Family Outing

Looking forward very much to tomorrow – the whole Manic Pop family is heading through to the Grassmarket Festival to see Edinburgh School for the Deaf, the Second Hand Marching Band and TV21. The weather seems set sunny for the day so it should be a good one. Edinburgh School for the Deaf’s single ‘Orpheus…

Violently Happy

A shout out this evening to Doug Johnstone. I know his work best through his three published novels (the new one ‘Smokeheads’ reviewed here) but he’s also had a parallel career as a musican with Fence associates Northern Alliance. About whom I know little more than zero. In fact, slightly embarrasingly, my only previous exposure…

The A-Team

A few months back, as a trailer for their self titled LP, the A-Forest sent out a free track ‘Polar White’ that you may well have seen on other blogs. I did give it a listen but, I confess, on one play it kind of washed over me. Registering at little over 0 on the…

Now Everything Has Gone Wrong

You may recall that at the end of last year, my two favourite singles of the year were by Kid Canaveral and Thee Single Spy. Last night’s Ides of Toad gig at Henry’s Cellar Bar would therefore have been pretty essential had it only featured the Edinburgh debut of the renamed These Single Spies. But…

MPCs 3 and 4

Normal service? Huh. A vaguely relevant note that Edinburgh School for the Deaf (featured the other day) are also playing the Grassmarket Festival on Sunday 1st May at 5pm. Woo-hoo! And before TV21 come on at 7 are  the massed ranks of the Second Hand Marching Band, who I have never seen live before. So…

What Was That?

The trouble with Twitter is that if you step off the escalator for a wee while, then you struggle to catch up again. So here are some things that have passed me by in the last 5 days or so: Edinburgh School for the Deaf will be releasing their debut LP ‘New Youth Bible’  on…