This month's Music Alliance Pact pick for Scotland is Prides , a band who created a song I adore so much that I devoted an entire post to it. Since then I've had the privilege of seeing them play live for the first time, at the Brew at the Bog festival, and they are a class act. I am also thrilled to welcome our new blog representatives for England, the much-respected Drowned In Sound - they take over the reins from [...]
Martin Cathcart Frödén, Richy Carey and Libby Walker By Sarah McMullan "And it would be simpler to contain all the clouds In a single jar unlidded Than expect this love to be returned." This is an extract from one of my favourite poems, Kevin MacNeil's All The Clouds , and I still remember the first time I read it. Just as I remember myself at a tender age becoming infatuated with the sweet [...]
With just 500 days until Scotland's independence referendum takes place on September 18, 2014, The Pop Cop asked 40 musicians from the Scottish music scene the same question that will be on the ballot - "Should Scotland be an independent country?" - giving each of them the choice of 'Yes', 'No' and 'Undecided' and inviting them to explain their answer. From the 40 surveyed, the results were: 13 Yes, 7 No, 20 Undecided . Jamie Sutherland - Broken [...]
Lewis Gardner, Stewart Brock, Callum Wiseman. Photo © The Pop Cop 'Out of the blue' could refer to number of things. Like Midnight Lion's sudden name change to Prides , or the fact that the usually gig-shy Glasgow group are booked up for a host of live dates and festival appearances. But above all, it's the title of a staggering piece of dynamic pop that proclaims the arrival of a hit-ready proposition. Having signed a development deal with major label Island [...]
By Sarah McMullan A couple of months ago I reached a real low moment. I was attending the Glasgow leg of the NME Awards Tour and as Miles Kane appeared through the haze of smoke and light, making an appalling haircut look strangely cool, I couldn't help but notice a boy about five years my junior with a yet more appalling haircut - the kind of shed that wouldn't even have been acceptable in the 80s. This young man plonked himself directly in front of me, blocking my view of majestic Miles (grrr). To [...]
Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells skipped away from last year's inaugural SAY Award richer to the tune of £20,000, courtesy of their winning collaborative album Everything's Getting Older , but the victory for Scotland's music scene was every bit as significant. A vision for a credible, professional national album prize was realised. The organisers have just pressed play on the launch of this year's event, which celebrates Scottish albums released in 2012. The longlist of 20 is as follows: [...]
Saturday, April 20 is Record Store Day , which will thrill those who are not cheerleaders for homogenized, major-label monopolies. Hats off to Fake Major for their initiative in turning the event into a hyperspeed tour of Scotland, with the acoustic duo playing at shops in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the space of just four hours. They'll be pimping copies of their wonderful debut EP, Have Plenty Of Fun, which doesn't get a digital release until May 1. Here's [...]
By Sarah McMullan Linn may be familiar to you as a Scottish brand internationally renowned for its high-end audio systems but, more intriguingly, the company have ventured into the commercial sale of studio-quality recordings, boldly predicting they will eventually replace mp3s as the consumer format of choice. Studio masters make up 85% of all downloads from the website of Linn Records [...]
I don't know if it says more about me or the kind of Facebook friends I have, but inexplicably I seem to end up clicking on to the BuzzFeed site after being sucked in by one of their 'arbitrary number + ludicrous title' posts. Such as.... 28 Newspaper And Magazine Layout Disasters ... or how about The 11 Most Powerful Pictures Of A Baby Covered In French Bulldog Puppies Ever Taken ...or perhaps The 25 Funniest YouTube Comments Of The Year . Et cetera, et cetera. It's clearly a formula that works, so let's see how [...]
Robbie Cooper, drummer of Scottish bands Laeto and American Men , is battling cancer. He was diagnosed with an uncommon but aggressive form of the condition in October 2011. He has written eloquently and openly, and with real character, about what he is going through on his blog . Here's an excerpt. "What I never expected, however, was that at the age of 34 and being otherwise [...]
When political parties are looking to make cuts, the first door they usually come knocking on is the one marked Arts & Culture, which is a travesty because no other department has a remit to support and fund facilitators of mental stimulation - innovators, entrepreneurs, creators. Without rich heritage and diverse community, we lose the ability to inspire and be inspired, and our existence becomes more poor. And I don't mean the kind of 'poor' that now makes you accountable - according to privileged cretins - for everything from the UK government's budget deficit to the murder [...]
Chronicle vs Gasp at Badmouth Battles #6 @ ABC2, Glasgow By Sarah McMullan Having previously only been exposed to the stereotypes of rap, my attendance at the sixth Badmouth Battles night at Glasgow's ABC2 meant a venture into the unknown. As a serial gig-goer of all things indie, rock and pop, this was so far out my comfort zone it should have come with a boundary charge, but I embraced the spirit of musical togetherness, settled [...]
Few acts can boast more Scottish collaborations than the Cairn String Quartet and their expanded spin-off the Electric String Orchestra . A group of classical musicians with an indie heart, they have worked with Camera Obscura, Admiral Fallow, Roddy Hart, Stanley Odd, Katie Sutherland , Will Hanson, The Bluebells, Francis Macdonald, Tommy Reilly, Aaron Wright, Attic Lights and We See Lights, while the Electric String Orchestra launch night in May 2012 saw them back up The Twilight Sad, [...]
By Sarah McMullan Navigating your way around the business of music is no mean feat. It's not unheard of for musicians popular enough to play 1,500-capacity venues to rely on external employment to earn a living wage, which is why having a working knowledge of frigid but fundamental topics such as royalties, merch and self-promotion have rarely been more critical. Those seeking employment within the industry in an off-stage capacity face occupational hazards too - unpaid internships are often a necessary evil promising experience and exploitation in equal measure. Education is power, though, and there are several highly [...]
Here are some facts about Vigo Thieves that you may or may not already know: In February, they became the first unsigned band to sell out two consecutive gigs at King Tut's in the Glasgow venue's 23-year history; the promo video for Ghosts features John Leslie in the lead role, singing karaoke; their new EP, Heart & Soul Part II , is out now; Heartbeats was one of the best songs of 2012. Okay, that last one is an opinion, but draw your own [...]
By Sarah McMullan With the absence of headliners in the traditional 'biggest font on the poster' custom, Brew at the Bog abolishes musical hierarchy with enviable panache - if only for a day. Which is why Bogbain Farm on May 4, 2013 sounds like a delightful place to be. Providing an oasis of good beer and better music in the green fields of Inverness, it is free of corporation, inspiring instead a feeling of community and an incomparable festival experience. [...]
By Sarah McMullan The annual Scottish invasion of SXSW takes place this month, with Camera Obscura, CHVRCHES, Frightened Rabbit, Holy Esque, Jackmaster, JD Twitch, JG Wilkes, Kassidy, PAWS, Rustie, Tango In The Attic, The View and Young Fathers all hoping a jaunt to Texas can further their careers. Also there will be Dundonian duo Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, otherwise known as Silibil n' Brains , the subjects of The Great Hip [...]
If, by now, you haven't picked up on the secular themes of Frightened Rabbit's artwork and lyrical references then here it is spelled out in the wonderfully coarse surroundings of the Barrowland Ballroom, the musicians providing a foreground to a glut of (ironic) religion-influenced symbolism. How else to explain why Grant Hutchison's incessantly vigorous and imaginative drumming actions should cast shadows on a backdrop that resembles a giant bishop's hat? Two verses in, and his older brother Scott is referencing the "New Testament" to the bass-driven bombast of [...]
By Sarah McMullan With another Brit Awards duly passed, I feel I can provide no more apt a description than my Pop Cop partner: "The whole event is so predictably desperate, from the laboriously unfunny presenters to the gyrations and exploitation of female pop stars whom young girls regard as role models." This year was more woeful than most and as the Scottish Alternative Music Awards ceremony fast approaches, it seems like as good a [...]
There you have it, the line-up for this summer's T in the Park in Balado, Kinross on July 12-14. And, no, your eyes don't deceive you, that is Calvin Harris playing T for the fifth straight year. Predictably, this week's announcement was greeted online with equal dollops of glowing praise and greetin' faces, plaudits and pisstaking. I've come to realise, though, that this annual emoting over a music festival is about as pointless as criticising the TV schedule. Sure, the majority of channels at [...]
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