among the highlights sprawled across Dunfermline, Edinburgh and Aberdeen next month are King Creosote, James Yorkston, De Rosa and Aberfeldy. Also on show is the first full band performance from Lord Cut-Glass, ex-Delgados singer Alun Woodward’s rather delicious new pop project.
April 13, 2009: The wonderful Okkervil River are stopping off at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on September 9 as part of their UK tour. You can buy a ticket now from here for £15.85.
April 12, 2009: Congratulations to freakishly tall Dumfries disco dude Calvin Harris, whose song I’m Not Alone has made him the first Scot to have a No.1 in the UK singles charts since Leon Jackson in 2007.
April 11, 2009: De Rosa are supporting Doves on three dates in England next week (Cambridge’s Corn Exchange, April 15; Brighton’s Dome, April 16; Birmingham’s O2 Academy, April 17). A little-known fact is that De Rosa member Andrew Bush’s old band Pariah supported Doves at King Tut’s nine years ago.
April 10, 2009: Any unsigned acts wanting to play at this year’s T in the Park have until April 15 to submit their demos here in order to be in the running to get on the T Break stage.
April 9, 2009: Beth Ditto and her Gossip chums are playing at The Arches in Glasgow on May 30. Tickets costing £16.80 each are on sale now from here.
April 8, 2009: Isle of Lewis singer-songwriter and former Music Alliance Pact pick Dotjr has put up a cover of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody on his MySpace. It’s pretty lush.
April 7, 2009: Glasgow venue The Arches has just extended the run of &tweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_shearches.co.uk/ALIEN-WARS.htm”>Alien Wars by another five months due to popular demand. Alien Wars, which is an interactive total reality adventure similar to the Aliens films, now runs until AAugust31.
April 6, 2009: Teenage Fanclub have been announced as Sunday headliners (June 28) for The Outsider Festival near Aviemore. Guitarist Ray McGinley said: “We’ve just finished out new record and this is us emerging into real life again. We don’t know if it will be out in time for the festival but we’ll definitely be playing some new songs as well as things you’ve heard before.”
April 3, 2009: The upcoming Friendly Fires/Hockey double bill has proved so popular that both Scottish shows have been moved up to larger venues. The Edinburgh gig on May 6 has been switched from Studio 24 to the Picture House, while the one in Glasgow on May 7 has been switched from the QMU to ABC 1.
April 2, 2009: Kyle Falconer’s inability to handle his drink saw The View leave yet more fans disappointed. The Dundee band’s singer took ill two songs into their show at Austria’s Snowbombing Festival through excessive alcohol consumption. Last October, Kyle was so drunk he was unable to perform at a gig in Nottingham.
April 1, 2009: Singer-songwriter Roddy Hart has been invited to represent our proud nation at Scotland Week in America. The Glaswegian boy wonder is playing at the St Andrews Bar in New York on April 3 and April 10.
March 31, 2009: If you don’t want to hedge your bets on winning The Pop Cop competition then you’ll be keen to know that today is the last day you can buy a two-day Hinterland early-bird ticket for £38.75. It’ll be £7 more expensive from April 1.
March 30, 2009: The ABC will be renamed O2 ABC Glasgow after the Academy Music Group became majority shareholders. AMG, which is owned by Live Nation, already runs the O2 Academy in the city.
March 28, 2009: The first acts have been announced for this year’s Outsider Festival near Aviemore. On the bill on June 27-28 are The Futureheads, We Were Promised Jetpacks, King Creosote, Malcolm Middleton, James Yorkston, The Phantom Band, Drever, McCusker & Woomble, Attic Lights and Lau. And Sharleen Spiteri. Early-bird weekend tickets costing £60 (inc bookng fee) are on sale until April 13. Should be a good ‘un.
March 27, 2009: Gig sketcher Jenny Soep, who was recently featured on The Pop Cop, will launch her Sketching The Scene solo show at Mono in Glasgow on April 6. She will also be drawing David Byrne on March 31 and at the Hinterland festival.
March 26, 2009: All Of My Days by Scottish singer-songwriter Alexi Murdoch is being used on the trailer for Sam Mendes’ new movie Away We Go.
March 25, 2009: Manic Street Preachers will play the Glasgow Barrowlands on May 25. Tickets priced £25 each (not including fees) go on sale from Friday, 9.30am from here.
March 24, 2009: Frightened Rabbit are set for their biggest headlining show yet. They have announced on their MySpace that they are playing Edinburgh’s Queens Hall on August 21, which would coincide with The Edge festival, although according to the venue website, the gig has not been confirmed and they would kindly ask fans to stop calling them about it!
March 23, 2009: Mumford & Sons have cancelled their gig at Stereo, Glasgow on April 4. If you want to see them in Scotland you can now catch them at Studio 24, Edinburgh on May 1 supporting The Maccabees and at King Tut’s, Glasgow on September 12.