Last Saturday of the month and it's time for another does of blogger's
delight as Scottish Fiction, Aye Tunes and Peenko serve up our choice
of live music. We return to The 13th Note for this one with a line up to rattle your bones and intrigue your ears.
First up are two piece noise monsters Pinact, who employ the DIY
attitude we love. Oh and they also sound rather awesome with their
blend of alt punk rock.
Cranking up the noise levels are 6 piece behemoth Saint Death. Armed
with drums, bass, synth, three guitars and layered vocals, when Saint
Death roll out their post rock sound it's like the Kraken unleashed.
And topping of the bill are Le Thug, self confessed abrasive ambience
makers. Expect part drone, part shoe-gaze and full on awesome. With a
split 12" out on Song By Toad Records in March, this three piece are
going places.
Saturday 30th March. Doors from 8:30pm. The 13th Note. Tickets £6 online or at the door. See you there!
Another week, another stunning playlist choka full of new Scottish music. On this podcast we've got an exclusive first play of the new Campfires In Winter single, music from Brave Young Red, Mogwai, CHVRCHES, Zed Penguin, Randolph's Leap and more! All our usual features are here, including 'Cover Lover', a French Wives cover of 'Blue Boy' by Orange Juice, 'Re-Mixing It Up', a Evil Hand remix of How To Swim's 'Bacterium' and 'Aye Tunes Friday Freebie' which this comes from Machines In Heaven. On top of all this we unveil the three bands playing Scottish Fiction Presents: Aye Tunes vs. Peenko gig on Saturday 30th March. Get stuck in!
On the latest Scottish Fiction Podcast is the live session from Gav Prentice who very kindly joined us in the studio recently. Gav chats about his music, his influences, his début solo album 'The Invisible Hand' and his band Over The Wall. There's a smattering of music chosen by Gav as well as two live tracks.
On top of that there's the usual serving of new alternative Scottish music, this week provided by Frightened Rabbit, Queen Jane, Michael Cassidy, The Winter Tradition and plenty more! Enjoy!
Thanks very much to Steven for taking some pictures at the Scottish Fiction Presents Gig in The Captain's last Sunday. Here's what you missed if you didn't make it.
That's how the Scottish Fiction blog began a year ago*. Hardly
inspiring, yet I like to think over the past twelve months I've managed
at least somewhat to offer some interesting features, slightly coherent
reviews, and new enjoyable music to those hardy souls who have kept
reading these interweb pages.
*It's actually over a year now, nearer 13 months. Sue me!
The very first band I ever posted about were now (very) defunct I See Shapes
which gives me a lovely opportunity to post this video and also
encourage you to click on the above link to download their final EP for
free.
I'm not one for sentimental markings of passing of arbitrary time (despite hosting a birthday radio show and a gig to celebrate one year of blogging...) but I thought I'd use this opportunity to look back on some of the better things that I've managed to do whilst under this auspicious rank of 'blogger'. Here's our Scottish Fiction 'top moments'.
- Branching out further from the blog in July 2011 we put out the first Scottish Fiction EP comprised of Michael Cassidy, Night Noise Team, Adam Holmes And The Embers and Campfires In Winter. We started with an absolute belter of a line up and things have continued along the same vein. You can get all our previous EP for FREE right here. This coming July will mark 12 EP's released and we've got summat special in the pipeline for this. All will be revealed in due time, but trust me, it's gonna be huge.
- One of the most enjoyable and also nerve racking things about doing the live Scottish Fiction show has been welcoming guests onto the show. Luckily all these shows are archived* meaning you can listen to them all again! Whilst all have been great fun my personal favourites have been RM Hubbert, Where We Lay Our Heads and Beerjacket. Hopefully we'll have many more in the future!
*I'm currently in the process of moving all our archived shows from Soundcloud to Mixcloud, so some may not be available at the time of reading. Bear with me as this is both monotonous and time-consuming.
- Following on from the above, we had the very talented Michael Cassidy, Shambles Miller and Julia Doogan all in the studio for our first birthday show way back in January this year. It was an absolute pleasure and remains a highlight of doing the radio show. If you missed it, then listen back here.
- I've mentioned the Scottish Fiction EP's already, but December 2011's EP holds a special place, as we organised seven artists contributing a track each and raised £109 for Shelter. Incredible to be able to both spread new music and help a worthy cause.
- Perhaps more importantly than anything has been the sheer education I've had in the amount of outstanding music about at the moment. I considered myself well versed (why start a blog otherwise), but through doing this I've been introduced to more brilliant music than I could have imagined. You'll find reviews and mentioned through the blog history, but this 'Best Of 2011' post probably sums up things quite well.
- One particular feature I've enjoyed has been the rather self indulgent, if a tad infrequent, '31 Songs'. It's nice to be able to simply ramble about why I love a song so much once in a while. Have a wee read through if you haven't before.
- In terms of one of the most fun things I've done on the blog, the Scottish Fiction Words With Friends Cup has to be up there. It makes a change writing the blog being able to do something a little bit different, and hopefully for people reading it wasn't simply just geeky self indulgent fun. Re-live the drama and see our overall winner Boab Canavan of Campfires In Winter spell his way to glory.
- Officially we celebrated a year of the blog with our Scottish Fiction Presents Gig on Sunday 17th June. With a bill including Saint Death, Queen Jane, The Spook School and Michael Cassidy (we quite like him you know) we had a great night in The Captain's. So good, I might even be mad enough to do it again! Check out some pictures here, and also a lovely review from Songs Heard On Fast Trains here.
- Finally probably the most exciting thing that's happened via this blog takes place tomorrow night. Inexplicably I was asked to be a nominator for the SAY Awards, and have been lucky enough to be invited along to the award ceremony tomorrow night. I'll be oozing with excitement. I've also blogged a fair bit about the awards which you can read here.
So to the future, and hopefully another productive and fun filled year of blogging, presenting, reviewing and discovering new Scottish music. If you could grant me one birthday wish, it would be more interaction with the people who read this blog on a monthly basis. Leave a comment now and again, we'll be nice I promise!
Thanks to all who've read, downloaded, listened or came to our gig. Much appreciated.
Neil.
I leave you with this, my favourite song of 2011 and still going strong. xx
Feeling as fresh as a two week old sandwich I shimmied into my new timeslot on Pulse Community Radio of Wednesday's between 8pm and 10pm. Mark that one in your diaries folks!
This week's show featured some of the best acts I saw at last weekend's RockNess festival, plus music from the likes of Honey, Stanley Odd, Woodenbox, Seams and more! Expect heavy plugging of our Scottish Fiction Presents Gig which takes place on Sunday, as we played a track from each of the performing artists. There's also the Classic Scottish Album which comes from Boards Of Canada and our Featured Artist this week was Aereogramme. Enjoy!
Good to be back after last week's missed show. Did you miss me? I'll pretend you say yes. As I'm heading off to RockNess on Friday for my good friend's stag do, naturally I focus on homegrown artists playing Scotland's most scenic festival. There's also plently of new music from the likes of Olympic Swimmers, Capitals and Woodenbox. Our featured artist is Biffy Clyro and our Classic Scottish Album comes from post-punk legends Orange Juice.
It's two weeks today until the very first Scottish Fiction Presents gig. Thankfully I've not resorted to either blackmail, begging or bribery to shift tickets yet, however given that there's still some available it is incumbent upon me to get those shifted!
There's plenty of reasons why you should come along. Here's some of them:
- The Captain's do bloody awesome food. I recommend the Chorizo & Cheddar Burger. Get down early for some scran and to catch Saint Death who'll be on first.
- Talking of Saint Death, they've just put some new tunes up on their Soundcloud page. They might even play them too. Here's one worth listening to.
- Did we mention that the gig is during the West End Festival? Well that means nice refreshing drinks offers whilst you wait for Queen Jane to come on next.
- Queen Jane you say? Well they are from Cumbernauld, they are riotious, and they will be playing stuff from their brilliant EP 'Denver' which you can download for free here and learn all the words.
- Still not convinced? Well clap your ears around the chirpy sounds of The Spook School and realise what a mistake you've made by not buying a ticket already. Also loads of tracks available to download for free here
- Tickets will only cost you £5 and you can get them online right here. Be a smart cookie and avoid all that faffing about getting a ticket at the door.
- And to round things off, finishing off our evening will be the fantastically talented Michael Cassidy. Stage banter, and good tunes to boot.
Convinced? I bloody hope so! We'd love to see you there and hope you can make it along for a great night. Tickets are available here or on the door. Doors are at 8pm. Remember to get there for 8pm as all four bands are worth seeing. If you like to make things official then say your coming on our Facebook Event.
Is it really sad that I'm actually swelling with pride that less than three weeks until our Scottish Fiction Presents gig to mark a year of the blog's existence, somebody spotted the above piece of graffiti in the ladies toilets at The Captain's? I've officially made it!
(On a side-but-related-note, have a read at The Pop Cop's cracking post about toilet graffiti. There's some belters in there.)
All this free advertising courtesy of the ladies of Glasgow, has given me an idea for a giveaway
for our up coming gig. Tickets are in short supply, and we'd love to see as many of you there as possible for what will be a great night of music. Feel free to share details of the gig and the competition to as many people as possible.
Winning couldn't be simpler. Across bars, clubs, venues and shops in
Glasgow (there's also a few in Paisley for those keen poster spotters) you'll spot posters advertising our gig. They look like this:
There are pretty well spread out, and we've put up close to 100, so finding one shouldn't be hard. Simply take a photo and post it on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/thisisscottishfiction) or our Twitter (http://twitter.com/scotfiction984). We'll pick one winner at random on Wednesday 6th June and you'll get yourself two tickets for the gig.
If you can't wait until then, or you just don't think you'll win, then tickets will be available on the door for £5, and can be purchased online now from this link. (If you buy tickets in advance and then win the competition we'll refund your money, cause we're nice like that!)
Pretty big news! I'm positively, absolutely, thrilled to buggery to announce that on Sunday 17th June we are bringing a bevvy of talented individuals to The Captain's Rest as part of the very first Scottish Fiction Presents. For all of five of your shiny pound coins, you can see this quartet of musical delights:
I'm as excited as a school boy about these guys driving through from Edinburgh to play. Two guys, two girls is how The Spook School put out their quirky C86 infused music.
Drawing things to a close is none other than Paisley's own Michael Cassidy. As fine a singer/songwriter as there is, this'll be braw!
All of this is happening from 8pm on Sunday 17th June at The Captain's Rest and is £5 at the door or online. I'd be delighted if you can come along for a great bill and a great night too!
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