Category: scotland

stereo sounds

monotonix at stereo
monotonix

A couple of comments on gigs we attended at stereo in August.

First up was a bit of a punt on Crystal Stilts with Veronica Falls in support. They were actually a bit crap, quite messy and not as good as their studio work – cool brooklyn kids who weren’t that interested.

A couple of days later, in a vindicated a spur of the moment decision we went to see Israeli punks Monotonix. They were totally mental and it was absolute madness madness with four hairy sweaty guys in speedos traipsing all over the venue, playing on the bar, getting audience members to support their drum kit and stool above their heads while they played! As well as (or perhaps in spite of) their great show they also happened to be good musicians.

monotonix at setreo
monotonix at setreo

some australia nostalgia

We dragged a bunch of our mates along to The Luckmiths farewell gig at Stereo. Chhay met up with them before the gig (they were pretty impressed with Stereo’s location right next to Central station and tasty selection of vegan food) before we headed down to catch the very twee supports.

Their set included all the classics and their typical high quality banter – they left our friends suitably impressed and a little sad that this was the only time that they would see them.

Chhay & I really appreciated the chance to see them before they disband, I think the Australian shows would have been amazing.  See if you can spot us in the photo below!

i heart hiroshima

Way back in the dark ages we popped in to the twisted wheel to catch Brisbane pop rockers I Heart Hiroshima. We were incredibly tight  and played an entertaining set to a tiny audience. Their drummer was as incredible and hypnotic as ever.

On their tour blog they noted this show as the best of the tour – I hope they at least got a few more people to see them at the other venues!

eiff

We made the first of many jaunts across to Edinburgh over the festival season to sample some of the Edinburgh Internation Film Festival. Unfortunately most of the films we wanted to see were sold out, so we killed time playing hopscotch in front of the castle and trying the rather expensive (but pretty good) dumplings at Chop Chop

We did manage to catch the quite surreal but fairly entertaining low budget flick ‘Modern Love is Automatic’, late in the evening to justify our trip.

indie poptastic at the flying duck

The Smittens at the Flying Duck
The Smittens at the Flying Duck

The Smittens have defined the soundtrack of our trips in Oswald thsi year with their song The Interstate, they are friends of our firend Katie’s band the Zebras, and we missed them at Indietracks last year so we were reuqired to attend this twee pop extravaganza.

We were packed into the back room of the Flying Duck (decked out as a kitchen, although there was no toast) and the cardigan count was pretty high, but everyone had a good time.  Locals the  Just Joans were just so, while the Specific Heats were great (and cute) possibly the best act on the night.

By the evidence of this bunch its seems a requirement that all twee pop bands have female drummers.

biting critique of zaha's gleegie shed

quite an entertaining rant…

“In this case, the baroquely difficult solution to the five-second long design process is a perfect example of the dead end; of the arbitrariness and bankruptcy of cultural architecture, a seductive design moment, achingly contingent (should that squiggle be 500mm to the left or not?) followed by an interminable slog of realisation, keeping everybody busy. The fact that the buildings that occupied the site previously were sheds of about the same size, albeit of a less wow-factor shape is hilarious, making this an exercise in architectural futility.”

From our friend Jamie Flett

“Me and my bro recorded a bunch of tunes as our studio side project ‘Feltt.’ We actually did it ages ago and a few of you maybe have a copy of some or all of them already. BUT if you don’t, then we’ve put them together as an album – ‘Bipolar’ – and this is available to download for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING right here: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/48493 You can listen to the tracks there before downloading anything.

We occasionally play one or two of these tunes live but otherwise we didn’t know what to do with them because we haven’t really had time to actually go out and promote them.

So we’re giving them to you, our friends. And we’d be delighted if you pass the link onto your friends. With instructions to pass it on to their friends.. oh dear, I’ve made this sound like one of those soul-sapping chain e-mails which I’m thankful I don’t see so much of these days.”

Defintely worth a listen, less structured than Jamie’s own stuff but with some interesting electronic overlays.

triangle

Our good friend Debbie Andrews had a reading as part of the launch of Volume 1 of the not very imaginatively titled Brown Williams Journal: Triangle. Held at Kibble Palace on a warm evening it was a delightful atmosphere with some good writing and a slightly cheesy band. Overall we were definitly left with impression that writers need to get out more!

ring ring ring

De LA Soul
De La Soul

Reaching way back here we sampled some retro delights at the Arches when De La Soul toured, funnily enough there new stuff was actually the best with some of there old stuff feeling fairly dated, not helped but some extended milking of a few tracks by the boys. The whole night served to remind me of one of my favourite stuff white people like posts.