Founder member and former bassist of punk legends Siouxsie and The Banshees Steven Severin has moved into the world of film scoring since the band’s final tour in 2002, and this Saturday he’ll be performing a new electronica-based soundtrack to accompany 1932 German film Vampyr  (I’m sure you can guess the subject matter) at Peacock Visual Arts.

Looking at the other dates on the tour, which are in much larger cinemas and galleries, this should be rather cool indeed given the intimate surroundings at Peacock.  It’ll also be about as far removed from the world of Twilight as is possible, which is a bonus…

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 

Alternative art, craft and design fair Tea Cosy is back, and with 26 Scottish makers of nice things peddling their wares, it’s a pretty good bet for picking up Christmas gifts a lot more interesting than the usual TV-advertised, celebrity-endorsed pap that we’re currently being bombarded with.

There’s also a Peacock Visual Arts print shop, live music, and the chance to make some (free) DIY stuff courtesy of Gray’s Art Material Shop (who’ll also be providing a gift-wrapping service for the ham-fisted).

Peacock Visual Arts‘ open exhibition is back after a two-year break, and while there will be plenty on show from established artists, the most interesting stuff may well be from those of whom we know very little.

It kicks-off from 6-8pm on Friday 11 November with an open-to-all wee shindig, complete with mulled wine and mince pies.  Hmmm, sounds suspiciously Christmassy.  A full six weeks before Christmas.  Ach well, might as well start as you mean to go on…

Screenprint: “Evermore” by David McCracken

We drew your attention to this a while ago, and now it’s upon us;  a fantastic-looking three-day weekend of new music curated by the reliable hand(s) of Interesting Music Promotions as part of the Sound Festival.  There’s so much going on here to look forward to, I don’t know where to start.  So I won’t.  No, that’s not a cop-out.  Honest.  Handily for us all however (winkface), there are potted bios of (and links to) each act on the event’s Facebook page for you to salivate over in preparation.  Some of them you’ll have heard of, some of them you won’t, all of them have the potential to create something special.  Here’s the running order as it stands (it’s slightly different from the attached poster).  Have fun.

Friday 28th October

The Boats 10.15

Patrick Keenan 9.30

Capitals 8.45

Boy With Compass 8.00

Saturday 29th October

Swimmer One DJ set 23.00

Indian Red Lopez 22.00

Kasule 21.00

Luxury Car 20.00

Fiona Soe Paing 19.00

Mathew Collings 18.00

Cara Mitchell 17.00

Sunday 30th October

Conquering Animal Sound 22.00

Frog Pocket 21.00

Flaxman 20.00

Esperi 19.00

Seas, Starry 18.00

Jo Mango 17.00

Emily Scott 16.00

From Wednesday 19th October | Academy Shopping Centre | Free

This was going to be yer usual post telling you about an art exhibition at The Academy shopping centre that opens on Thursday;  it’s called Maps, and features work loosely-based on the noble art of cartography by Donald Watson, Sophie Ormerod, Naomi Leckie and Anna Geerdes. Kick-off is on Thursday evening (at 6.30pm, with the promise of a free drinky for the liggers) and it runs until the 24th of this month.  Here’s the Facebook event page for it.  Fantastic.  Under normal circumstances, that would be it, the usual benign “whatsonery” that is our wont.

Something else may pique your interest however, namely the location of the aforementioned artsyness, because, my wee friends, the day before (Wednesday 19th October) sees the grand opening of another exhibition in the same space.  Aye, the shortlisted designs for the Union Terrace Gardens thing are being unveiled (no doubt accompanied by mucho fanfare, flag-waving and Christ knows what else). They’re being quite protective about it too, as this excellent Aberdeen Voice piece  on how yer-nae-even-allowed-to-take-photos-of-the-f**king-thing demonstrates.  Unbelievable,  prescient given last week’s events at the picturesque Braehead “retail destination” too.

For interest, here’s an email that the project’s PR fluffers The Big Partnership have been firing round various organisations (found via a simple Google search)

Good afternoon 

I am writing from The BIG partnership PR consultancy on behalf of ACSEF regarding the transformation of Union Terrace Gardens.

The City Garden Project has secured interest of globally renowned, award-winning architects and their designs for the Gardens will be unveiled on 18th of October with an exhibition opening its doors to the public on 19th of October 2011. I wonder if it would be possible to deliver a number of leaflets to your organisation for your customers and staff to peruse and take away detaining this information?

We are confident that the designs will inspire the public, capture their imagination and put to rest the negative perceptions which have surrounded the project to date.

The overall ambition of the City Garden Project is to transform Aberdeen’s city centre by creating a new, green and vibrant heart that will become a destination for residents and the catalyst for the regeneration of Union Street and its surroundings, ensuring that we attract new investment, business and people.

This is a project of national significance that is instrumental in helping Aberdeen become a 21st century world energy city. It has the potential to put Aberdeen on the cultural world map and make sure that we continue to punch above our weight in economic contribution to Scotland and the UK.

Following the public exhibition, the jury will select a winning design in mid-November, after taking consideration of the feedback from the public and recommendations from an expert technical panel. In December, the winning design and TIF business case will be put forward to Aberdeen City Council. The council will then decide if the project is to proceed to planning.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

I’ll leave you to deconstruct that at your leisure.  See you on Wednesday.  Don’t forget your camera…

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)

Two new exhibitions open at Peacock Visual Arts this weekend: Inchoate Landscapes, a new suite of prints (pictured below) from recognised Scottish artist Toby Paterson and Black and White, a selection of monochrome work by the likes of John Bellany and David Shrigley. Previews for both from 6-8pm on Friday 9 September with all welcome…

A double opening on Friday from 6pm: Natalie McIlroy’s Migrate, Replicate which features large-scale video projections of Scottish landscapes (below, until 27 August) and Drawing Connections, a series of prints from Hannah Redpath (until 30 July).