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Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri on the band’s comeback
PART tomboy, part rock chick, part soul siren and complete Glasgow girl, Sharleen Spiteri and texas are back. And after 25 years in the business, she’s still got plenty to talk about.
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Album review: Daft Punk, Random Access Memories
Like the ubiquitous single Get Lucky, Daft Punk’s new album is a distillation of pop’s better moments of the last four decades.
The best of Abba outsells Beatles
ABBA’S greatest hits collection has overtaken the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to become the UK’s second-biggest selling album of all time, according to the Official Charts Company.
1 commentGig review: Mr McFall’s Chamber, Edinburgh
With empanadas in the bar and candles flickering on the intimate tables that had replaced the usual Queen’s Hall seating, we could just about have been in a sultry Buenos Aires nightclub – well, maybe.
Gig review: Mark Knopfler, Glasgow
The one over-arching feeling in the air while Mark Knopfler played was a sense of quiet but powerful respectfulness.
Gary Flockhart: Prince could boost city music scene
WHAT a difference a year makes. Usually, that’s a line that’s followed by a positive but, sadly, not this time.
Justin Bieber faces Munich monkey bill
POP star Justin Bieber will have to pay the bill for his monkey’s two month stay at a Munich animal shelter.
1 commentClassical review: BBC SSO: The Rite of Spring, Glasgow
STRAVINSKY reckoned that the conductor should be little more than a time beater.
Gig review: Lana Del Rey, Glasgow
LANA Del Rey was responsible for a rare moment of unwitting entertainment during this year’s particularly dull Brit Awards ceremony when she thanked her label for “helping turn my life into a work of art”.
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Scottish independence: Sharleen Spiteri ‘no’ vote
POP star Sharleen Spiteri has said she does not believe an independent Scotland would be viable, questioning whether it would have the resources to survive.
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One Direction to play Edinburgh’s Murrayfield
Chart-topping boyband One Direction are to play at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium next year, it has been announced.
11 commentsGig review: Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Glasgow
EMMYLOU Harris and Rodney Crowell have been collaborators since he joined her Hot Band in 1975, but it is only with the release of their duets album, Old Yellow Moon, that they have formalised their double act and ostensibly share the billing on this tour.
Bringing Commonwealth Gaelic diaspora home for 2014
SAIL a westbound ferry boldly beyond its habitual port of call, tramp the age-old cattle route of a drove road past its market destination then keep going, and you have emigration.
Pastels making anxious return to Glasgow spotlight
IT has been 16 years since The Pastels last released an album of their own. This seems hard to credit, even for a man who talks as slowly and carefully as frontman Stephen McRobbie, aka Stephen Pastel, aka the benevolent godfather of Glasgow’s still-thriving independent music scene (a title he will certainly not thank me for bestowing).
1 comment‘Tango opera’ brings street style to Edinburgh
THE essence of Argentine culture is distilled in a version of Astor Piazzolla’s ‘tango opera’ presented by Mr McFall’s Chamber
Arts blog: ‘Uhura is not far off being Bridget Jones in space’
SEXISM lets down the new Star Trek movie according to trekkie Andrea Mullaney, while David Pollock previews a Cuillins psychogeography project.
AC/DC back plan for Bon Scott statue in Kirriemuir
AMBITIOUS plans to erect a life-sized statue of legendary AC/DC front man Bon Scott in his Scottish home town are being backed by the surviving members of the world-renowned music giants.
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Susan Boyle could add extra Edinburgh tour date
Susan Boyle’s Scottish tour tickets could be in such high demand that there is already talk of an extra date being added at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre.
5 commentsGig review: Steve Hackett, Glasgow
“I KNOW what I like and I like what I know,” ran the chorus of sometime Genesis favourite I Know What I Like, one of the less meandering excursions by the classic English prog outfit to be given an outing at this show, and these words seemed to serve as a motto for the crowd here to see the band’s guitarist, Steve Hackett, perform.
6 commentsGig review: Kim Richey, Glasgow
AS EVIDENCED by this gig’s modest scale but capacity crowd, Ohio-born singer-songwriter Kim Richey has flown somewhat under the radar during most of her career, previously enjoying wider recognition as author of hits for the likes of Trisha Yearwood and Patty Loveless than as a performing artist.
Gig review: The Zombies, Edinburgh
FOLLOWING the fanfare surrounding the Zombies’ 2008 reunion to celebrate 40 years since their near-forgotten classic 1968 album Odessey and Oracle – shortly before the release of which the band had split, not anticipating its success – these sunshiny baroque-pop Englishmen keep on keeping on.
Susan Boyle to embark on first ever live tour
SINGING sensation Susan Boyle is to embark on her first ever live tour - with a seven-night run across Scotland.
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ISS astronaut Chris Hadfield back down to Earth video Picture gallery
A Soyuz space capsule carrying a three-man crew returning from a five-month mission to the International Space Station landed safely this morning on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Lana Del Rey drops into Glasgow Co-op
A SHOP assistant in Glasgow has told of her disbelief at meeting US pop star Lana Del Rey - at her work in a Glasgow branch of Co-op.
Chris Hadfield sings David Bowie cover in space video Picture gallery
IT HAS to be every David Bowie fan’s fantasy: sitting in a tin can far above the world and singing Space Oddity to millions listening below.
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10 things to do in Scotland this week
The most exciting entertainment, events and activities in Scotland this week, including comedy from Rob Rouse, poetry from John Cooper Clarke, and a Lana Del Rey gig in Glasgow.
Gig review: John Grant, Edinburgh
JOHN Grant is one of those blessed songwriters who can turn heads with just a phrase – generally colloquial, often witty, sometimes vicious and occasionally naughty – while beguiling with a beautiful melody and heart-wrenching delivery.
Classical review: BBC SSO: Tectonics Opening Concert, Glasgow
THE most astonishing thing about the opening concert in Ilan Volkov and the BBC SSO’s two-day Tectonics festival was the number of people who turned out to see it.
Bobby Gillespie on Primal Scream’s 10th album
INTERVIEWING Bobby Gillespie brings certain expectations. Since their debut, Sonic Flower Groove, was released in 1987, his band Primal Scream have been something of a byword for rock’n’roll excess.
Time is on the side of musicians thanks to the web
IT IS time for music’s next evolutionary leap. The download era has not shattered our attention spans and brought in a pick-and-mix culture, as many anticipated.
Album review: Rod Stewart: Time
ROD Stewart has just enjoyed the most creatively moribund yet commercially successful decade of his career to date.
Album review: Primal Scream: More Light
BOBBY Gillespie has always talked a good game. Here, in cahoots with producer David Holmes, he throws every record he’s ever loved at the wall.
Eurovision: From nul points to Number One
It’s Eurovision time again, and David Elder has the lowdown on the cheesiest show on TV
Album review: Primal Scream - More Light
THERE’S more light but much less of an Exile On Main Street parody here than on much of the band’s recent work, as Bobby Gillespie submerges us in his wonderful world of psychedelic paranoia.
Renaissance man Rory McEwen’s work in new exhibitions
RORY McEwen caused an international hullabaloo in the worlds of art and music. Now the Scot’s creative talents are recognised in exhibitions and a book that celebrate the legacy of this Renaissance man.
Louis Walsh to form One Direction rivals
X Factor judge Louis Walsh has announced plans to form a new boy band to rival One Direction.
Now That’s What I Call Music: Then and now
As Now That’s What I Call Music celebrates its 30th birthday, Andrew Eaton-Lewis explores the enduring appeal of the strange pick and mix that has been the soundtrack to 100 million lives
1 commentGig review: Texas, Glasgow
After an eight-year recording hiatus partially enforced by guitarist Ally McErlaine’s recovery from a brain aneurysm, it might be time to offer the largely critically unheralded Texas a spot of reappraisal.
Vaccines fans who can’t name album barred from gig
WELSH fans of indie band The Vaccines were interrogated by police and bouncers at a recent gig, and refused entry if they could not name the lead singer or the band’s albums.
Gary Flockhart: I can’t Belieb it’s not Michael Jackson
IS it just me, or does anyone else think Justin Bieber is in need of a good slap?
Gig review: The Specials, Glasgow
When The Specials reformed a few years ago, the comeback concerts were, indeed, special, reflecting the band’s zeitgeist-capturing legacy for a generation of disenfranchised kids.
Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Robert Levin, Edinburgh
You can always rely on the American pianist, conductor and academic Robert Levin to come up with something out of the ordinary. Not just in the way he performs Mozart, but in the repertoire he digs up to go with it.
Paul McCartney gig sees grasshopper stage invasion
SIR Paul McCartney has swapped Beatles for grasshoppers – after a stage invasion by a swarm of the creatures.
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Torycore project offers noisy take on the coalition
DESPITE the name, there’s nothing partisan about Torycore, a new work of musical theatre – and we use the term in a strongly non-traditional sense – which sells itself compellingly as “George Osborne’s budget speech performed by a death metal band”.
TradFest conclusion looks at state of folk arts
THE final day of what appears to have been a successful debut for Edinburgh’s 12-day TradFest saw some intriguingly disparate elements – from Robert Burns to Patrick Geddes – invoked in a conference assessing the place of the traditional arts in 21st century Scotland.
Gilbert and Sullivan pose challenge for Scottish Opera
FOR any opera director used to making sense and substance out of the musical and theatrical complexities of Britten, Mozart, Verdi or Puccini, you’d think a stab at a dear old Gilbert and Sulllivan operetta, with frivolous comedy, saucy satire and sentimental tunes, would be like a walk in the park.
Arts blog: Musicians on independence | Edinburgh Fringe
NOW that it’s fewer than 500 days until the referendum that will change Scotland forever, or not, you’ll be hearing lots more well-known names explaining why they’re voting one way or the other.
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North
