Radar recommends: 23 - 29 January

[North Atlantic Oscillation: limbering up for Limbo on Friday]

Plan your gig-going with our pick of the week's choicest live music nights...

The best...

John Knox Sex Club, Baby Boyz
Saturday @ The Ferry, Glasgow / 8pm / £6
Not your typical wide-eyed indie-pop band, The JKSC inflict moody, clanging blues riffs and deranged vocals on anyone who'll listen. Will you?

Burns Night Celebration: Broken Records, Woodenbox With A Firstful of Fivers, Whisky Kiss
Sunday @ King Tuts, Glasgow / 8.30pm / £12
More Scottish than a ginger man in a kilt shouting 'freedom', drinking whisky and killing a haggis with his bare hands. What a lovely patriotic way to celebrate the Bard.

Marble Valley
Tuesday @ Nice'n'Sleazys, Glasgow / 7.30pm / £TBC
In advance of their much-anticipated return, Pavement drummer Steve West shows his vocal worth.

The Foundling Wheel, Smack Van, Ian Ryan
Wednesday @ Electric Circus, Edinburgh / 8pm / £3
The Foundling Wheel is a solo project with a difference: a one-man, bass guitar-wielding, beat-programming, noise-fuelled rammy. And then some.

The Mill: The Seventeenth Century, There Will be Fireworks
Thursday @ Oran Mor / 7.30pm / Free but ticketed
Gilt-edged, mellifluous folk-rock from the highly rated Seventeenth Century. There Will Be Fireworks? Apparently a few folk rate them too.

The Low Anthem
Thursday @ The Old Fruitmarket / 9pm / £16
Lovely Celtic Connections ditty. Beautiful pop in a beautiful building. It’s gonna be special guys.

Limbo: North Atlantic Oscillation, Simon Doherty and Louise McVey & The Cracks In the Concrete
Friday @ The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh / £5 / 8pm
Limbo had a healthy effect on the Edinburgh scene over the past two years, so locals will be happy about its imminent return. The night may have gone from weekly Thursdays to monthly Fridays, but their band booking policy looks as infallible as ever.

Adam Green
Friday @ Stereo / 7pm / £10
Get your skinny jeans and white plimsoles on and boost your indie credentials with a trip to see the manly half of The Mouldy Peaches solo. Sweet.

The Lava Experiments
Friday @ The 13th Note, Glasgow / £5 / 8.30pm
To quote ourselves, The Lava Experiments make "gorgeously cinematic electronica, reminiscent in places of Kraftwerk or a heavier Explosions in the Sky". They launch a new EP of remixes at this gig, for which they enlisted the help of Dans Le Sac, Pumajaw and Betamax Warriors.

The rest...



Words: Aimi Gold, Nick Mitchell

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

Under the Radar podcast #4

It may be old news now, but the ripples of record sales set in motion by the Mercury Music Prize are still being felt across the industry.

Following our editorial on the subject a couple of weeks ago, we discuss the outcome (or more accurately, Billy enters rant mode!), and we try to figure out whether the whole concept of music awards has any value at all.

As if that wasn't enough to tempt you to download/ press play/do whatever it is you do with a podcast, we also have a great selection of tuneage.

There's the new single from The Low Miffs' collaboration with former Orange Juice / Josef K legend Malcolm Ross, a fresh cut from Glasgow hardcore rockers Citizens, a taster of North Atlantic Oscillation's long-awaited debut album, as well as acts we've played host to on the blog in recent weeks: Tokyo Knife Attack, The Pineapple Chunks and The John Knox Sex Club.

Enjoy the show...

Play: Podcast #4


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Running order:
00:12: Malcolm Ross and the Low Miffs - Cressida
04:34: Tokyo Knife Attack - Another One Falls
09:43: The Pineapple Chunks - The Horror The Horror
13:44: Mercury Music Prize chat
19:17: Errors - Salut France
22:42: North Atlantic Oscillation - 77 Hours
27:46: Citizens - Shit Whistler
32:20: The John Knox Sex Club - John the Revelator

Words and blether: Nick Mitchell, Billy Hamilton

Previous UtR podcasts

On the radar: The John Knox Sex Club

[The John Knox Sex Club, drawn live by Jenny Soep]

Play: The Devil is in your hand and I'm going to f**k it out


Play: John the Revelator


The John Knox Sex Club are a band without an agenda.

Built, in part, from members of long-rested Glasgow favourite Piano Bar Fight and Washington Irving, they make music for no other reason than to play live.

“We have just finished recording three songs at Chem 19,” says singer Sean Cumming. “When we first started the band, I didn't really want to record anything. It was always meant to be a live thing and nothing else.

"That might seem odd in a culture where bands seem to rush from the practice room into a studio to cut a demo to get gigs in order to get a deal, in order to 'make it’ but I don't see the band as a money earner, I think the name has put paid to any chance of that. I just really love performing."

Cumming’s onstage persona is that of a sin-purging preacher. His poetic, traditional, Scottish-laced vocals are spat out with a firey-tongue and a pointed finger. The rest of the band are just as chaotic; summoning an assault on the ears that winks at a range of comparisons, from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to Dananananaykroyd, but pulls on nothing specific.

“I’m not worried about being different," Cumming states. "I suppose it's for other people to decide if we are interesting, different, original, etc, or just another bunch of whiney, white guys with guitars.

“I would say that we aren't afraid to make mistakes, to be unprofessional, to improvise, to cover songs. I hope we convey something during our performance that stays with people after: be that the sense of joy I feel playing or something in the lyrics that resonates, or anything at all - positive or negative.”

At their recent gig at the National Portrait Gallery, they had music illustrator Jenny Soep draw them live, with the images projected on to the wall. The gallery itself, with no stage and recently painted in an eclectic fashion by young artists, was a fitting setting for a band who like to play at audience level.

Cumming enjoys such occasions: “I really love playing unusual one-off gigs. We would really like in future to play all our gigs on the floor in the crowd, although this might not be possible.

“We have other ludicrous ideas but I will keep them under my hat for now. I'm really looking forward to working on and playing some new material and possibly more recording. Beyond that there is no great plan.”

Words: Aimi Gold

Intrigued? Watch The John Knox Sex Club live at the Captain's Rest, Glasgow on 3 Oct.