MUSIC | Previews
5 ACTS TO WATCH AT . . .
STAG & DAGGER
Who to watch at this Sunday-before- the-Monday-bank holiday one-day festival 1. The Hold Steady
Dense, expansive, old-school indie rock with bite from Minnesotan Craig Finn and his band, this headline slot comes hot on the heels of the release of their sixth album, Teeth Dreams. Also sharing top billing are sometime-Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, Johnny Flynn and dreamy Sydney psych outfit, Jagwar Ma.
2. Royal Blood
The Arctic Monkeys-approved (they’re supporting them at Finsbury Park later in May) Brightonian duo are the kind of raw, garage- thrill mainstream alternative music hasn’t had since Jack White was starting out. Brusque, noisy and with vocals from Mike Kerr which sound oddly like Muse’s Matt Bellamy, they’ll clean your ears out. 3. East India Youth
The pseudonym of Bournemouth-based solo musician William Doyle, East India Youth re- leased his debut album Total Strife Forever at the turn of the year and revealed with it a talent for measured synthesiser symphonies and simple, lacerating torch crooning. Think a more sensitive and winsome Thom Yorke.
4. Honeyblood
Local girls done good Honeyblood (pictured, above) are just bloody great, with the Glasgow-based duo having demonstrated a talent for everything from rough-edged Riot Grrl punk to moody, gothic alterna-rock with a hint of Patti Smith or Throwing Muses about it. For evidence of the latter, see ‘Bud’, their first single of a well-won deal with FatCat.
5. Casual Sex
We’d also highly recommend Lanterns on the Lake, Los Campesinos! and Tennis, but a list of top suggestions wouldn’t be complete without the spiky, smart and utterly irresistible sound of Glasgow’s bastard-baiting Casual Sex. (David Pollock) ■ Various venues, Glasgow, Sun 4 May. See staganddagger.co.uk for full lineup info.
70 THE LIST 17 Apr–15 May 2014
GIG / MUSIC EVENT PROGRAMME EAST END SOCIAL Various venues, Glasgow, until 31 Aug
As a proudly East End-rooted Glasgow business by coincidence celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, it would have been remiss of Chemikal Underground Records not to acknowledge the Commonwealth Games’ arrival on their Bridgeton doorstep this summer. But it would have been remiss, too, for such a pillar of the Scottish independent music and arts scene to stage a purely transitory celebration.
The East End Social is a series of special concerts and events supported by the Glasgow 2014 cultural programme’s Open Fund. While in part bigging up Chemikal’s history and achievements, it’s also all about encouraging a stronger sense of creative community and cross-arts engagement in the local area, as well as a rediscovery of underused spaces, and in general, strengthening the sense of a lasting cultural legacy being left by the Games and the resources the event has unlocked long after the athletes have gone home. That everything from gentle community centre tea dances led by the Jim Cleland Trio (Calton Heritage and Learning Centre, Fri 18 Apr, and various other dates and venues thereafter) to a slamming six-hour Optimo electro revue at the Barrowlands headlined by Todd Terje (Sun 25 May, pictured). RM Hubbert and Nectarine No.9 will play Rutherglen Town Hall (Fri 8 Aug and Fri 7 Jun respectively), while
the New Mendicants (Tue 5 Aug) and Lost Map Records (Sun 25 May) will take over Bowler’s Bar by Glasgow Green. A mini-festival finale, taking place in Richmond Park at the end of August (Sat 30–Sun 31 Aug), will honour a couple of Chemikal’s most famous alumni, both in its Arab Strap-referencing title The Last Big Weekend and its Saturday headliners Mogwai, before Hudson Mohawke on the Sunday closes a hopefully big summer for the East End with a noisy blast. (Malcolm Jack) ■ eastendsocial.com
HIP HOP ICONS DE LA SOUL The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 3 May
Twenty-five years on from the release of their era-defining debut album 3 Feet High and Rising, New York hip hop crew De La Soul are something of an anachronism. It’s one of the ironies of their unique career trajectory that what was considered a particularly overground and radio-friendly sound in their heyday might not find it so easy to make a home for itself in the contemporary rap world.
Songs from that record, such as ‘Me, Myself and I’, ‘Say No Go’ and especially ‘The Magic Number’, all endure to this day, of course, so maybe their uncannily accurate pop sensibilities would thrive at any time. Yet there’s something out of time about them. They were easygoing, almost homespun, with a remixed brand of Summer of Love psychedelia to what they did then that suggested they were founded on a love of parental record collections and pop history. This wasn’t music nailed to the late-capitalist edifice of money and machismo that even the genre’s finest high-profile icons currently climb, but rather a reaction to the era’s Public Enemy polemics or NWA anger.
Another irony is that even as their career as a commercially successful singles group ended around
1991’s sophomore De La Soul is Dead record, and with album sales have dimmed since 2000’s Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump, Dave, Maseo and Posdnuos’ legacies have only grown as they’ve continued to tour and record (they guested on both Gorillaz albums, with 2005’s ‘Feel Good Inc’ a hit on both sides of the Atlantic). Their recent Wu Tan g-affiliated first single in nine years, ‘Get Away’, treads little new ground, but there will no doubt be plenty of followers happy to pace it once more with them here. (David Pollock)