Another day, another pair of tickets to give away, this time courtesy of Midnight Resistance Promotions.  You lucky people.  You’ve only got a few days to enter this one, so get your wee bottoms in gear…

Brighton psych-folkster Chris T-T has more than a few strings to his bow;  described by The Independent as “a national gem”, and with eight albums (and a bunch of EPs/singles) under his belt, he’s a true modern troubadour whose beautifully-crafted lyrics on life, love and politics will strike a chord with anyone in possession of a soul.

He’s also a regular columnist for The Morning Star, charity fundraiser, speaker and panellist at various songwriting and digital seminars/workshops, and has been creating an indispensable photographic archive of every toilet he’s visited since 2010 on Twitter (see the hashtag #loo2012 for this year’s entries).

He pays Cellar 35 (and, no doubt, its bog) a visit on his “Sings Jeremy Clarkson To Sleep Tour” for forthcoming EP The Taking Of Clarkson’s Lighthouse which ”tells the tragic (made up) tale of a divisive genius TV presenter, a violent island uprising and the last surviving Fraggle.”  The mind boggles.  Support on the night comes from London multi-instrumentalist She Makes War and local singer-songwriter Davy Shanks.

Here’s a video for Chris’s 2010 single “Nintendo.”  Watch it, then find out how to win tickets below.

Okay, to be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets to the show, simply answer this easy question:

Which controversial BBC presenter is referenced in Chris T-T’s upcoming E.P?

…and email it to midnightresistance.promotions@gmail.com under the subject “Chris TT Comp” by Midnight on Sunday 22 April, after which the winner will be picked at random.  Good luck!

Tickets:  Fri  Sat  (inc. options for both nights)

We’ve already told you how good the second Little Kicks album is, and with this year shaping up to be a good one for the Aberdeen band, we’d like to draw your attention to two special hometown shows they’re playing at the end of March.  We can even get a couple of you into them for free…

Cellar 35 is the venue, and those of you who’ve been there will know it’s small,  however, it should provide precisely the kind of  house party vibe the band are after for these gigs.  Over the two nights in a specially-decorated-for-the-occasion room we’re promised the new album in full, old tracks, new tracks, covers, special guest support acts and DJs until 1am.  Sounds cool huh?

Weekend tickets are already shifting quickly, but we’ve got a pair of them to give away (the winners get a copy of the album each too).

To stand a chance of getting your mitts on them, simply send an email stating your name to info@thekiosque.com under the heading “Little Kicks Comp” before noon on Friday 16 March.

Good luck!

The Little Kicks

We’ve got some tickets to give away for this, and there are some wise words from BBC Radio Scotland’s Vic Galloway too, so keep reading…

I’ve written things like “cracking line-up” on here countless times over the last couple of years, but this, this, genuinely does such a phrase  justice.

The good folks at Interesting Music Promotions have put together a show that may well be one of the highlights of the upcoming festive season, before said festive season really kicks in, so here’s who’s playing:

Edinburgh-based (though former residents of this parish) indie-electronica band/art-collective FOUND have had quite the year; releasing critically-acclaimed album “Factorycraft” on Chemikal Underground, taking their award-winning musical cupboard thing Cybraphon to places new, playing in India and putting out a record made of chocolate (yes, really).  Here’s a video of them playing in the bakery in Fife where said sweet audio treat was made:

Staying in the magic kingdom, St Andrews’ Kid Canaveral haven’t had too bad a time of it lately either; their debut album “Shouting At Wildlife” on Fence is Scottish indie-pop at its very best, they’ve just been on tour and put out a single with “Mercury-nominated” (you have to write that every time you’re about to mention him now, it’s mandatory) King Creosote, and played the SXSW festival/industry bunfight in Texas earlier in the year.

So far, so great, add in Rick Redbeard (of The Phantom Band) and rising folkster Iona Marshall and things start to look even better, it doesn’t finish there however, as on DJ duties between and after the bands is none other than BBC Radio Scotland’s Vic Galloway.

We hassled the very busy Mr Galloway into answering a couple of rather rambling questions, and here’s what he had to say:

We’ve got not one but two pairs of tickets to give away for this show, and some posters too. Find out how below the flyer:

Underground Chicagoan hero Tim Kinsella’s leftfield, avant-garde indie band Joan of Arc return to the city armed with album number 13 (!), the Steve Albini-produced “Life Like” which also features the return of fantastically-named guitarist and long-time collaborator Victor Villareal (from Kinsella’s Cap’n Jazz and Owls projects).

Sure, it’s still got that experimental edge to it as you’d expect, but perhaps it’s a little more, um, accessible than some of the other JoA stuff, and may well be all the better for it. Here they are in Texas earlier this year:

Supporting are Liverpool’s Hot Club de Paris who write hook-filled, harmony-laden, intricate and lyrically witty three-minute pop songs. The lead track from their new EP on Moshi Moshi “The Rise and Inevitable Fall of the High School Suicide Cluster Band” is “a slow and wistful jam about singer and baritone guitarist Paul Rafferty’s scrape with the law whilst attempting the liberation of a 3 metre fibreglass Pterodactyl from a derelict fun fair with a couple of friends.” I can’t really add to that.

Making up the local portion of the bill are instrumental post-rock/shoegaze outfit Seas, Starry who with only 3 or 4 shows under their belts are fast-becoming very promising indeed, and the grungy/Sebadoh/Dinosaur Jr-esque Min Diesel.

Win Stuff:

Right, to stand the chance of winning one of two pairs of tickets to the show, or one of three runners-up prizes of an exclusive Joan of Arc poster, simply email your name to info@thekiosque.com with the subject “Joan of Arc Comp” before midnight on Saturday 25 June. We’ll get in touch with the lucky winners soon after…

Good luck!

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!

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UPDATE: The Pictish trail has had to pull out of the show for family reasons. More news on any additions to the line-up when we get it. The competition is still open though…

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This, my wee friends, is a belter of a line-up, we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away for it too, see below for details…

Lone Pigeon is the enigmatic Gordon Anderson, formerly of the incredibly influential Beta Band and latterly frontman of The Aliens. He’s been doing solo material for years, and the fact that the esteemed Domino Records saw fit to release a 7-disc boxset of his work last year tells all. This is a very rare live appearance from someone whom his brother (who just happens to be King Creosote) describes as “a wanderer, a pilgrim, a messianic jew, a dervish, a vandal, a prophet, but mainly a lost soul.” Aye, that just about covers it…

Joining Mr Pigeon is The Pictish Trail AKA Fence Records‘ Johnny Lynch. We’ve featured him and his brand of warm, lo-fi electronic folk on the site before, just how he ended up touring with comedian Josie Long last year will come as a complete mystery to those who are familiar with his on-stage ‘banter’ however. I jest, his latest EP of fifty 30-second songs ‘In Rooms’ is great (as is his debut album of a couple of years ago) and the stuff he does as one half of electropop duo Silver Columns is worth a look too…

A late addition to the line up is a solo set from Lomond ‘Ziggy’ Campbell. He’s in Found, who’ve just released an excellent debut album on Chemikal Underground, they played a superb show in The Tunnels at the tail end of last year as well…

So, this is pretty much unmissable then, and to unmiss it without having to pay (thanks to the folks at Interesting Music Promotions), simply email your name to interestingmusic@hotmail.co.uk with the heading ‘Lone Pigeon Comp’ before 5pm on Thursday 14 April, when one will be picked at random and win a pair of tickets to the show. Yas.

Last-minute much Mr Kiosque?

Well yes, yes I do thank you very much Mr Disembodied Voice From Above, which is why I’m telling you you’ve only got until 10am on Friday to win a pair of tickets for this gig courtesy of the fine, fine folks at Interesting Music Promotions.

Simply email thekiosque@googlemail.com before then with the heading ‘Emma and Adrian Comp’, tell us the name of their record label and we’ll pick one at random and get back to the winner on Friday morning…

Right, some background:  We’ve featured founder member of The Delgados and Chemikal Underground Records (*cough* competition clue *cough*) Emma Pollock before, and it’s great to see her back in the city.   Her second solo album ‘The Law of Large Numbers’, released earlier this year, is full of the kind of quirky, genre-spanning numbers you can hear on the beautiful video below, and in her own words  is ‘the truest representation of me as an individual – whatever that means.’  Well, it means you’re a pretty cool individual then Emma…

Labelmate, regular visitor to the city, recent winner of Ireland’s equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize and singer-songwriter extraordinaire Adrian Crowley also plays.  Q Magazine reckons he’s ‘like Leonard Cohen narrating a Tim Burton fairytale.’  Which is as clichéd a description as you can get, but one that annoyingly gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect…

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/10639800]

Read on for this week’s competition…

This week The Belmont is ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ for the release of THE WOLFMAN starring Benicio Del Toro as the man cursed to turn into a monster at full moon.  Features strong support from Sir Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt plus fantastic special effects and make up by the multi-Oscar winning Rick Baker, who has previous for this kind of thing through his work on American Werewolf in London…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS02xaTIdRI]

Also this week we have A SINGLE MAN (trailer).  A fabulous looking film, as you would expect being directed by fashion designer Tom Ford, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn by Colin Firth as a man conflicted by the grief felt by the death of his lover, a man, and the need to keep his sexuality a secret in 1960’s America.

As Sunday 14th February is Valentine’s Day we’ve got a special screening of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S at 6.30pm for all the lovers out there.

Other films screening this week include PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH’ BY SAPPHIRE, UP which is favourite to win Best Animated Film at the Oscars, and a one-off screening of Oscar-nominated documentary FOOD INC. on Mon 15th February at 6.30pm.

Read on for our weekly competition…

Friday 5th February sees the release of PRECIOUS (based on the novel ‘PUSH‘ by Sapphire).  Nominated for multiple Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes, this is a hard-hitting story of a young African American woman attempting to escape a lifetime of abuse.  The film features terrific performances from newcomer Gabby Sidibe, Golden Globe winner Monique and Mariah Carey…yes, you read that correctly!  See our ‘Precious’ preview/competition (there’s still time to enter!) for the trailer.

Also screening this week are Oscar contenders THE HURT LOCKER, AN EDUCATION, A SERIOUS MAN and UP IN THE AIR.

On Wed 10th February at 1.30pm we have a special FREE screening of THE WOLFMAN in association with E4 Slackers Club.  Any student can claim a free ticket for this screening by signing up to the Slackers Club at box office.

Time for this week’s competition: As usual, to be in with a chance of winning two tickets to any film this week just answer the question below and email it to belmont@picturehouses.co.uk marked ‘Kiosque Competition’ before midnight on Sunday 5 February.

Nick Hornby has been nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of An Education, but which football team does he support?

a) Arsenal  b) Tottenham  c) Chelsea

Good luck!

To celebrate the release of PRECIOUS on Friday 5 February at The Belmont Picturehouse, we’ve got three copies of the book on which the film was based to give away. Read on for details…

Adapted from the bestselling novel Push by Sapphire, PRECIOUS tells the inspirational story of a girl whose struggle embodies America’s downtrodden youth. Pregnant by her father with her second child and taunted over her obesity and illiteracy by her peers, Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones’s life is one of unimaginable trauma and heartache…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-lklfr4_E&feature=related]

Growing up in New York’s unforgiving Harlem district, Precious is plagued by her drug-addicted father and deranged mother, who are not so much unwilling parents as outright unfit. Her home is the epitome of broken, but when she’s invited to an alternative school by a social worker (Carey), she discovers hope in the support around her. Encouraged not tormented, she becomes determined to turn her life around.

With Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry onboard as executive producers and Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz supporting, PRECIOUS seems destined for big-screen success,  bold direction and a brave central performance from newcomer Gabourey Sidibe have been stirring expectation since the film premiered at Sundance 2009. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but anyone who writes off PRECIOUS does so at their own peril. This is set to be one of the year’s big cinematic surprises and a serious awards contender.