a second café on the Southside of Glasgow. (DR)
70 Alistair Salveson CRAFTY PHILANTHROPIST
Salveson, together with David Weir, rescued Dovecot Studios, and housed it in the former women’s pool of the Infirmary Street Baths in Edinburgh and in turn saved one of the city’s treasured municipal buildings, offering a brilliant new open space for Edinburgh’s burgeoning arts and crafts community. (MP)
69 Tam Dean Burn THEATRE POLYMATH
Bulding on the success of his elegant adaptation of Luke Sutherland’s Venus as a Boy, Burn had another great year, reviving the Manifesto political cabaret night at the Tron, adapting The Way of the World for the Oran Mor, and a hugely acclaimed, festering, itchy turn in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at the Citz. (KI)
68 Anna Meredith WAYWARD COMPOSER
Meredith’s piece for the climax of this year’s Last night of the Proms involved over 800 musicians and singers in over half a dozen sites across the UK and a worldwide audience of around 40 million. Not bad for a 30 year old who teaches drums for a living and collaborates with everyone from the Mighty Boosh to Damon Albarn. (MR)
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78 David Harrower ANNUAL SCRIBE
The Glasgow-based playwright enjoyed a particularly productive year. A revival of his controversial 2005 play, Blackbird toured the UK, while he also provided the lyrical script for the National Theatre of Scotland’s piece about young people who grew up in care making the transition to independence, 365. (AR)
82 Peter Capaldi DEVILISHLY GOOD ACTOR
77 Come on Gang! INDIE INSPIRATION
Get past the novelty that drummer Sarah Tanat Jones also sings lead vocals and witness the ample skills on show from this Edinburgh power pop trio and you’ll concede this is no gimmick. We assume sublime singles ‘Wheels’ and ‘Start the Sound’ are only the start of it all. (MR)
76 Mary McGowne POWERED PR
The lovely lady who founded the Scottish Style Awards, created with the specific aim of honouring inspirational individuals and enterprises in the fields of retail culture ‘who enrich Scottish life’. This year’s winners included Shirley Manson, The Glass House and Deryck Walker. (MP)
75 Kate Valentine PROPER PRIMADONNA
This was the year in which Valentine, who was born in Inverness, firmly established herself as an operatic rising star. Performances in the Five:15 series earlier this year gave way to a role in Bedrich Smetana’s The Two Widows at the Edinburgh International Festival, for which she received overwhelmingly positive reviews. (DP)
74 Calvin Harris CHARTBUSTER
He suffered near disaster when he lost his laptop (which contained his ‘work in progress’ second album) but survived to remix Cut Copy, Ting Tings and Primal Scream, and became the
only Scottish act to score a UK number one single this year, with four weeks at the top with Dizzee Rascal on ‘Dance Wiv Me’. (HN)
73 Monir Mohammed CURRY CRUSADER
Monir Mohammed’s Mother India restaurants and Wee Curry Shops have expanded gradually in Glasgow in recent years accompanied by almost universal approval from diners. A significant step took place in 2008 with the opening of a first Mother India Café in Edinburgh. It was met with universal approval. (DR)
72 Aidan Moffat RENAISSANCE RACONTEUR
Falkirk’s answer to Serge Gainsbourg has shown his versatility with a beguiling spoken word album, I Can Hear Your Heart Beat, early this year, selected live band shows and even his not-so-secret electro gubbins side project with Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, Aloha Hawaii. Moffat is quite the 21st century polymath. (MR)
71 Tapa Bakehouse OVEN READY GOURMANDS
2008 has seen the ethics of food rise up the agenda, giving prominence to local producers of great tasting food such as organic artisan bakers Robert Winters and Virginia Webb of Tapa Bakehouse, who expanded their operation this year with the opening of
Hectic TV year for this Oscar-winner with his role as Charles I in Channel 4’s excellent The Devil’s Whore. He also popped up in Dr Who and Skins while giving his voice over to Scottish animated short, Glendogie Bogey. (BD)
81 Black Camel Pictures CINEMATIC GOREHOUNDS
The Glasgow-based feature film production company run by BAFTA- winning producers Arabella Page-Croft and Kieran Parker, along with writer/director Steve Barker, unleashed their gore-tastic Nazi zombie flick Outpost on an unsuspecting public to serious cult acclaim. The film has allowed the trio to put no less than six features into development over the coming months. (PD)
80 James Houston YOUTUBE NUDIST
Final year Glasgow School of Art student James Houston may have missed the deadline for Radiohead’s competition to remix ‘Nude’, but Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any), his beautiful, woozy film of retro computer parts ‘trying their best’ to play the song, won him over 400,000 YouTube hits, the acclaim of Thom Yorke and the top prizes at graduation. Like nothing you have ever seen. (KI)
79 Popup EMOTIVE INDIE CHARMERS
Here’s another Glasgow quartet who took their time with their debut, but A Time and a Place was worth the wait, being a heartfelt collection invested with acerbic wit, bitter frustrations and trembling romanticism. Pure, confrontational lyricism from people who understand the essence of good pop music. (MR)
20 THE LIST 11 Dec 2008–8 Jan 2009