Day fifteen, doesn't time fly? Only nine more days to go after this - duh - so if you have a Christmas song up your sleeve that you are longing to have included you'd better get a move on. Today is another three for the price of one day. Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton should need no introductions by now, either individually or as Arab Strap. One song from each then and one from Arab Strap. Arab Strap - Christmas (Baby Please [...]
Day fifteen, doesn't time fly? Only nine more days to go after this - duh - so if you have a Christmas song up your sleeve that you are longing to have included you'd better get a move on. Today is another three for the price of one day. Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton should need no introductions by now, either individually or as Arab Strap. One song from each then and one from Arab Strap. Arab Strap - Christmas (Baby Please [...]

There are so many lists out there, that I don't have the pretention that mine will be anymore outstanding than all those others. Still, for personal benefit and glory, and for you people who can't get enough of lists or are constantly looking for new musical tips, I present you my list. It's got probably some obscure names, so you can brag about it with friends. 50. Boat - Setting The Paces ( Magic Marker Records ) [...]

Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs - "How To Get To Heaven From Scotland" Following last year's album of spoken word prose, the former Arab Strap frontman returned with his first solo album of proper songs. Feeling like some kind of ramshackle late night lock in, the songs are a mix of rollicking stomp along shanties and slower musings of a man leaving behind his younger self. Where once his songs were full of deviant sex, dissected breakups and rampant negativity, this record finds Aidan Moffat sounding somewhat positive, content, romantic and, [...]
Stories are a big part of my life these days. Bedtime stories mainly, but stories at any part of the day really, as Growl Junior whets her vast appetite for books. So with two years of being softened up by children's stories, it's perhaps no surprise that I love the ...

I think this week may be very tricky for me indeed in terms of gig attendance. Clients here at Proper Job have just this very afternoon 're-strategised' a pretty significant piece of work so I will probably spend the week working late into the night on what I am actually paid to do for a change, rather than just writing posts and editing video for the entertainment of you bastards. Still, it's been a hectic as all fuck August, and I am actually kind of glad it's over. Not because of Festival hatred or anything, just sheer tiredness. [...]
Arab Strap, depending on who you talk to are either one of Scotland's greatest bands, or a pair of miserable bastards who you'd be better avoiding to maintain happiness. Whatever, there's no denying that the two misanthropes made an impact on the British indie scene in the ten years they ...

This has been a long time coming, but today I've got 2 CDs worth of amazing summer music. The first disc is more folk based in keeping with last summer's mix , with the second less folky but just as perfect for the summer afternoons in the sunshine. We have a few of the bands that were on the last mix popping up again, but most on here have not been featured on TBW before. As I've been out of the game for a while, some of these have been around for a few months, and then [...]
so i'm off to see aidan moffat and the best-ofs tomorrow (hopefully). are you? if not, why not? have you not heard his last two records. they're fucking ace. ace dammit! see here and here and then say i told you so. support from the fingertastic rm hubbert (who i'm not gig-stalking, having seen him twice [...]

I have to say that it came as big shock when Arab Strap hung up their straps back in 2006. Luckily for us though, its two members are just too musically inclined to stay out of our ears forever. Last month, Aidan Moffat (one half of the Arab duo), along with a new backing band named the Best-Ofs , released his latest project, the instructionally titled How To Get To Heaven From Scotland . And while I'm not in Scotland currently or planning on going to Scotland in the near future, nor am I [...]

New releases out today: Say Hi - Oohs and Aahs Download Say Hi - "Hallie and Henry".mp3 Buy Ooha and Aahs The Boy Least Likely To - The Law of the Playground [...]
so the only valentine's card i got this year was from a chunky, hairy scotsman called aidan moffat. but dry those em(pathetic) tears dear reader, beggars can't be choosers. which isn't strictly true, in larry david style i've had offers of food refused before when i've no change and it's raining and i'm feeling less [...]

Sorry for the late posting of this week's Graboid, folks. The king of fighting games returned this week as Street Fighter IV was released on consoles, along with pretty much taking up any kind of free time i've had over the past couple of days. Hopefully, all of you can cut me some slack with the lack of posts this week for the time being. Sitting down earlier tonight to compile the goods from this week of album releases seemed rather daunting, as there are a staggering amount of quality [...]

Asobi Seksu Hush MP3: In The Sky Buy Barzin Notes To An Absent Lover MP3: Soft Summer Girls Buy Beirut March Of The Zapotec / Realpeople Holland MP3: My Wife, Lost In The Wild Buy [...]

I haven't paid much attention to Aidan Moffat since Arab Strap broke up. I kept up with Malcolm Middleton reasonably well, and once you've picked one child over the other, it's hard to go crawling back. In fact, the last I heard about Moffat he was recording under some dodgy name like Psychometric Dildo or something. I might be wrong on that*, but for some reason it feels right. So I wasn't exactly excited when an Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs file dropped into my inbox. Expecting some kind of spoken word dirge, [...]

I'm a sucker for a good bit of packaging. Just call me a gimmick whore. Or not, that's entirely your decision. However, right now you find me as the proud owner of the deluxe box set version of the new Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs album. Designed like an old MB games box it contains a CD version of the album, a vinyl version, a 5 track bonus CD, a 7 inch record with a cover of 'I Got You Babe' on it, a Valentines card signed and numbered by Aidan himself [...]

After so loving Aidan Moffat's superlative, jarring I Can Hear Your Heart , I was looking forward to this, but with a little trepidation. It couldn't be as good, could it? And no, it couldn't, unfortunately. The problem really is the music. The lyrics are as sharp and impactful as ever, although not quite so manically focussed on betrayal and misery this time around. This is something of a mercy actually, as that did become a little bleak after a while. Here the subject matter is almost inevitably a little more diverse, which is good, with songs [...]
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Two in a row! I wrote about Aidan last time , and now here's some more Chemikal news for your bottoms. Stewart and Alun, former delgados both, have put out the label's first ever podcast. It's great fun to hear them swearing, laughing at their own lack of consummate professionalism, and playing songs from The Phantom Band, whose album I ought to write about soon 'cos it's ace, and Angil and the Hiddntracks. And best of all, they phone up Aidan to get some comments from him - mostly involving more swearing. And [...]