I don’t go to gigs as often as I’d like. This is not only because I’m an antisocial bastard. Hey, I have a job you know. I have responsibilities! I have episodes of True Blood and Curb Your Enthusiasm to watch!

 Anyway now and again there is a gig that comes up that I absolutely have to go to.  It’s usually something small, and intimate, with great local musicians or obscure antifolk heroes from far afield. And then I feel something stirring inside me. It’s an odd feeling. The desire to actually get off the sofa and leave the house fills my body and mind. I leap to my feet and grab my coat. “I’m going out, and I don’t know when I’ll be home!” I cry to my long-suffering fiancée. “But it’ll probably be by 11pm” I add just in case she changes the locks while I’m out. 

 I stride purposefully to the bus stop, with my headphones on, playing some stirring anthemic music like Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ or Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. I get to the bus stop and realise I missed the bus.. anyway I’ll spare you the details.

 The point I was trying to make is that this December, there are what feels like HUNDREDS of such gigs. And that’s on the top of the seasonal events – the house parties, work Christmas parties, and birthdays.. you name it, it’s happening in December (and probably on the same day).

Here’s the lowdown on the gigs I would like to go to. I can’t promise I will be able to attend them all, but I will try. And in January, when I’m destitute and downhearted I might even report back on a few. Edinburgh folk, maybe I’ll see you at one or two of them.

3 December: Leith Tape Club featuring The Pictish Trail, Rachael & Laura Lancaster & Tisso Lake

Only 30 tickets can be pre-booked as it’s a tiny venue – get yours before they sell out!

4 December: Ten Tracks Presents: FOUND, Meursault & Panda Su 

Ten Tracks have a great deal for this gig – go over to their site via the link above and subscribe to a year’s worth of tracks for £10 and get a ticket absolutely bloody free! Alternatively you can prebook tickets for £7.

This is especially exciting as the I Hear a New World bundle I compiled is due to appear on the site very soon so you will be able to download it as part of the subscription. More info on this soon.

5 December: Schwervon!, Withered Hand, Enfant Bastard, The Pineapple Chunks

I wrote about this the other day Get tickets here

11 December: eagleowl single launch, the Bowery

Read my recent review of the single

12 December: Trampoline all dayer 

Details below courtesy of Euan, musician, promoter and blogger over at the Steinberg Principle 

2pm – 10pm.  It’s a fiver for the whole day or 3 quid with a student card. The artists playing are: Mitchell Museum, Lyons, Debutant, Jonnie Common, The Scottish Enlightenment, Esperi, Jill Leighton, Lady North, Conquering Animal Sound.

 There will be art work on display from the wonderful photographers We Sink Ships and Glasgow Podcart will be recording their show live during the day.

12 December: Song, By Toad Christmas Party

I think this is the last night that the Bowery are operating as a venue as well so might be worth popping along to give them a good send off.  Here’s what Matthew said about that:

 Toad Christmas Party at the Bowery on the 12th December, with Meursault, Jesus H. Foxx and the usual open-mic nonsense beforehand.  Rory from Broken Records has promised some violin-and-loop-pedal madness during that bit, which I am well looking forward to.

Did I miss any? Please tell me I didn’t, I need my bed just thinking about this! 

The wind is battering the windows, whistling through the doors and buzzing through the nooks and crannies of my ancient old tenement flat. It’s winter alright.

I’m playing the new single by eagleowl, Sleep The Winter. It’s achingly sad, like standing on the windswept petrol-perfumed deck of a ferry and seeing a beautiful coastline of a country you never wanted to leave fading into the distance. 

Today is unofficial ‘Sleep The Winter’ day. Almost all my favourite Scottish music blogs are very excited about this release and rightly so. As well as making amazing music, eagleowl are lovely people and the slow, sure beating heart of Edinburgh’s alternative scene. The addition of this band to any bill makes it a special night. 

They are launching the single with a gig at the Bowery on 11th December and the 13th Note on the 14th itself.

In the meantime, check out their last EP, For The Thoughts You Never Had on Bandcamp (you choose what to pay)

More info:

www.eagleowlattack.co.uk

www.kilterschmilter.co.uk

Hey all,

After an amazing year in our Edinburgh basement, the Bowery has decided it is time to emerge, chrysalis like, into the real world. As of December 14th, we will not longer be running in the basement of the Roxy. We’ve decided that with things changing in the running of the building, it would suit us more to run the Bowery as an outside promotions company and random purveyor of wild parties.

We’d like to thank everyone for your support over the past year. It’s been an amazing time and we are gobsmacked at what we’ve managed to achieve. Although it’s been a killer amount of work, it’s been incredibly exciting creating a space which has become so cherished in the music community, having the opportunity to put on acts like Diane Cluck as well as the local bands we love. We hope you’ll carry on drinking with us wherever we are and raise a teacup of gin with us long into the future.

The building will continue running as an independent arts and music venue after we leave. Our landlords, the EUS, aren’t kicking us out to give over the space to a commercial enterprise. They’ve helped support our existence over the past year because they believe in the values we’ve built the Bowery on – supporting grass-roots promoters, local suppliers and small intimate gigs as well as more financially viable ones – and they’ll continue these principles in the running of the space. So please all keep on supporting the independent local scene, wherever it may be.

Although this is sad in some ways as it’s the end of an era for us, we’re excited about the future and the new great things we’ll be doing over the next year. Keep in touch, and come down soon for a drink with us before we go!

Love and red lipstick,
Jane and Ruth
x

Image by posteverything.co.uk

This week brought the apparent news that the people behind the Bowery, a key focal point of Edinburgh’s revitalised scene, are being told they can no longer use the venue. The above poster represents just one of the many great gigs I’ve been to there, and there’s been very many others that I wasn’t able to go to but would have loved to. The standard of gigs there has been incredible in the year they’ve been going. In fact, now I think of it, I even played a couple of songs there at the Song By Toad Christmas Party last year (ok apart from that).

Anyway, Toad seems to have managed to engage the people behind the decision in some kind of dialogue over at his blog, so head over there to keep abreast of developments (ok, I admit it, that was just an excuse to use the word “abreast”). It doesn’t actually seem to be THE END as much as there are some changes afoot, as one of the gals behind the venue Jane Flett has said on Facebook:

“The landlords aren’t taking over in some cynical money grabbing coup, don’t worry! There are changes afoot in the building because this is what is needed to keep it alive and sustainable as an independent arts space, but hopefully The Bowery will remain involved and doing the boozy musicy things we do.”

So that’s good news then. I think… what they need is support though, and there’s a 1st birthday bash happening this weekend with a great line up so why not head along if you’ve not been before.

Twenty Tracks

 Meantime, rather ironically, The Bowery have a new Ten Tracks compilation with a lot of great music for a single squid. They are totally into the same antifolk/New York vibe (if you hadn’t guessed by the name) as I have been for quite some time, and which people like Withered Hand also strongly resonate with. In fact, his label SL Records have also got a Ten Tracks bundle.

So here’s the link – but remember though to save a pound coin in your piggy bank for the I Hear a New World compilation coming soon, which also happens to include a lovely Withered Hand track, and many more besides.

Vote for Song, By Toad & Under The Radar

Both Song, By Toad and The Scotsman’s Under The Radar, two blogs which I have mentioned many times around here, have been nominated for some kind of industry awards thingamajig arranged by an industry thingamajig known only as ‘Record of The Day’.

So go and log in to the site to vote presumably you have to log in to stop Matthew Toad and the UtR crew sitting hitting refresh and voting themselves 100 million times Anyway, their success is great for everyone who’s involved in Scottish music so make sure you support them.

 Aside: There are a bunch of other categories too, including best music magazine etc – and I noted that The Skinny Magazine are strangely absent, even from the free magazine category, which seems a bit strange given the amount of music the mag covers, including some pretty high profile bands/artists. The Skinny are also totally ignored by The Scottish Magazine Awards, which again strikes me as strange. Any conspiracy theories?