FESTIVAL MUSIC | Previews
WIN STUFF WIN TICKETS FOR MR B THE GENTLEMAN RHYMER
Mr B and his butler, Carshalton, return to the Voodoo Rooms for an hour of chap-hop jollity. Mr B will play ditties from his new album Can’t Stop, Shan’t Stop plus a selection of chap- hop classics. Prepare to be schooled in the ways of a chap. Lessons include: ordering the correct size of champagne bottle; choosing event- specific footwear; the real difference between ladies and chaps and the appropriate time to arrive at an orgy. We have five pairs of tickets to be won for 13, 14 or 15 Aug. WIN VIP GOLD CARDS TO FAMOUS CLUB SPIEGEL AND 5.30 CABARET TICKETS
In need of some hard dancing? How about free entry to Famous Club Spiegel all festival long? Situated inside the magnificent and much-loved Famous Spiegeltent on George Street, FCS kicks off at 11.45pm every night. We have five VIP Gold Cards to Famous Club Spiegel to be won – each one admits two, and is worth £250.
We’re also giving away ten pairs of tickets for 5.30 Cabaret, valid for any date you like. The fantastic line-up changes weekly and includes Phil Kay, Dusty Limits, Piff the Magic Dragon, Myra Dubois, Gypsy Charms and Mitch Benn. ■ Go to list.co.uk/offers for your chance to win. Closing date is 7 Aug.
PALE IMITATION A celebration of Scotland's indie underground SONG NOIR Film & TV themes get a dark makeover
It’s a bold promoter that tries to place a celebration of local, independent music amid the multi-arts bustle of the Edinburgh festivals. Tigerfest went toe- to-toe with the Fringe in the mid-00s, before shifting out of the capital and out of August, then going on indefinite hiatus after 2010. Retreat found a niche at Pilrig St Paul’s between 2008 and 2011 and captured more than a few imaginations, but also seems to be taking an extended break.
Into the indie void steps a new event paying its dues to one of its forbears with, um, a Star Wars analogy. Pale Imitation, its poster claims, is ‘the Anakin Skywalker to Retreat’s Han Solo’. It’s roughly two gigs a week/three names per bill from the cream of Scottish talent, at just £5 entry. On the line-up are FOUND’s experimental electro- wonk (3 Aug), Sparrow & The Workshop’s whip- cracking alt-country (10 Aug), the dolorous alt.folk delights of Malcolm Middleton (24 Aug), eagleowl’s pulse-quickening slowcore (31 Aug) and 2012 Scottish Album of the Year winner RM Hubbert (17 Aug, pictured above). (Malcolm Jack) ■ Henry’s Cellar Bar, 629 4101, 1, 3, 8, 10, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31 Aug, 7pm, £5-£7, or £25 season ticket, brownpapertickets.com. See songbytoad.com and Facebook for the full line-up.
Scottish duo Pumajaw – aka Pinkie Maclure and John Wills – are a pair of musicians who embrace the theatricality of rock music, with performances characterised by a dark, dramatic sense of power and sexuality, set off by Maclure’s torchsinging vocal. ‘People often say we “create a world” through
our music when we play live,’ she says, ‘and so it seemed obvious to move into a more theatrical, performance-based context.’ The result is Song Noir, a show which sets versions of songs from movies they love alongside their own music and a specially created film backing. Their choices include film and television themes such as The Night of the Hunter, Kill Bill and Twin Peaks, anything, says Maclure, that’s ‘dark, sexy, mysterious, dangerous and sometimes tinged with madness’. It’s a new context for this most alluringly mysterious of bands, but they welcome the challenge. ‘I use the full dynamic range of my voice,’ she says. ‘I want an audience which is there to listen, even to a whisper. I know Fringe audiences have high standards, but that’s part of the challenge. Three weeks of performances to an inquisitive audience – I can’t think of anything I’d love more.’ (David Pollock) ■ Summerhall, 0845 874 3001, 2–25 Aug (not 12, 19), 9.45pm, £9 (£7).
CASSETTEBOY VS DJ RUBBISH Remix, remaster, rewind and wreck
The plunderphonic approach to composition – the process of making tracks purely from edited samples – questions the authority of copyright, reconstructs familiar sounds to reveal hidden meanings, and shares an aesthetic with the anarchist appropriation of logos as a form of protest against capitalism. From Cassetteboy’s first release, The Parker Tapes, this
serious tradition was subverted by crude mockery of UK TV celebrities, toilet humour and snatches of absurdist comedy. Latterly, they have become minor YouTube stars, hacking up political speeches – or Sir Alan Sugar’s pompous lectures from The Apprentice – into darkly satirical mash-ups.
The duo remain anonymous, possibly for legal reasons. ‘We don’t use our real names or show our faces. We’ll appear in public but you won’t know who we are, or even if it is really us. We’ve done gigs with other people in the masks.’ And although their mixture of sardonic humour, anarchic fun and bouts of skilled mixology ought to be ideal for the Fringe, they have taken their time. ‘We have wanted to do it for years, but until recently we felt we didn’t have a show that would work,’ they say. ‘But in the last year or so we have developed a disco show: we play pop hits and mash them up with clips off the TV.’
The show includes old ally DJ Rubbish – a UK rapper who enjoys a healthy rant – and Cassetteboy promise ‘something you can laugh and dance and drink at – all at the same time’. Having already pilloried Jamie Oliver, Jeremy Clarkson and ‘taking on the ultimate challenge, making The Crazy Frog worse’, they are ready to go beyond their bursts of two minute mash-up genius to invent the performance art disco comedy show. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 2–4, 8–11, 15–18, 22–25 Aug, 12.30am, £11-£12 (£10-£11).
68 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2013