Here’s the first in a new series of monthly posts from one of the city’s best venues, The Lemon Tree:

We’ve quite a music programme at The Lemon Tree this May!  From start to finish there really is something for everyone.   Here are some highlights and a full listing so you can handpick the shows you want to attend:

Kicking us off on the 4th May are the brilliant Three Blind Wolves.  Described as “loud, hairy and unpredictable” this Glasgow four-piece have been gathering pace of late.  With influences such as Led Zeppelin and Creedance Clearwater Revival this is certainly for those who are fans of old school rock.  They released their critically acclaimed mini-album last year, played a slot at T in the Park and have some European festivals lined up this summer.  Support comes from The Deportees and CS Buchan.

On the 17th we host Aberdeen’s own The Xcerts.  These local heroes return to play what will be a scintillating set comprising of old favourites such as Scatterbrain and Crisis In The Slow Lane and we may even be lucky enough to hear some new material.  Anyone who has been to their previous shows will know what a great singalong moment Aberdeen 1987 is, so this is a gig not to be missed.

We’ve got a good one on the 18th with The Pigeon Detectives playing The Lemon Tree as part of their Summer By The Sea tour.  These guys are festival favourites and can boast several hits including I’m Not Sorry and This Is An Emergency.  This will certainly be one for those who like bouncing around at gigs!  With platinum and gold albums under their belts it’s a great way to see them in a more intimate venue.

The Magnets are something a bit different…a band with no instruments!  This London a capella group perform the singing and backing track using nothing but vocals.  What’s more they perform tracks from bands and solo artists of past and present such as The Killers, Lady Gaga and Blur, with some Bon Jovi thrown in for good measure.  Check out some of their videos on YouTube to see what they are all about. These guys visit us on the 20th for what will be a great night of entertainment.

Admiral Fallow are a group from Glasgow who are really starting to turn heads.  Currently being championed by the likes of Elbow’s Guy Garvey and Edith Bowman, you can catch them at The Lemon Tree on the 23rd.  Playing a stunning brand of orchestral folk-pop they’re about to release their second album Tree Bursts In Snow.  We reckon this lot will be playing on some big stages this time next year so get in quick for an “I was there” gig.

We Were Promised Jetpacks are up on the 24th and this will be a cracker!  Known for their “thunderous” live performances they have been described as having the impact of Mogwai with the pop sensibilities of Bloc Party and Foals.  Their releases have been met with critical acclaim and the band has toured with the likes of Jimmy Eat World and Frightened Rabbit.  Having won the Best Live Act award at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards in March they are touring to promote new album In The Pit Of The Stomach.  With one of the band members fighting back from a serious illness recently we’re really pleased to welcome them to The Lemon Tree.

Not music shows per se but Howard Marks and John Peel’s Shed will appeal to those who like good tunes.  Howard has a fascinating story to tell and will be joining us for a talk on the 11th.  How many people can claim to be a drug smuggler, DJ, inmate, connected to the mafia and linked to the British Secret Service?Not many we’d imagine!  John Peels’s Shed is a story about a competition winner on the late DJ’s radio show who wins a box of records and sets out to listen to them all.  The performance features albums owned by John Peel and is an ode to radio and the legendary record collection.  This show is in our upstairs Studio space on the 22nd and was a five-star sell out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe.  You really shouldn’t miss it…

Full May Listings:

4th May –  Three Blind Wolves
5th May –  Same Faces
6th May –   Who’s Who
11th May – Howard Marks
12th May – Ultimate Eagles
13th May – James Grant
17th May – The Xcerts
18th May – The Pigeon Detectives
20th May – The Magnets
22nd May – Newton Faulkner – SOLD OUT
22nd May – John Peel’s Shed (The Lemon Tree Studio)
23rd May – Admiral Fallow
24th May – We Were Promised Jetpacks
25th May – Fat Hippy Records Showcase
26th May – Hedgehog Pie
27th May – Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio

Tickets can be booked at www.boxofficeaberdeen.com, by calling 01224 641122 or visiting any of our Box Office venues.  Get in quick to avoid disappointment and we’ll see you down the front!

Yes.  Bet there’s at least one person thinking:

Jazz?  I’m nae reading this…

More fool him, as there’s some very cool stuff on indeed,  here’s our pick of the shows during the festival:

Skadne Krek
Friday 16 March | The Blue Lamp |  10.30pm | £5

A Norwegian quartet who play mind-bending trip-hop-influenced rock and electronica with a definite punk attitude.  Just right for a late-night show.

Jazz on the Green
Saturday 17 March | Various Venues | 12.30pm | Free

Soulatino, Gerry Jablonski, Leppard & the Big Cats, Blow, Marisha Addison, Aberdeenshire Jazz Projects, MJ5, Scott Cruickshank, Colin Black & more playing in venues such as  The Carmelite, Old King’s Highway, Musa, Sopranos, R&B Music and, best of all, an outdoor stage in front of Cafe 52 on The Green.   Potentially an excellent afternoon out..  Update:  Here’s the schedule for the day

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Saturday 17 March | The Lemon Tree | 8.30pm | £15

Nine-piece melting pot of jazz, hip-hop and funk from Chicago, known for their appearances on Later With Jools Holland and work with Gorillaz, as well as releases on labels like Honest Jon’s and Choice Cuts. Oh yeah, eight of them are brothers, which is absolutely insane.

Kind of Larkin
Sunday 18 March | The Blue Lamp | 2.30pm | £10

The Dave Batchelor Quintet and well-known Scottish actor David Hayman celebrate poet Philip Larkin’s love of jazz with an afternoon of verse and music.  Different.

That’s just a selection.  Click here for the full programme and ticket details

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

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

Saturday 14 January | Peacock Visual Arts | 7.30pm | £11.10 (From One Up)
Steven Severin – Vampyr
Siouxsie & The Banshees’ founder member soundtracks a silent film. Info

Saturday 21 January | Cafe Drummonds | 8pm | £6  Tickets
The Xcerts, Flood of Red, Duke
“Xciled” (heh) Aberdonian indie band return home

Saturday 21 January | The Tunnels | 8pm | £12  Tickets 
The Black Daliah Murder, Skeletonwitch, Fleshgod Apocalypse
“Face-melting” death metal from Michigan 

Sunday 22 January | The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £15  Tickets
The Maccabees, Trailer Trash Tracys
London indie types tour their new album 

Monday 23 January | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £5  Tickets
Tubelord, Olympians, Cameo Colours, You And What We Are
Synthy, poppy, mathy, rocky outfit from Kingston Upon Thames headline

Friday 27 January | Cafe Drummonds | 8pm | £4
Amy Sawers
Welcome headline show for local garage/country/rock/everything else-influenced singer & band

Saturday 28 January | The Tunnels | 9pm | £? (Tickets in One Up)
Skank
Nineties house night reunion with guest DJ/chef Michael Kilkie

Thursday 2 February | Cafe Drummonds | 8.30pm  | £5
Paws, DOLFiNZ, Min Diesel
Double header from two of Scotland’s most exciting new noisy indie bands

Friday 3 February | The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £8  Tickets
Rachel Sermanni
Hotly-tipped Scottish folkster/singer-songwriter (pictured below)

Thursday 9 February | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £6  Tickets
Aerials Up, Stanley, Brown Bear & The Bandits, Margaret Finlayson
Melodic, string-laden Glasgow outfit & great support

Tuesday 14 February | The Tunnels | 8pm | £6  Tickets
Pulled Apart By Horses, The Computers
Raucous Leeds post-hardcore band headline

Tuesday 14 February | AECC | 7pm | £42.50 (!)  Tickets
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
That guy who used to be in that band tours his album 

Okay, okay, truth be told, this should have been up sooner, I’m blaming festive lethargy, anyway, it’s tonight…

APB took a rather incongruous journey from Ellon, via the John Peel show, to cult status in early 80s New York, they reunited for a 25th anniversary show a few years ago, and their brand of angular funk still sounds as fresh as ever.  This lot are proper legends in Aberdeen and far, far beyond.  Support comes from everyone’s favourite  Scott Walker-esque pop weirdos Stanley and recently-returned energetic indie types Marionettes.  An excellent excuse to wake up with a hangover on Hogmanay…

Like it or not, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and tradition dictates that Friday will see Union Street do its best Apocalypse Now impression as roaming office parties napalm the city centre with an alcohol-fuelled mix of testosterone, estrogen, casual violence and chips.  Great.  One way to avoid this annual nightmare is to hit Bedford Records‘ bash at The Lemon Tree however…

The line-up is a good ‘un, we’ve written about most of these bands before, and you should know these three by now at least;  IndianRedLopez use the show to celebrate the release of this, Stanley have been on form this year, putting out this and finally finishing off an album which we should (hopefully) see soon, and The Deportees are back gigging again after a few months off.

We’d also like to draw your attention to the other two bands on the bill however; Peterhead’s Velvet Audio have been turning heads of late with their brand of hard-to-pin-down, sometimes straight-out rocky, sometimes incredibly intricate stuff which bodes well for the future, and Bedford signings Maydays bring some poppiness from the far north (they formed all the way up in Caithness), check out a tune from them below.  See?  Told you it was a good line-up.

Maydays – By Appointment To… by Bedford Records 

This should be a rather special show.  Former Arab Strapper Moffat and composer Bill Wells’  ”Everything’s Getting Older” is easily one of the albums of this year, and a perfectly-pitched ode to the onset of middle-age.  To celebrate the tour, they’re also releasing the “Cruel Summer” EP which, yes, does indeed feature a cover of the Bananarama track of the same name (video below).  More excellent stuff from a songwriter who seems to have nailed the rather tricky act of mixing the melancholic with the hilarious…

Friday 14 October | Cafe Drummonds | 7.30pm | £6 | Tickets
Copy Haho, The Douglas Firs, Good Police
16 miles- from-hometown show by Stonehaven indie-popsters

Friday 14 October | Snafu | 11pm | £10 | Tickets
The 2 Bears, Joe Goddard, Raf Daddy
Joe Hot Chip’s housey side project

Saturday 15 October | The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £13 | Tickets
Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells
Former Arab Strapper & friend tour one of the albums of the year (pic below)

Wednesday 19 October | The Tunnels | 8pm | £10 | Tickets
Sons & Daughters, Peggy Sue
Opening night of Clash magazine tour feat. the Glasgow indie outfit

Wednesday 19 October | Cafe Drummonds | 8pm | £5 | Tickets
French Wives
Excellent Glasgow indie-pop types

Saturday 22 October | Various venues | 7pm | £7 | Tickets
Oxjam Aberdeen
Annual multi-venue event feat. some superb local bands. More info here

Monday 24 October | Music Hall | 6.30pm | £14.85 | Tickets
Noah and the Whale
Folk-popsters play show to be broadcast live on BBC Radio 1

Wednesday 26 October | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £9 | Tickets
Scroobius Pip, B Dolan
Rapper tours his solo album

Friday 28-Sunday 30 October | Peacock Visual Arts | Various times | £22 weekend/£9 Fri/£10Sat/Sun | Tickets
IMP Present Sound@Peacock Visual Arts
Excellent-looking weekend of new music. More info here

Friday 28 October | The Tunnels | 7.30pm | £7.50 | Tickets
The Birthday Suit, Deportees, The Winter Tradition
Idlewild’s Rod Jones’ new band & great support

Saturday 29 October |The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £15.50 | Tickets
Roddy Woomble
More Idlewild-ery as Woomble stops-off on his UK tour

Monday 31 October | The Lemon Tree | 7.30pm | £14 | Tickets
King Creosote, Kid Canaveral
Mercury-nominated Fifer & superb support

(Don’t forget to pop into One Up Records, where there may well be cheaper tickets available for some of these shows)

…at which the London-based indie-folkster will play songs from her well-received second LP Virtue, a break-up album if ever there was one (it’s well documented that a split from her fiancé inspired much of it). She’s been known to throw in the odd cover of the likes of Pixies in her shows too.  Here’s the video for her new single Paper Forest (In the Afterglow of Rapture), which is released today (Monday 19 September).

A preview of a collaborative exhibition featuring new work from local artists in response to the excellent, weird electronica of Fiona Soe Paing. At 6pm on Wednesday Fiona will perform a piece featuring music, projections and live vocals, all of which which is guaranteed to make post-work/tea-time that wee bit more interesting. The exhibition itself then runs until Sunday 29 May.