Music: Polar Bear Club: Skibunny
June 30, 2010
Friday 2 July | The Tunnels | 11pm | £3/£2 before 12
Promoters, DJs, remixers and a band, Belfast’s Skibunny seem to have things pretty well-covered to say the least. It’s the band version we get at The Tunnels, the final date of a scoot round the UK to celebrate the release of their new EP. Nice, catchy, shimmery electro-pop is what they do, and very well they do it too…
As you’ll have gathered, this is a Polar Bear Club night, so you get local DJs Ross Calder and JJ Bull as well (another promoter and someone who’s in a band respectively, heh).
Music: Dada Live Arts: Fiona Soe Paing & More
June 17, 2010
Sunday 20 June | Cafe Drummonds | 8pm | £3
Aberdeen-based Fiona Soe Paing’s beautiful electronica, beats, visuals and vocals have been registering ever-louder on radars across the country of late, so this chance to catch her in her hometown is very welcome indeed. Listen to her single ‘Deep Song’ here and see why the buzz is entirely justified. We’ll be featuring more from Fiona ahead of the release of her upcoming DVD/EP on the site soon. Stay tuned…
That’s not all however, as the show also features Katie Thomas, The Brothers Reid, James JK Hughes and Tessacalls. Looks like a good way to wind down the weekend, only three quid in too…
Fiona Soe Paing
Music: Subsource, Super Six, A-ZI Cool
June 9, 2010
Friday 11 June | The Tunnels | 10pm | £6.50
I hardly read the NME these days, but their description of Subsource as being ‘like The Prodigy teaching a noise violation seminar to Sonic Boom Six’ is pretty nail-on-the-heid. Cheers NME.
Consisting of ’a Cambridge educated British-Chinese science prodigy, a Norwegian born multi instrumentalist, a nu-skool breaks double bass player and a D ‘n’ B drummer’, the Surrey outfit are an unlikely mix of electro, punk, metal, dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass. It works though. Which is why they get invited to loads of festivals and have worked with the likes of the aforementioned Prodigy and Akil from Jurrasic 5…
Support comes from local funk band Super Six and hip-hop types AZ-I Cool, both of whom have new EPs done, dusted and available on the night (the first 40 through the door get a free CD in fact…)
Music: Mr Scruff Interview
May 7, 2010
Saturday 15 May | The Warehouse | 10pm | £12.50 Tickets
Genre-hopping Manchester DJ/producer Mr Scruff is back in town touring his Keep It Unreal night and anyone who’s caught one of his marathon sets in the past will know what to expect, this time around we’ve got a whole five hours to look forward to as well…
We caught up with him to talk tunes, gig preparation (there’s lots of it in his case) and how he ended up running a tea company…
Music: Do It!
May 6, 2010
Friday 7 May | The Tunnels | 1opm | £5
We always seem to end up covering the Do It! nights, probably ‘cos they’re invariably ace parties. It’s not just us though, they’ve recently been featured in the excellent Juxtapoz mag for example…
Anyway, this is going to be a stormer as expat Aberdonian (and recent singing to Big Dada records) Offshore joins the regulars. Big things are expected from him this year, very big things indeed, check out this mix from Bonafide zine for a few eclectic, beat-laden pointers as to why…
Music: Kill Em All
April 21, 2010
Thursday 22 April | Snafu | 10pm | £6/£5adv
The Filthy Dukes bring their famed Kill Em All night North from its home at London’s Fabric for the first of a new bi-monthly residency at The Dirty Hearts Club. They’ll be joined by KEA co-promoter and one of the DJs/producers du jour Stopmakingme whose eclectic mix of electro, techno, house, post-punk, pop and anything in between pretty much sums up the ethos of the night. Which sounds fine by us. Check out some mixes here, they sound fine by us too…
Thursday 1 April | The Warehouse | 7pm | £8adv/£10 door
There really should have been a bigger preview of this but for various reasons, erm, there’s not. We were never going to let it slip past without sticking something up though, so, in brief:
Epic FatCat Records-signed Lanarkshire band The Twilight Sad. Released second album last year. Loud.
Glasgow oddballs Take A Worm For A Walk Week. Intense.
Electronics-infused locals Indian Red Lopez (read more here). Yas.
You should go.
Music: Conquering Animal Sound, Debutant, Admiral Fallow
March 30, 2010
Thursday 1 April | Snafu | 10pm | £3
The first of three single launch nights around Scotland for Edinburgh’s fantastically-monikered Gerry Loves Records sees them join forces with The Dirty Hearts Club in what should be the perfect way to round off a night which for many will kick-off with The Twilight Sad show at The Warehouse …
Here’s the deal; they’re launching a rather lovely-looking split 7″ single featuring loops, beats ‘n’ sample merchants Conquering Animal Sound (pictured below) and Aberdonian spacey-pop type Debutant. You can get the single (and hear a preview) from their excellent website but, it goes without saying, picking one up in person at this show is the way to go. Added support comes from Admiral Fallow (formerly The Brother Louis Collective) and the DHC DJs…
Music/Arts: Pop Boutique/Do It!
March 10, 2010
Pop Boutique: Saturday 13 & Sunday 14 March | 22 Schoolhill | 10am-5pm| Free
Do It!: Saturday 13 March | The Tunnels | 9pm | £3
A couple of events this weekend in aid of social care charity VSA:
First up, in the old Harley Clothing store at 22 Schoolhill, Pop Boutique (Facebook event page) gives you the chance to buy exclusive pieces from young Scottish artists, designers and creative bods…
Then it’s off down The Tunnels from 9pm on the Saturday for an afterparty courtesy of the Do It! crew. A move from their regular haunt of Cellar 35 means they can kick up things a notch, so expect all the things they’re good at (great visuals, eclectic selectors, funk, house, 80s tunes, dancing, artwork, that kind of stuff) to be somewhat multiplied and amplified, which, to state the screamingly obvious, is a good thing. Soundtracked by Do It! resident White Chocolate alongside guest Kid Bell, the night also sees the launch of the Aberdeen Sketch Book project (look! another Facebook event page). Aye, this lot know how to fuse art and music together alright. More power to them…
Music: Indian Red Lopez Interview & Video
February 25, 2010
Guitars, electronics and visuals outfit Indian Red Lopez are of the brightest prospects from round these parts right now, and last year’s Castles Incomplete EP turned more than a few heads on its release. With an appearance at the Fence Homegame festival on the horizon, we asked frontman Mike Chang what they’re up to at the moment and to introduce a cool little video edit they’ve been working on…
We’ve featured IRL on the site a few times now, but for the slower ones up the back, tell us a bit about yourselves:
We’re just 5 lads from Aberdeenshire and one from the arse end of nowhere (!!), who’ve come together to make music and art, put it all together and present it as (hopefully) an all-round audio/visual experience. It’s what we’ve wanted to do from the very beginning, it’s just taken us a while to get where we are musically, and into our frame of mind (whatever that may be). Incorporating the visual relevance of it all can take time too, we’re always trying to figure out better/more effective, interesting ways of presenting our visual ideas.
Photo: Neil Henderson
