Tuesday 6 March | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £7/£6adv (from One Up)
Thomas Truax, Matricarians, Craig John Davidson
A welcome return for the NYC multi-instrumentalist with the home-made instruments

Thursday 8 March | The Tunnels | 8pm | £5
Iain McLaughlin & The Outsiders, Velvet Audio,  Brown Bear & The Bandits, Bellocs Bar
Spacey Invernesian indie-rockers and great support from equally out-there locals Velvet Audio

Friday 9 March | The Lemon Tree | 8pm | £6
The Ruckus, Estrella, Gutter Godz, Evil Demon Theory
Fat Hippy Records’ album release show for local rock outfit The Ruckus 

Friday 9 March | Snafu | 11pm | £4/Free before 12
Tuff Wax Aberdeen Truth Vol. 3 Release Show
Hip-hop/garage/house/dubstep from the excellent local label with Lockah, Bones & Money, Grobbie &  Yoin

Wednesday 14-Sunday 18 March | Various Venues, Times & Prices
Aberdeen Jazz Festival
Jazz/funk/soul/latin/loads of things inc. a free outdoor Saturday show on The Green.  More info here

Friday 16 March | Woodend Barn, Banchory | 7.30pm | £9/£8adv   Tickets
Meursault, Wounded Knee
Edinburgh post-rock/twisted folk outfit make a welcome return to the NE.  Worth the bus journey.

Friday 16 March | The Tunnels | 8pm | £7/£6adv  Tickets 
Fatherson, Duke, He Slept On 57,  Rambler
Glasgow-based, Ayrshire-born & unmistakably Scottish indie-rockers headline 

Sunday 18 March | The Forum | 10pm | £20 (From One Up/Attic)
2ManyDJs
Superstar DJ duo & one of Belgium’s biggest exports outside hangover-inducing bevvy

Wednesday 21 March | Snafu | 11pm | £tbc
Phop Presents: DOLFiNZ, Min Diesel, DJ Bad Panda
A lo-fi Stonehaven scuzzy pop duo.  Some ramshackle grunge from Aberdeen.  And a good DJ.  

Thursday 22 March | The Blue Lamp | 8pm |  Sold Out
Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three
Ragtime/country/swing/blues band from St Louis, Missouri (pictured below). Recently appeared on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.

Friday 23 March | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £6  Tickets
Bwani Junction, This Silent Forest, Boy With Compass, Steven Milne
Headline show by Afrobeat-influenced Edinburgh band currently being branded “hot” by tipsters who do such things

Friday 23 March | The Malt Mill | 8pm | £5
The Komet Club
New venue for the Rockabilly/Rock ‘n’ Roll/Vintage Rhythm & Blues night 

Saturday 24 March | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £7/£6adv (From One Up)
Fridge Magnets, The Tijuana Sun, The Suburban Saints, Kushty (DJ Set)
Aberdeen/Glasgow electro-rockers recently crowned “Best Electronic Act” at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards headline

Saturday 24 March | Origin | 11pm | £7/£6 before 12
Table Mannerz
Electro/Hip Hop/Drum ‘n’ Bass with guest turntablist & 2010 DMC  World Champion DJ Ligone (France)

Tuesday 27 March | The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £15
YolanDa Brown
Double MOBO Award-winning saxophonist/vocalist

Thursday 29 March | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £5/£4adv  Tickets
IndianRedLopez, Song Of Return
Locals you should know by now joined by kindred electronics/guitar-wielding spirits from Glasgow (Feat. Admiral Fallow’s Louis Abbot)

Friday 30 & Saturday 31 March | Cellar 35 | 8pm | £5 per night/£8 weekend
The Little Kicks
Read more & win tickets! 

Friday 30 March | Snafu | 11pm | £10
Dubpressure
Dubstep/House/Garage with Hessle Audio co-founder/Rinse FM DJ Ben UFO 

…and every Friday throughout March there are free shows at Slains Castle (the pub, not the alleged literary vampire-influencing ruin) click here for the line-ups.

Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three.  Photo: Paul Nordmann

We’ve got a pair of guestlist places to give away for this, read on…

Over the last three years Do It! have put on some great parties with great music and great visuals, unfortunately, this is their last-ever night.  Boo.  As you’d expect though, they’re going out with a bang…

There’s a live set from Parisian synth magician dÉbruit (Civil Music), now usually I’ll read a quote like “his music is a no holds-barred assault through dark Congolese sound systems, downtown L.A. block parties gone wrong, haze-filled Kingston recording studios and freaky Tunisian backstreet souks, all powered by a fat hip hop engine”  and think “aye, OK” , but on listening to the tune on the video below, there’s more than an element of truth in there.  He’s well-known for putting on a great live show too…

Also doing his live thing for the first time in the city is Auntie Flo, aka Glasgow DJ Brian d’Souza (who’ll be bringing along Sub Club resident ESA on percussion duties) and, as you’d expect, the usual Do It! residents will also be on hand.  There’s a warm-up session upstairs in The Athenaeum with the Tuff Wax-affiliated Aberdeen Truth crew too.

So, goodbye Do It! and thanks for the memories, although we’re reliably informed that co-founder Alexander Horne will be back in 2012 with a new record label venture…

OK, to stand a chance of winning a pair of guestlist places, simply answer this question (hint: click a link):

Name three previous Do It! guests

…and send it to info@thekiosque.com under the heading “Do It Comp” before noon on Friday 9 December.  We’ll be in touch with the winner as soon as we’ve picked one from our rather fetching electronic hat.

Good luck!

Everything Else Sucks is 3.  Unsurprisingly, they’re having a party to celebrate.   Sought-after Belgian electro duo Sound of Stereo (mix below) guest, alongside Ado (Fake Blood).  There’s a pre-party with the Tuff Wax boys upstairs in The Athenaeum from 9pm too.  That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Switch Playground (September 2011) by Sound of Stereo 

I won’t bore you with the details, but imagine being banished to an internet tundra for a few days, where no-one can hear you scream.

It was like that.

Anyway, while we were there we took the opportunity to give ourselves a wee facelift.  Hope you like it.

Right, back to business, here’s something to do tonight:

The penultimate Do It! night at Cellar 35 featuring DJ Olan of Dublin wonky hip-hop label All City Records (here’s an interview with him from The Irish Times).  Poster below.

Don’t fancy that?  Well, check out our listings then.  Just like you used to…

A bittersweet post this one as it marks the last-ever Dirty Hearts Club in its Thursday guise. Loads of great bands and many, many Friday hangovers are among the achievements of this legendary shindig, here’s what DHC’s Steven Milne has to say on the matter:

“We felt it was maybe the right time for it to stop and we had the chance to stop the night on a high. The night has been consistently great and were still getting great bookings and good crowds down but it takes a lot of work to keep a weekly night going – we’ve run the night for nearly 6 years so I think we’ve done pretty well.

Personally, I want to spend more time on my own music and my time is already split between a few things, so I felt I’d rather do DHC 100% or not at all. It feels like the right time to stop and the plan is to do the night on an occasional one-off basis at the weekend. We have quite an eclectic booking policy, so a weekend slot will open up what we can programme and I’m looking forward to making them special!”

So, all is not lost it seems. They certainly go out with a bang on Thursday as Edinburgh’s excellent 4AD-signed lush, string/piano-laden Broken Records and rising locals Velvet Audio play live before the usual DHC DJ shenanigans. A final one of those hangovers is on the horizon I reckon…

After a successful launch night in June, Loosen Up! returns with DJ Steven Milne at the helm peddling a mix of indie, disco, electronica, classics, random 45s and a little bit of punk and funk thrown in for good measure. Excellent. This time around, Iain Macpherson (Funky Transport) guests playing a vinyl-only set of pretty much whatever he wants. Get down early though as the room only holds 85 people…

Another of those last-minute “you should go to this tonight” posts. Which is exactly what you should do. DJ A La Fu is leaving town but not before this release party for his interesting-sounding, adventure-based double CD “DJ Memoirs“.

Details on the flyer

It’s fair to say that the reggae scene in Aberdeen is pretty small. However, the visit of respected Glasgow-based soundsystem Mungo’s Hi Fi to Dubpressure at The Tunnels on Friday should see everyone coming out of the woodwork. We caught up with Doug from Mungo’s ahead of what’s set to be a night of chest-rattling bass and positive vibes…

So, when, where and why did Mungo’s start?

Mungo’s Hi Fi Soundsystem started in Glasgow in 2000 to play the music we love.

…and it’s the full soundsystem you’re bringing up on Friday, right? Tell us a bit about that. It looks incredible! (Check the photo below!)

We’re bringing the full rig to Aberdeen, although it might not all fit in the venue but we’ll give it our best shot. It’s the result of 10 years of saving and refining what was originally a couple of boxes found in a skip. We’re fairly happy with how it looks and sounds now, although we are working on improvements and expansions all the time.

Nowadays it’s mostly looked after by Jerome, but we all take a close interest. Frankly I’m amazed at people’s reactions to it, even in big centres of soundsystem culture, and I wonder how we managed to make something apparently so good with no specific training in acoustic technology. I can only put it down to the love of the music and a strong desire to hear it played to its maximum potential.

Our labels Scotch Bonnet and Scrub a Dub are going really well thanks, despite the implosion of the music industry as we know it. Distributors are taking less and less vinyl and online sales through iTunes etc. have failed to create much income for labels and artists.

Our online shop at scotchbonnet.net is doing really well however, and in general interest in our music is expanding massively all over the world with hundreds of thousands of listens on our YouTube and Soundcloud channels. We have 3 new albums all more or less ready for release, the first of which is looking like coming out at the end of the summer, with a sprinkling of singles in between.

We’ve got a pair tickets for this to give away, details below…

Fridays at Snafu will now rotate between nights from the likes of Bigfoot’s Tea Party, Mixed Bizness, Snafu Live, All Neon Like, Liebe and more. Kicking off the new schedule however are Everything Else Sucks, who’ve moved across town from their previous home at Origin, and the line-up for their first night looks pretty darn good:

(Click artist names for their Soundcloud pages which feature tunes/mixes etc. galore)

Clouds are a young duo from Perthshire who already have EPs out on Fake Blood’s Blood Music label and Tiga’s Turbo Recordings. Techno-tinged electro is their game and you will be hearing a lot more about them over the next wee while.

Polymath creates everything from slick disco jams to acid-fuelled electro from his base in the Highlands, has an EP out on London label Mofo HiFi, and a heap of upcoming remixes for the likes of Arveene & Misk, Blende, Cornershop and Suxx on the horizon, as well as more of his own material. Add in Glasgow’s PMCQ and Everything Else Sucks’ own Eezma on warm-up duties and you’re looking at quite a party.

So, to win a pair of tickets for it, simply email your name to everythingelsesucks2008@hotmail.com with the heading ‘Kiosque Comp‘ before 5pm on Thursday 28 April when the winner will be picked at random.

Good luck!

Yogi from One Up Records returns to DJing with a night of indie, post-rock, electronica and shoegaze in the wee function room downstairs at Drummonds. Aye, when it comes to this stuff, he knows it better than most.