Withered Hand should be heading for SXSW . Instead, moronic US immigration officials in Vermont froze his visa and challenged the Edinburgh musician to prove that their qualified assertion he is "not of extraordinary ability" was an inaccurate one. One can only imagine they came to such a conclusion after believing 'Withered Hand' to be a thinly-disguised pseudonym for Abu Hamza. After incessant campaigning from fans and well-wishers on Twitter , Facebook and even a formal petition with 750 signatures, at 3.30pm on Thursday, 10th March - a mere 41 hours before Dan [...]
If, like me, you went to this gig expecting LETTERS to be the great new hopes of Scottish music, you would have left sorely disappointed. Their live show failed to live up to the huge promise shown by the Edinburgh newcomers in debut offerings Pipe Dreams and The Grand National - as strong a first impression from a Scottish band as I can remember. While those recorded offerings hint at a group with the dark, subtle broodiness of The National, on stage Letters reveal themselves to [...]
The thing that most bothered me whenever The Delgados played in their hometown was that gaps between songs offered too tempting an opportunity for punters from the extended Chemikal Underground network to heckle the band with the sort of 'witty' banter that only a select few punters would find amusing, or even get. Given how immersed ADMIRAL FALLOW have become in Glasgow's musical landscape, with their members regularly moonlighting in friends' bands and hosting gig nights in the city, there was a fear they might spend the biggest headlining show of their [...]
YOU INSTEAD I never thought the day would come that I'd find myself in Cineworld, popcorn in hand, watching a movie in which a horny couple get down to business in a tent as Frightened Rabbit's intercourse anthem Keep Yourself Warm plays in the background. Such is the flawed genius of You Instead, shot entirely on location at last summer's T in the Park festival and a rare treat for anyone wanting to play Scottish indie 'I spy' with the soundtrack. No Cigarettes by Withered Hand , you say? [...]
Watching KID CANAVERAL , masters of the forgotten art of pop-song writing, you can't help but feel it's a matter of when, not if, they get the break that will turn them into a mainstream force for good. Having this week signed to Fence Records in their native Fife, they have any number of songs that could feasibly be this summer's festival anthem - the wonderfully frantic Good Morning, or perhaps Couldn't Dance given the way explodes into its chorus, or You Only Went Out To Get [...]
I have this theory that when you read an interview which is boring, it's usually because the interviewer has asked boring questions. Actually, perhaps 'boring' is not quite the right word - more like clichéd, or obvious, or tame, or the kind of questions the subject would have been asked so many times before that their answers are as good as scripted. When that happens everyone is a loser – speaker, writer, reader. So knowing that I had a pre-arranged interview scheduled at T in the Park's media [...]
At the end of my first year at uni, I applied for the position of music editor of my student newspaper, the Glasgow University Guardian, but didn't get it. Undeterred, I tried again the following year, this time striding into the interview with a jotter full of ambitious ideas that I vowed to turn into reality if they offered me the job. It did the trick. One of my proposals was to persuade a band to write a fortnightly diary for every edition of the coming year's newspaper, so I invited Belle & [...]
The 15th of the month = Music Alliance Pact day. It's the day that The Pop Cop takes full advantage of its tartan-tinted view of life to foist a musically-gifted so-and-so from Scotland upon the readers of music websites all across the world, and each of our MAP counterparts do likewise. Today's choice is REVERIE , you should get to know her... To download all 33 songs in one file click here [...]
There's nothing more trivial that people waste their time attempting to seriously debate, rationalise, opine and psychoanalyse than award ceremonies. Until the day arrives that every person wakes up with identically aligned tastes, you're inevitably going to end up unsatisfied. Since this is Brit Awards week, the annual celebration of the best that Britain's music scene has to offer (ahem), we can look forward to finding out who triumphs among the 49 nominations featuring British artists... of which 48 are English, none are Northern Irish, none [...]
When George Bush declared that the justification for invading Iraq was the existence of weapons of mass destruction, The Mirror began publishing a daily tally of how long the search for them had gone on via its WMD-ometer. Day after day the number kept rising until it became blatantly obvious (even to Bush) that the hunt for chemical and biological weapons was a fruitless one, and the newspaper eventually stopped running its counter after 400 days or so. At almost precisely the same time, on May 24, 2004, Mylo [...]
So there I was in my local Co-op, purchasing something cool (Vienetta) when a sound truly wondrous came over the instore airwaves that made me glide up and down the aisles in a daydream for the next five minutes - I And Love And You by The Avett Brothers , quite possibly my new favourite song of all time (this week). The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You [...]
When THERE WILL BE FIREWORKS released their self-titled debut album in 2009, it was immediately apparent that a potential for greatness existed in this band's DNA. The signs are there in the maturity and variety of their ideas, their healthy attitude towards experimentation within the confines of a three/four-minute pop song, and an ability to give their music depth and colour by layering intriguing melodies. Nevetheless, TWBF could be forgiven for feeling a sense of trepidation about this gig, having been posted absent from all live outings for [...]
Submissions are now being accepted for goNorth , Scotland's largest music industry event. The Inverness shindig takes place on June 9-10 and the biggest change this year is the introduction of the goNorth Festival Tour, replacing the goNorth stage at RockNess which has been on the go for the past five of its 10-year existence. Instead, goNorth will now have its own stage at Wickerman in Dumfries & Galloway (July 22/23), Belladrum Tartan Heart in Inverness-shire (August 5-6) and Loopallu in Ullapool (September 16-17), and all [...]
If the 2011 edition of Celtic Connections was about anyone, it was RACHEL SERMANNI . Having been invited to play six separate gigs in its 18-day schedule, few artists in the Glasgow festival's 18-year history will have found themselves more in demand, certainly not one still in their teens who hasn't even released any music. It's not difficult to see why she is such hot property. Coming on to the Old Fruitmarket stage clad in a red tartan dress alongside her glamorous trio of female backing musicians for an [...]
"A good photo can't be repeated" - Harry Benson Thanks to everyone who entered The Pop Cop's third annual competition to find the Best Scottish live music photograph of the year, launched last November. It really has become one of the highlights of what this blog does, whatever that may be. Once again I doth my cap to the king of photographers, HARRY BENSON , who took time out of his incredibly envious life of snapping American presidents and suchlike to cast [...]
While many fans gaze longingly at their idol on stage and fantasise about being 'the one', those who manage to get their wish will tell you that it's no picnic. The more successful a musician becomes, the less you see them as recording and touring commitments leave them several time zones away for the majority of the year. Yes, but what if their career goes on the wane? Well, you'll get to spend more time with them but they'll probably be intolerably miserable and needy. And somehow less attractive. However, what might [...]
It's the first monthly Music Alliance Pact of 2011 and once again the world's sexiest music blogs have sniffed out the tastiest musical treats their country has to offer and served it to you on a plate. And there's not even a bill. But you can leave a tip if you want. OK, I've definitely stretched this metaphor as far as it will go. Kudos to our Aussie MAP counterparts, who still managed to submit a song for you despite their home town being submerged under water and their website going temporarily offline. We're also joined this month [...]
Musicians are forever reminding us in their lyrics about how bloody perfect New York is, or asking for directions to San Jose, or misplacing a vital organ in San Francisco. Why aren't there more songs written about good old Glasgow? Surely, there are plenty of optimistic, life-affirming messages to share about Scotland's music capital - a captivating, bustling city that mixes swagger, self-depracation and a sense of humour. Yet, what's its claim to fame in song? "I was sick and tired of everything when I called you last night from Glasgow." Yeah, thanks for that, Abba, I hope [...]
James Reeves is not someone who lives by the motto, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". For the past couple of years, the Stornoway folk-pop singer has been marking his card as a supremely gifted acoustic folk-pop songwriter under the guise of Dotjr, recording track after track in his studio and putting them up on his MySpace with prolific regularity. The beautiful More Than You Know was the first song that drew me in, becoming my third ever Scottish pick in the Music Alliance Pact in December 2008 , but [...]
It's almost a given that musicians gain popularity online before making a name for themselves in the real world - but what if one didn't necessarily have to follow the other? What if the internet was the only domain that an artist ever had any desire for not only their music to exist in, but to give live performances? One man following precisely that path is POL Arida , a singer-songwriter based in Edinburgh, where opportunities to play gigs have dwindled due to a spate of recent venue closures. [...]
The Pop Cop
PREVIEW: Hyperbits – Karekare (Original Mix)
The Cosmonauts :: Shaker
Stream: Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn
Deadmau5 Returns With Techno Track "Monophobia" After Being Absent For Months
