Sorry To Disappoint You
I’ve disappointed a lot of people lately. It seems to have become a bit of a pattern. Sorry for disappointing some of you by giving up writing my monthly column, music reviews and other things for The Skinny Magazine. Sorry for disappointing promoters and artists by not coming along to your gig or promoting it ...
Creative Types #3 – Euan McMeeken of The Kays Lavelle & The Steinberg Principle
The third in this series of interviews is with another multi-talented creative type, Euan McMeeken, who is not only lead songwriter and vocalist in Edinburgh band The Kays Lavelle (who have just released their debut album Be Still This Gentle Morning on the Wiseblood Industries label), but also writes the excellent blog The Steinberg Principle, ...
Kicking Against the Pricks
Fighting for causes you believe in is undoubtedly a good thing, especially when it’s the underdog you’re fighting for. In fact a lot of what I try to do on this blog is fighting for the underdog, whether its underrated musicians or putting an alternative view across that’s being ignored by the mainstream. Here’s 3 ...
Creative Types #2: Dylan Matthews of Blueback Hotrod & Song, By Toad
The second in this series of interviews is with Edinburgh-based photographer and blogger and now radio DJ, Dylan Matthews. Dylan’s photos have been published by an impressive list of publications including BBC Online, The List, The Sunday Herald & The Skinny, and he is of course an integral part of the Song, By Toad team. ...
Creative Types #1 – Bartholomew Owl (from eagleowl)
This is the first in a new series of interviews with people who are doing great things creatively both locally and hopefully a little bit further afield too. First up we have the ridiculously likeable Bart from eagleowl, the stunning Edinburgh band whose music has genuinely moved me to tears on more than one occasion. ...
Meursault’s Off The Beaten Tracks Session
Meursault’s Off The Beaten Tracks session is online now. I wrote a wee piece to accompany the above video, which takes place beside the William Henry Miller Mausoleum in Craigentinny, which originally inspired the song. The article explains more, and it was fascinating to research. I can also be spotted somewhere at the back concentrating ...
Underappreciated Artists – Don’t Wait til They’re Dead
I was saddened by the deaths of Vic Chesnutt and Mark Linkous recently but haven’t written about it because I wasn’t as saddened as I should be. That’s because I didn’t really know their music as much as I should have, although in the case of Linkous I did have some Sparklehorse on cassette many ...
King Creosote’s 8th Bit of Strange in 14 Years
It really does feel strange posting an entire unreleased album by an artist on this blog as I’m usually pretty respectful about copyright and don’t post much that I don’t have prior permission (or at least implied permission) for. But this may be a new era of artist-authorised bootlegging, if Mr Kenny Anderson, aka King ...
Och The Week: Now Available at Song, By Toad
You thought I’d forgotten about ‘Scottish Music Sundays’ didn’t you? Well after the hysterically positive reaction to the first Och The Week I felt the title alone deserved a bigger audience, and so the next installment takes the form of a guest post for Song, By Toad. Here’s the link, you cannae miss it. OCH THE ...
Home and Dry from Homegame
Phew. That was a busy week, in which blogging just hasn’t been near the top of my list of priorities, so sorry about the lack of posts recently. As well as doing some decorating (yawn), I went to see Grizzly Bear/Beach House (which was an excellent excellent gig – see Evil Stu’s review for more ...