Radar recommends: 5 - 11 Dec

[eagleowl: swopping down on The Bowery on Friday]

We edge ever closer to Christmas party season this week. But if you want to purge all thoughts of 70s glam rockers with mirrored hats and 80s woolly jumpered, mullet-headed warblers for the time being, you may want to head down to one of the following recommended gigs...

Aberdeen
Steve Earle
Tuesday @ Music Hall / 7.30pm / £22.50
The bearded US singer-songwriter and spiritual counsellor from The Wire tours his latest album, Townes.
Also playing Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow on Sunday and The Ironworks, Inverness on Thursday

Edinburgh
Sebastian Dangerfield, Washington Irving, We Were Promised Jetpacks (solo)
Saturday @ The Bowery / 7.30pm / £5
Edinburgh indie quartet with support from recent blog stars Washington Irving and Adam from the Jetpacks.

The Last Battle
Saturday @ Carters Bar / 9.30pm / Free
The Edinburgh band launch their Christmas single, Once Upon a Boxing Day.

Schwervon!, Withered Hand, The Pineapple Chunks, Les Enfant Bastard
Saturday @ Henry's Cellar Bar / 7pm / £5
The cream of New York anti-folk is joined by the cream of Edinburgh anti-folk for this intimate night of, er, anti-folk.

Tubelord, Trapped in Kansas
Monday @ Sneaky Pete's / 7pm / £6
Tubelord trade in high voltage fight-pop, while Trapped in Kansas are quite simply one of our favourite new bands of the year.

Deerhoof
Tuesday @ The Bongo Club / 7pm / £12.50
Change of venue, which means now you'll be able to get even closer to the deranged noise emanating from the San Fran band's amps.

Benni Hemm Hemm, Alasdair Roberts, Wounded Knee
Wednesday @ St Mark's Unitarian Church / 7.30pm / Donation
Icelandic troubadour Mr Hemm Hemm leads the musical prayers at this unusual church gig, with excellent support/collaborations.

Broken Records
Wednesday @ Cabaret Voltaire / 7pm / £7
Everyone's favourite Edinburgh-based klezmer-tinged seven-piece play their own homecoming (with a small 'h') show.

The Mars Volta
Wednesday @ HMV Picture House / 7pm / £17.50
You can excuse the odd ten-minute guitar freakout if Cedric Bixler-Zavala still manages to do a handstand while bending his versatile vocals around their bizarre subject matter.

The Banana Sessions, Small Feet Little Toes, Freemore
Thursday @ The Bowery / 7pm / £5
We first encountered The Banana Sessions playing covers on the Glasgow-Edinburgh train one night. Now they're playing proper shows and they shouldn't be missed.

**UtR's gig of the week**
eagleowl, Withered Hand, Jill O'Sullivan
Friday @ The Bowery / 7.30pm / £5
The much admired Edinburgh collective eagleowl launch their kinda-Christmas-kinda-not single Sleep the Winter. Read our interview with Bart Owl a bit further down the page.

Glasgow
Vic Godard and the Subway Sect, The Sexual Objects
Saturday @ Stereo / 8pm / £10
Punk pioneer Vic (he was supporting The Clash in '77) celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Creeping Bent label at this Sounds in the Suburbs night.

Brother Louis Collective
Sunday @ Bloc / 8pm / Free
UtR-tipped six-piece with heart-felt, sweet folky numbers are at Bloc tonight.

Sunn 0)))
Sunday @ Stereo / 7.30pm / £15
Every bearded-chin-stroking muso-boy in Glasgow will be having their very cores vibrated by the US doom merchants with their grimm robes and reaaalllyyy loooonnng, REALLY LOUD notes.

The Gothenburg Address, Loss Leader, The Bucky Rage, Aidan Moffat (DJ set)
Monday @ Mono / 8pm / £5
Band who include sometime Arab Strap and Zephyrs members and make beautiful shoegazy-style instrumental tunes launch their debut album with help from one-man gloom extravaganza Loss Leader.

Ensemble Thing
Wednesday @ 13th Note Cafe / 9pm / £4
Lots of talented folk from a bunch of other Glasgow bands/orchestras get together and make lovely, “post minimalist” music.

Malcolm Middleton's Long Dark Night
Thursday @ Oran Mor / 7pm / £14.50
Get your festive celebrations off to a cheery start with Mr Middleton's intimate show of wintry acoustic songs “about love, hate, death and other stuff”, plus a solo support slot from his former Arab Strap bandmate.

Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers
Thursday @ King Tuts / 7.30pm / FREE
Woodenbox do a sneaky wee acoustic gig in the bar at King Tuts – and won't even make a dent in your Christmas present fund... unless you want to partake in the accompanying supper.

Nuts and Seeds: Box Elders, Goldern Grrrls, Mazes, Water Wolves
Thursday @ CCA / 8.30pm / £4
A transatlantic mix of bands as Nebraska brothers Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre head up this Nuts and Seeds night along with experimental noisy Glasgow trio Golden Grrrls.

Any Color Black, Less Than Sober
Friday @ Stereo / 7pm / £6
I'll forgive that whole 'American spelling thing of coloUr' thing because this fun electro-rock duo make me want to dance.

Edwyn Collins, 1990s, The Low Miffs
Friday @ ABC / 7pm / £18
The Orange Juice man has made a significant return from illness in the past two years so fans shouldn't miss this rare show – along with two bands indebted to the Postcard records legacy.

Words: Elaine Liddle, Nick Mitchell

What have we missed? Tell us below, or add it to our gig guide by emailing utr.scotsman@gmail.com

Tweet nothings, feat. Camera Obscura, Dananananaykroyd, The Twilight Sad

With the world living in a nutshell of 140 character statements, getting to the good stuff can be a laborious chore - particularly if, like us, your mum has posted her 1000th account of the cat's bowel movements. But never fear dear reader, we here at UtR have sifted through the Twitter tripe to bring to you an essential weekly round-up of your favourite musical miscreants' idle-thumbed tweets....


Camera Obscura get narcissistic regret...
@camera_obscura: "so. watching yourself on telly is like watching yourself on youtube or looking in the mirror. but worse."

A less than explanatory Dananananaykroyd say adios to bassist Laura...
@dananananaykroy: "Eh, aye, so.. yeah."

The mighty Cancel The Astronauts get some overdue media lovin'...
@canceltheastros: "Tom Robinson's playing us on BBC Introducing tonight! And Steve Lamacq's playing a clip of Fanclub on his show. On Radio 1. That's mental."

Debutant slowly fathoms Twitter and all its meaningless glory...
@debutantmusic: "Twitter confuses me. I wish I was more technology savvy. How do I direct a tweet at a particular person? Technology really is wasted on me".

Best web 2.0-speak ramble of the week comes from Findo Gask...
@wearefindogask: "Hey internet ppz, practice today was an "EPIC FAIL". Hilariously graceless reworks of popular rock songs then sausages".

Edinburgh's The Banana Sessions look for some fee-less PR...
@bananasessions: "We need some snappy way to describe what we sound like... Any suggestions? Multi genre hybrids allowed. Answers on a tweet...".

Pooch give us a fascinating insight into to the culinary habits of a disco-punk band:
@poochtheband: "Having pizza before playin sleazys...roddy + steve have used 'my dad rocks' half price vouchers. Not enjoying being a wife!"

We Are The Physics take the tone down...
@wearethephysics:"We're all going round to Michaelguitar's house tonight to record a song about dildonics. We'll let you know the euphoric results".

While The Twilight Sad find themselves pigeonholed in the UK's biggest weekly music rag...
@thetwilightsad: "the nme describe us as "awe-metal" and say our epic angst comes from "the fear of cocktail parties or of group oral sex."

to which the Twilight boys retort...
@thetwilightsad: "we're big fans of both "cocktail parties" and "group oral sex."

And finally...

To fuzz, or not to fuzz? That was RBRBR's dilemma of the week...
@RBRBR: "Sorry, in a band of 5, would a fourth beard be a beard too many?"

Words: Billy Hamilton (and Twitter)

Spotted any other tweeting gems we've missed out on? Share your favourite weekly tweets with us below...