Bleary Eyes

Maybe I need to stay in a bit more. I simply haven't spent enough time watching telly these past couple of weeks. So I've missed most of the tennis, the Confederations Cup football, and Glastonbury.
Seems that the latter 2 weren't any great loss. What I've noted are a few 0-0 draws and caught some of a very dull Mexico-Brazil match.
All I've seen of Glastonbury was the tail end of Primal Scream's 'set', and I use the term advisedly. OK, I have the Scream's 2 first singles, and can see how Screamadellica has *something* which makes it a landmark album in many ways, even though it's, as they say, "not my thing".
But then the Scream went seriously down in my humble opinion. "Get Yer Rocks Off - 'is that the correct spelling? Does anyone care? - and just about everything else which followed were just lowest-common-denominator 'rock' somewhere between Motley Crue and Status Quo. The antics at the end of their set were therefore perfectly in keeping with their recent image - rock stars behaving badly and committing the cardinal sin of festival pop i.e. slagging off the band coming on next (though in Basement Jaxx, well worthy of the ire of anyone).
Bright Eyes have actually diluted Bobby G and co's bad press. Headlining the John Peel stage, Conor Oberst has incurred the wrath of, well, everyone, by snidely announcing that "this next song will make poverty history" - apparently he can't recall much about the day's events.
He's also had a go at Peel himself, given his location more of a cardinal sin than insulting the anti-G8 movement. Apparenty Peel never played his records and he's got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about it. This beggars the question, why was he playing the Peel stage if Peel clearly didn't like him enough to air his music? The answer is clear if you look at the rest of the lineup. A host of bands chosen by record companies and unfit to grace even Zane Low's show: James Blunt, El Presidente, Morning Runner, The Subways, and even the headliner Bright Eyes replaced - Ryan Adams, all bands who would never have got a sniff of airplay on the sacred 10-12 Radio one slot. You can almost hear the 'schwing' of CDs striking marble in DJ heaven.

Westenders

Maybe it's just the terribly sophisticated nature of your average person who lives in Glasgow's leafy Byres Road area, but the West End Festival - something which I know little about and I can only assume is confined to Local People only - is, I'm told, on at present. Armed with this vague info, I headed up Dumbarton Road - a little late I must confess having hit the pub after our rather dismal football showing - in search of music.
Free gigs were promised, but at Brel - which was advertising Cold Night Somethingorother with either Charlie or Wullie out of Astrid - along with the Zephyrs, had a disappointingly sparse 'stage' with one chap playing guitar and, er, that's your lot. Not too sure what happened there.
So, off to Oran Mor to see if I could catch Adventures in Stereo. Nope. In fact, at 10.45, I'd also missed Stereo Totale as everyone was leaving, rather contravening the '8 until late' setup I'd heard advertised. Maybe 11pm IS late round these parts, as everyone heads off for cocoa before the witching hour, lest they turn into a cantaloupe.
Now, I should whisper this, but I've never been a fan of Stereo Totale, despite everyone raving about them before and after. No loss to me though, and, as it turns out, AiS were a no-show, so no great deal overall. Though I could have stayed in the pub a bit longer.

As I type, Lindsay Hutton is on the radio talking about the Pistols to Muriel Gray. On Radio Scotand. Who needs 6Music?

Fame at last

Georgie Fame, that is...
being part of the Glasgow Jazz festival this was a pleasingly good gig... 90 minutes or so of the former Blue Flame, whose jazz leanings are slight, R&B and Hammond-driven organ tunes the mainstay of his set. The set is less originals and more 'tributes' to the likes of Ray Charles and Booker T, the only original materuial being his 60s hit 'Go' which now his Equitabale Life policy has gone down the pan is his "pension plan" - it seems odd that 'Bonnie and Clyde ' and 'Yeh Yeh' are both 'covers'. There are also some highly entertaiing stories involving what sound like a fairly scary bunch of 60s musicians - effortless namedrops include Bill Wyman, Van Morrisson (who somehow got Fame arrested in Edinburgh - the one story which he doesn't elaborate on), and Mitch Mitchell, who on the day the Blue Flames were disbanded got a job with Jimi Hendrix (cue version of 'Red House' performed by Fame's son Tristran who is a pretty mean guitarist). The trio are completed by his other son James on drums, who gets little in the way of set pieces, apart from leading off with a military beat on the closing number which morphs into a couple of tunes which, in other incarnations, are used by Glasgow's 'tangerine' faction and, half the audience doubtless outraged, segue into what sounds like 'The Campbells are Coming'.

Belles at the Arches

Hot, sweaty, slightly indistinct sound, and the noise of trains running overhead. That's how I remember gigs at the Arches. Saw Dreadzone there over 10 years ago and Christ and pals the other night. It seems odd that a very non-dance-oriented band like Belle and Sebastian should play there. Anyway,this is summarised in a review of the show (let's see if this linking thing works... review

don't hang me, I'm only the DJ

I really ought to gve up on titling these entries - the pressure to be witty is getting beyond me. Anyway, fresh back from a night in King Tuts spinning vinyl - and CDs, having discovered that perhaps the 7", though still fairly healthy, is nowhere near prolific enough to sustain a whole evening of entertainment. Well, not unless it's a "back to '77" theme night.
Tuts was pretty quiet, and I'm not taking this as a slight on my choice of music (or indeed cureing-up skills). The show upstairs was apparently as quiet as it's been there in ages (Fickle Public, plus a band formed from the ashes of Rival Schools). An over-14s show, perhaps all the kids were being ferried home early by RangeRover-driving parents, though there was no great evidence to support this. Someone reckons it's down to the weather. Anyway, a mix of Fallout-oriented electro (this is the first of a series of Saturday sets from radiomagnetic.com DJs) and some guitar rock after the show upstairs had come out. A woman insists on buying me a pint and then says "you owe me some Pixies", which, oddly, seems to send half-a-dozen people (who'd minutes before been thrashing around upstairs to the bands) to scurry for the exit. I'm also unable to satisfy a request for some Postal Service as the Subpop compilation was one which wouldn't fit in the bag. An iPod is on the shopping list which will mean I can travel rather lighter than currently (though somehow using just mp3s to DJ sounds a bit like cheating to me).
The evening's rather spoiled by a 90-minute wait for the AA after my parking on the 45° incline of Pitt Street means that all my petrol is lying up at the wrong end of the tank. Cuh.

Above Average

Regular readers (yes, both of you) wil know that jazz makes an often-unwelcome encroachment on my music listening. So a 'jam session' (ahem) didn't hold much in the way of excitement for myself. It was a pleasant surprise then to find that one of the musicians who turned up was a former drummer for the Average White Band, one Paul Mills. Even the fact that he was doing a Stevie Wonder cover and a fairly cheesy one at that ('You Are The Sunshine Of My Life') couldn't disguide the supreme technical ability, his smoothly soulful vocals, and the fact that he could drum and sing at the same time. Sadly, his 2 songs formed a disappointingly small piece of the evening's entertainment.

Tartan, not-so-short

wooh. That's the expected response for the new-look blog, which regular readers will have spotted has a nifty and in-keeping-with-the-rest-of-the-site tartan look to it. I've been taking the chance to catch up on 'stuff' now that we're in that hiatus period that we get for a week or so after is this music? has hit the shelves of a nation's record and book stores. Thus, i just recorded a 40-minute podcast - more on that when I figure out how to get it online!
As ever this post is a catchup on all previous missed blogging opportunuties, so a big 'hello' and, er, thanks, to Saint Jude's Infirmary, Otterley and Leftwideopen for their sterling efforts at last Friday's Dunfermline gig. Without singling them out, Otterley were a very pleasant surprise, and I say so because I'd never heard them before, Emma selecting them (on, it turned out, the basis of a quick listen on the radio. Good call!)
Saint Jude's and Leftwideopen were both excellent i.e. just as good as they were last time I saw them live!

Went North

Ouch. 4 hours round trip may not seem much, but with a dodgy back, it's not much fun trawling up to Aberdeen and home in a day. But GoNorth beckoned. A 2-day mini-festival of small bands all taking place on the city's Belmont street; someone (ok, me) once likened it to SXSW. Without the splitting sunshine, that is, and while previous events have been blessed by warm, balmy weather, on June 1st 2005 it pissed down.
Anyway, to the bands seen. Caveat: as I was saying to someone perhaps rather too loudly, all the 'good' bands are playing on the Thursday. They are mainly bands I've seen befiore though, so today promised at least different sounds. I hoped.
First on at Kef were Gone Too Far - the product of local musicians' drop-in centre The Foyer - run by the esteemed Dave Stewart. A fairly ragged bunch of 15 year olds, it was gratifying to see that not all kids are listening to Oasis - these guys presumably more into Biffy, NOFX and a sizeable chunk of 'new rock*' from their parents or older siblings' collections. (*I don't know what they call it these days)
I'd have to say The People have the least promising name of most of the acts appearing. I see a bit of their set at Triple Kirks and it IS fairly standard light indie-rock, but with some pleasing harmonies replacing any laddish elements. Probably summed up by 'good at what they do'.
The Fight Blues are, I was told, from the same stable as Dead Fly Buchowski. And they are retro too, kind of. In fact, a very odd mix - 70s haircuts (first impressions and all that), and a hint of Rod Stewart or AC/DC in the performance of the vocalist. Music: harder to sum up. There's a ticking regularity to the rhythms even though they do have a live drummer, which sits oddly with their decidedly old-skool rock sound. And just a hint of modernity in the tunes. Possibly ones to watch for , as the cliche goes, but only if they get a musical makeover (the 'look' is probably very fashionable and requires litttle attention).
The Boy And Girl Who Trapped The Sun are from Stornoway (I think) and 'The Girl' has worked with Arab Strap. However, they provide light acoustic pop songs which are pleasant, from what I can hear in the stowed Siberia acoustic area (I'm sitting behind the PA which doesn't really lend to the experience). The Cd provided will I'm sure answer my questions.
Spooner - strike what was I saying about 'The People', Spooner is a name to conjure with (i.e. make disappear). They start with just the singer - all eyeliner and black nail polish - who silences the crowd chatter with a blast of electric and a plaintive solo number. I'm pleasantly surprised, but then rudely awakened when the rest of the band - including 3 more guitarists - proceed to shatter the comparitive peace with some fairly mainstream rock'n'roll.
Of course, this may be unfair, they may have embarked on a triphop-fused bhangra wigout after I left, but such is the way of GoNorth, a smorgasbord (possibly) which you can dip into for a few minutes before catching a smattering of another act. Thus, I see King Creosote silencing another noisy bar with a cover of 'Come on Eileen', and then watch Unkle Fritz deliver a very polished acoustic set next door. ('Polished' sounds like I'm daming with faint praise, but you should hear his 9 songs album, available from Pet Piranha for a fover. The chap who, I believe, booked him, tells me that he's not had the Cd out of his car stereo for a month, high praise from the head of PRS in Scotland).
With that, follwing the tail end of The Pictish Trail, I haul my ass (and back) down the road to the central belt once more.