84 UNION OF GENIUS SOUP STARS
The Edinburgh soup specialists discovered that the best way to expand along sustainable ble
and ethical principles was to crowd-fund their development. In doing so, they’ve won fresh business, new fans and much admiration from the local food scene. (DR)
83 SUBCITY RADIO ECLECTIC STATION
Scotland’s answer to legendary freeform radio station WFMU, Glasgow University-based Subcity
draws its DJs from the city’s underground clubbing, music and arts scenes. Their experimental programming and events offer p g g
everything from black metal to everything f sound poetry, footwork to dub. sound poe (SS) (SS)
82 82 SOUND FESTIVAL SOUND SONIC CELEBRATION SONIC C
City-wide humming and gloriously out-of-tune string quartets were among the sonic wonders in among this year’s Aberdeen-based this ye Sound festival. This event Sound has been sharpening the has be cutting edge of cuttin contemporary classical and conte reaching out into many reach other musical styles across othe north-east Scotland since nort 2005. (DK) 200
81 81 85A 85
ABSURDIST AB CO COLLECTIVE
Straddling many St disciplines including d performance, i lm and p music, the Glasgow- m based collective will follow up their
8 1
88 ANNA MEREDITH ITH ELECTRO COMPOSER ER
Equally at home in the e concert hall as the club, ub, composer Meredith had had her body percussion piece, piece, ‘HandsFree’ performed at ed at the 2012 Last Night of the of the Proms, following it with this ith this year’s EP of neo-classical ssical synth bangers, ‘Jet Black Black Raider’. (SS)
87 MICHAEL PEDERSEN POETRY PIONEER
Along with co-founder Kevin Williamson, Pedersen runs performance night Neu! Reekie!, a ‘monthly headfuck’ of poetry, animation and music which has now spread to Glasgow from its roots in Edinburgh. Pedersen’s debut poetry collection, Play With Me, was published in July. (KL)
86 NEIL FORSYTH
MASTER OF SERVANT Forsyth’s creation, cantankerous Dundee pensioner Bob Servant,
made the leap from the made the leap from the internet and printed page (including a column in The List) to TV. Played by no less than Brian Cox, it lost none of its Scottish humour in translation. (HN)
85 GREG MCHUGH TV COMIC
The Edinburgh-born and bred, Glasgow and Stirling-educated comic-actor made much creative hay this year with more Fresh Meat on Channel 4, the station which also aired him in Dates (he played Callum opposite Gemma Chan’s Erica). Over on the Beeb, he cropped up in Bob Servant Independent and Bad Education. (BD)
screening of expressionist homage screening of e Chernozem at Summerhall by Chernozem at bringing a subversive circus to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games. Expect high-concept absurdism, pyrotechnics and masks: lots of them. (LI)
80 CLAIRE CUNNINGHAM DANCE AUTEUR
Teaming up with the National Theatre of Scotland gave Cunningham the opportunity to present an uncompromising examination of her own relationship with crutches at the Fringe. Her inclusion in the Auteurs season makes her the i rst dancer to lead an NTS production. (GKV)
THE HOT 100 THE HOT 100
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Glasgow Comic Con HOT STRIPS
2013 was a record-breaking year for Glasgow Comic Con: its 2200 visitors were the most that the city’s CCA has ever had at a single event. Not bad going for an event that began just two years ago with 500 comics fans assembled in an old church building, and just one reason why it’s a new entry in the Hot 100. ‘It feels really good!’ says event co-producer Sha Nazir on The List’s recognition of GCC’s Hotness. ‘For us to be recognised is a nice pat on the back, in that we’ve obviously done something right in terms of promoting the people who are making comics in Scotland.’ It’s the makers that GCC is all
about, as Nazir explains: ‘We put on an event that highlights comic creators – artists, writers, letterers, colourists. What we are putting on is a comic con that is a book festival, and people are coming for that very precise thing. They’re not going to the more general, commercial kind of comic con where you can meet the C and D-list celebrities; we’re purely about the artform.’ That approach has chimed perfectly with a groundswell among Scottish comics. ‘There’s been a rise in the number of independent creators,’ says Nazir. ‘It’s a bit like a music scene, where all of a sudden you get a bunch of people who start encouraging each other and start making and making and making. And in Glasgow it has become more of an aspiration that people can actually do it, seeing Scottish people like Mark Millar and Grant Morrison having such success abroad and also in their own country.’ With plans afoot to expand the venue capacity for 2014’s edition, which will also be part of the Homecoming Scotland programme, Glasgow Comic Con certainly won’t be cooling down any time soon. (Paul Gallagher)
12 Dec 2013–23 Jan 2014 THE LIST 23