Something lovely for a Friday morning. Canadian Alfie Jurvanen, otherwise known as Bahamas, does his gentle thing with this great track Lost in the Light from 2012. You might also want to check out this version which features the mighty kd lang on backing vocals.
Now and again towns the size of Dunfermline are lucky – or smart – enough to catch great bands on the ascendant: Catfish and the Bottlemen played PJ Molloys last night and they were brilliant. A sturdy set of hook heavy songs delivered with plenty of attack and the funny, slight, charismatic Van McCann all you could want in a frontman. Go see before they turn into the Arctic Monkeys. (photo
That intro to Wichita Lineman that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, Good Vibrations and the seminal Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World – all of them graced by the impeccable bass playing of the most recorded bassist of all time – who just happened to be a woman. Why is Carol Kaye not better known? From the 1950s and into the
Lurking behind the ungainly name of First Aid Kit are beautiful Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg who have just brought out the perfect summer soundtrack. Stay Gold, the band’s third album, is packed with great tunes and gorgeous harmonies. Neither so dreary as Haim, nor so noodly and wistful as many current female singers, First Aid Kit are recommended summer listening with or without sunshine.
Genius lyrics and great accents here from legendary country partnership Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty.
Suggest you devote three minutes of your Friday afternoon to this beautiful lament for a lost brother by Norwegian indie star Jonas Alaska…
The recent Oscar winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom tells of the amazing vocalists who often went ‘unsung’. Some of the music business’s greatest backing singers were failed stars, others were simply greasingers without the mania or the will required to be frontmen. One of the very best was Merry Clayton whose vocal on the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter is the stuff of legend. When the Stones were in LA to
This article first appeared over 10 years ago on a website called Tartan Umbrella. Veteran Scots actor John Cairney, who was living in New Zealand at the time, is won over by the passion and thoughtfulness of a live performance by The Proclaimers in Auckland and recognises a new brand of Scottishness being taken around the world. He refers to the Reid twins as young – scary to think they
BalconyTV films bands from balconies around the world. The Black Cab Sessions films from black cabs. Fittingly for Scotland, Tenement TV is recorded in a tenement flat. In 2011, aged 23, Chae Houston, started filming bands from his flat in the west end of Glasgow with the help of his flatmates – cameraman Jamie Logie and Paul McJimpsey. At the start, Paul, who has a promotions company, used his contacts