Archive for April, 2008

This Friday night’s project

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

If we were ever asked to dream up a fantasy music bill, we might very well start things with local troubadour RODDY HART, move on to some raucous rock from THE FRATELLIS, soften the mood with TOM McRAE’s candlelit delights, increase the tempo with a bit of FRIGHTENED RABBIT, let ALPHABEAT get those dancing feet moving and finish it all off with some timeless JAMES anthems.

Conveniently enough, this Friday – for one night only – all six of these class acts will be playing in Scotland. Unfortunately, though, they won’t be in the same place.

Glasgow gets the singer-songwriters. Roddy Hart, whose keenly-awaited follow-up to Bookmarks is due to be finished next month, will be at ABC2, as will The Pop Cop; Tom McRae could play material from any of his four albums at Oran Mor, although his second effort Just Like Blood is a masterpiece he’ll probably never top.

On the other side of the M8 motorway, Alphabeat will be at The Hive in Edinburgh. As Denmark’s answer to ABBA they’re going to be as huge as their crazy-ass pop tunes, but you can’t help thinking they’ll be the band everyone will love to hate this summer.

James have a surprisingly impressive new album in Hey Ma to roadtest at Aberdeen’s AECC and you can hear the best thing on it below.

The Frightened Rabbit buzz is growing at a rate of knots, especially among the American blogging community. The locals at The Tolbooth in Stirling will no doubt keep the Selkirk boys grounded and, fingers crossed, singer Scott Hutchison’s overstretched voice will have recovered.

And finally The Fratellis can look forward to airing songs from their forthcoming new album Here We Stand at a sell-out Fat Sams in Dundee. Their comeback single Mistress Mabel might be decidedly average but they’re a Friday night band if ever we saw one.

There really isn’t any excuse to stay in this weekend.

4 Roddy Hart – Suffocate
b April 23, The Tunnels, Aberdeen (tickets)
b April 24, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh (tickets)
b April 25, ABC2, Glasgow (tickets)

4 James – Whiteboy
b April 24, Corn Exchange, Edinburgh (sold out)
b April 25, AECC, Aberdeen (tickets)
b December 12, SECC (tickets)

4 Frightened Rabbit – Be Less Rude (Maps acoustic session)
b April 24, The Green Room Venue, Edinburgh
b April 25, The Tolbooth, Stirling (tickets)
b April 26, Tramway, Glasgow (tickets)
b May 6, The Hive, Edinburgh (tickets)
b May 7, Oran Mor, Glasgow (tickets)
b May 8, Dexters, Dundee (tickets)
b May 9, The Waterfront, Arbroath (tickets)
b May 15, Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline (tickets)

4 Tom McRae – Mermaid Blues
b April 24, The Ark, Edinburgh (sold out)
b April 25, Oran Mor, Glasgow (tickets)

4 Alphabeat – 10,000 Nights Of Thunder
b April 25, The Hive, Edinburgh (tickets)
b April 26, King Tut’s, Glasgow (sold out)
b June 11, Oran Mor, Glasgow (tickets)

4 The Fratellis – Nina
b April 24, ABC, Glasgow (sold out)
b April 25, Fat Sams, Dundee (sold out)
b May 2, The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh (sold out)
b May 3, Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen (sold out)

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The old ones are the best

Monday, April 21st, 2008

It’s official – the CD is dead. We surely aren’t the only ones who have hooked up some decent speakers to our computer to turn it into an all-inclusive mp3 jukebox.

The advantages are obvious. There’s none of the hassle of flicking through spines of plastic cases, no scratched discs to worry about, no need to spend hours on manual alphabetisation. All it takes is a click of the mouse and Dylan, Bob is your UNKLE.

Nevertheless last weekend, while ruthlessly putting The Pop Cop HQ’s entire collection of compact discs up for sale on Amazon Marketplace, there was a lump in the throat when we stumbled across some much-loved records by our favourite extinct Scottish bands.

And so it is with a great deal of nostalgia that we bring to you our 12 most fondly remembered heroes (in alphabetical order, of course). We invite you to use our comments section as a kind of memorial guestbook, so let us know what this lot meant to you.

AEREOGRAMME: Only a year gone, but the music scene is quieter (quieter/louder?) for their absence. The trio were sporting beards long before Band Of Horses made it acceptable.

ARAB STRAP: They lived the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll dream. And drinking goes in that list somewhere too.Malcolm Middleton’s solo output has been unexpectedly fulfilling – he was clearly the dark horse of the group.

ASTRID: Absolutely flawless pop music that masked a band with self-destructive tendencies. Singer Willie Campbell recently collaborated with Kevin MacNeil for a rock-poetry project, and now fronts Our Small Capitaland The Open Day Rotation. Charles Clark sings for Our Lunar Activities, while Gareth Russell plays bass inIdlewild and Neil Payne drums for Texas.

BUDDHA CRUSH: The Edinburgh punk-pop group had plenty of gusto but released a single called We Expect To Fail and soon dropped off the radar.

DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS: ***Stop press*** This very second we have just discovered that singer Craig Macintosh has brought DDIHC back from the dead and is appealing for folk to help him finish the second album. Demo tracks are available from his blog for anyone with a bit of creativity and/or a desire to earn 50% royalties!

PARIAH: On record they were full of instrumental bliss, but on stage they turned into a post-rock beast that could make rooms shudder. We still treasure their two locally-distributed albums of breathtaking beauty. The warm tones of ex-Pariah man Evan Crichton are well worth investigating, while Andy Bush now shows off his talents in De Rosa.

PUPKIN: Ah, Pupkin. A band forever close to our hearts. Stow College’s Class of 2001 picked them for their annual Electric Honey project but they never attained the fame and fortune they deserved. These days frontman Peter Kelly is behind the wonderful Beerjacket.

THE DELGADOS: Universally loved by those who heard them, their seminal albums Peloton and The Great Eastern still stand as two of the best to have ever come out of Scotland. It’s impossible not to think of Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward (now releasing music under Lord Cut-Glass) as two halves of a divorced couple.

THE FRIDAYS: They came, they saw, they split up. We know of them just by reputation (a devoted teenage fanbase, major labels circling) and four demo songs whose raw energy reminded us of the first time we heard The Strokes.

THE SMILES: Played the main stage of T in the Park and appeared on TFI Friday, but their finished debut album never saw the light of day when the shit hit the fan at their record label A&M. Such a shame. Drummer Neil Payne went on to play for Astrid before joining ex-Smiles singer Tony McGovern with Texas. Tony now frontsKizzy Star.

THE SUPERNATURALS: The snobbish critics may scoff but it takes a heck of a lot of talent to create pop songs of the simple genius that defined The Supernaturals. You probably haven’t listened to Smile, The Day Before Yesterday’s Man or I Wasn’t Built To Get Up for a decade but we bet you still know all the words. Singer James McColl can be found playing in The Hussy’s.

URUSEI YATSURA: Skewed pop of the highest order, with a healthy dose of American college rock influence to boot. Too cool for school, really.

4 Aereogramme - Indiscretion #243
4 Arab Strap - Girls Of Summer (live)
4 Astrid - Modes Of Transport
4 Buddha Crush - Don’t Want To Know
4 Dogs Die In Hot Cars - Godhopping
4 Pariah - December
4 Pupkin - Delay Development
4 The Delgados - American Trilogy
4 The Fridays - Noise Noise Noise
4 The Smiles - Say Something
4 The Supernaturals - I Wasn’t Built To Get Up
4 Urusei Yatsura - Hello Tiger

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Staying out for the summer: Retrofest

Friday, April 18th, 2008

We’ll wrap up our summer special (for now) with the festival from hell. Others to keep an eye out for are the West End Festival, Glasgow (June 13-29), The Edge Festival, Edinburgh (August 1-27), Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, Inverness-shire (August 8-9), Loopallu, Ullapool (September 19-20) and the Merchant City Festival, Glasgow (September 25-28). We’ll bring you more on all of these as soon as their full line-ups are confirmed.

What’s it called? Retrofest.

Where’s it at? Strathclyde Country Park, Motherwell, North Lanarkshire.

When’s it kicking off? August 30-31.

Who are the headliners? The Bangles, Boy George, Boney M, Kim Wilde, Midge Ure.

And the flatliners? Peter Andre.

How do the organisers describe it? “Remember when you stayed in to watch Top of the Pops so you could chat about it at school the next day; a Marathon wasn’t a 26-mile race but a large, sticky, peanut and chocolate cholestoral bar of joy; Friends Reunited meant playing with your school mates at the weekend without being interrupted by your parents ringing you on your mobile phone to check that you are all right… [half a dozen more tedius examples along the same lines, you get the picture - The Pop Cop]; If you can remember all this and more, then welcome to Retrofest.”

What’s its pedigree? This is the 2nd year.

What’s the damage? £85.50 for the weekend, £100.50 including camping (tickets).

Most likely to be attended by: Katie “Jordan” Price, insomniacs.

Verdict: Nostalgia is all well and good if you’re looking back on memories of a fonder era. But as the old wives’ tale goes, cheese gives you nightmares.

ESSENTIAL RETROFEST SOUNDTRACK:
4 The Bangles – Eternal Flame
4 ABBA (Bjorn Again) – SOS