scotland


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Scotland's great. What else do you need to know? Well, it has a population of 5 million, give or take, and a climate best described as 'varied'. Finding us - get as far as England then head north. There are 4 cities - Aberdeen, Edinburgh Glasgow and Dundee, plus a number of other largeish towns, but none of these have gigs every night of the week..

Regional:

Click on a city name for info on any one of the cities, or on the appropriate dot on the map to go directly to that city's gig guide.

Aberdeen
Dundee
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Fife
Ayrshire
Highlands
Perth
Inverclyde
  
Borders
Lanarkshire
Arbroath
Central
 

 

Media:

radio - there's one national radio station - BBC Scotland - which covers all aspects of life here. Apart from music. well, there is now one 2-hour show, 'Air', on Monday nights (7-9pm). BBC Radio One also carries a Scotland-only show for 2 hours on a Thursday. There are a couple of stations apart from this which cover other areas - Beat106 is a mainly dance and mainstream station which covers Edinburgh-Glasgow and some areas north and south. Its indie show is The Beatscene (10pm-1am on Wednesdays) and there's a Rock Show in te same timeslot on a Monday. Apart from that there's ScotFM which covers the same area, but is even more mainstream than BeatFM. Some coverage exists on shwows in the regional/city sections.
Internet radio may be the next big thing -
RadioMagnetic is worth a look as its dance shows are more alternative than most of what's offered on terrestrial radio.

tv - There's 5 terrestrial channels (well, 4 1/2 really as 5's coverage isn't exactly nationwide). UK-wide music coverage is frankly, negligible, so you can imagine that Scottish-specific stuff is a fraction of that. Digital tv was once geat with loads of underground stuff on BBC Choice but since it became BBC6 (or whatever) decent music coverage has dried up. S2 - STV's digital equivalent - tends to have more mainstream stuff on, but there are occasional live bands in their S2 Live magazine programme.

newspapers - The Herald and The Scotsman are national papers, kind of, but they're traditionally Glasgow and Edinburgh-biased (respectively). The 'true' national' paper is the tabloid Daily Record which has an entertaiment section which on Fridays can have some much-needed coverage of 'alternative' music. All other tabloids - in fact, all papers apart from the evening or 'city' ones in Dundee and Aberdeen - are English ones which have a Scottish edition. The Sunday Mail's reviews section has sporadic coverage of smaller bands including some live reviews. Metro is worth a mention in that it's free, if you pick one up at a railway or bus station, and will tell you what's going on in the central belt that evening.

Depending on when you're reading this, Scotland does have its own national music press, but the actual papers available vary depending on who's gone bust this week. But look out for is this music?, a nationally-available magazine which is in all indie-oriented record shops. There's also a freesheet, Music News Scotland, in the same shops. Dance is also served, M8 being the mag of choice for clubbers.

Record shops - Each city has its own specialist shops, but you will find one Scottish-based chain called Fopp which specialises in fairly alternative stuff plus cheap cd's. Branches in all 4 cities, so see the local guides for details..

Education: Colleges and universities are in the main cities mostly, but worth a mention is Cumbernauld College who do a music technology course.

Events - T in the Park is not too close to anywhere really and thus warrants inculsion here as a 'national' event. Other festivals like the Edinburgh Fringe/Planet Pop, Unscene, Glasgow Green etc are listed in the city pages.

Links - see the local city sections