FESTIVAL MUSIC | Previews
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99 HANOVER STREET
NIGHTMARES ON WAX Unleashed from its 11-months-a-year double life as one of Edinburgh’s most stylish and centrally located bars, 99 Hanover Street takes on a more clubby atmosphere during the Festival, aided by its legendary Thursday night guest parties. The i rst sees Leeds’ long-serving Warp Records signee and hip hop ai cionado George Evelyn, aka Nightmares On Wax, take over, presented by Ultragroove, Motherfunk and Astrojazz. 6 Aug.
GOLDIE Such is the celebrity life led by the gold- toothed maverick (Eastenders, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch, any number of sleb reality shows) that it’s easy to forget he was one of drum’n’bass’ most important early i gures. The sometime Metalheadz man appears here courtesy of Xplicit, with Gmac, Eno and Rob Ralston in support. 13 Aug.
MARSHALL JEFFERSON Syndicate, Hector’s House and Moovn team up to bring us one of the founding i gures of modern club music, Chicago house legend Marshall Jefferson composer of the classic ‘Move Your Body’. 20 Aug.
TERRY FARLEY Co-founder of the Boy’s Own label and London acid house pioneer Terry Farley is welcomed here by SSW’s Yogi Haughton, who will be supporting on the night. 27 Aug.
OPTIMO The Sunday night closing party for 99 Hanover Street’s festival celebrations sees a return for Glasgow’s own Optimo (Espacio) duo of JD Twitch and JG Wilkes, and we reckon it could well be the biggest night of the month here. Note that all of the above are free entry, so early attendance is advised. 30 Aug. (David Pollock) ■ 99 Hanover Street, 225 8200, throughout Aug, 9pm, free.
70 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Marcus Mackay and Kathryn Joseph
P H O T O © J A N N C A H O N E Y
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KATHRYN JOSEPH This year’s SAY Award victor brings her winning talent to the Fringe
Anyone who keeps an eye on the Scottish music scene knows that the SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) Award is a respected arbiter of the state of the nation’s fertile music scene, but it really came into its own last year when the winner also happened to claim that year’s Mercury Prize – Edinburgh’s Young Fathers, one of the most exciting and uncategorisable propositions to have landed in UK music in recent years. The momentum in the Scottish scene at the moment is further demonstrated by this year’s winner, Aberdonian singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph, whose music exists at the opposite end of the scale from Young Fathers, but whose talent is considerable.
A singer who creates sparse, breathy piano ballads which reveal a unique voice (but listen closely and you can hear the controlled vocal drama of Tori Amos or Kate Bush, and a folksy edge reminiscent of Joni Mitchell), Joseph sings with truth and experience in her voice. A 40-year-old mother who left an unsatisfactory deal with Sanctuary two decades ago and worked in bars while playing music for herself, she overcame her natural shyness at last when a chance encounter with local producer Marcus Mackay led to the creation of her album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled and feverish interest when it became public. ‘I hadn’t really felt in control of it before,’ she says, referring to her first go at making music. ‘So I turned my back and came back. This is the first time I’ve worked on something that’s made sense to me, that I’ve wanted other people to hear.’ (David Pollock) ■ Kathryn Joseph supports Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat as part of Nothing Ever Happens Here, Summerhall, 560 1581, 12 Aug, 8pm, £16 (£14).
THE TUBES Glam punks who embraced punk’s true aesthetic
If you’re going to see Fee Waybill and his long- serving band of outrageous glam punks the Tubes in Edinburgh, you've got one night only to do it during the Fringe. ‘Outrageous’ is a word that has often been applied to what he used to do, and it probably was when the Tubes started in 1972, before punk broke. Search on YouTube and you’ll find footage of Waybill from 1977 on the none-more-staid Old Grey Whistle Test, platforms so towering he had to be carried down the stairs by the crew, ball-hugging silver thong one slip from scarring the minds of a generation. That performance was of the winningly snide glam-
rocker ‘White Punks on Dope’, a rail against safe, middle-class rebellion, which was a theme which carried on into the cod-epic ‘What Do You Want From Life?’ (‘ . . . to kidnap an heiress or threaten her with a knife?’). The 1983 US hit ‘She’s a Beauty’ aside, they never made an overground impression, but they worked with Todd Rundgren; influenced Motley Crüe; opened for David Bowie; performed with Dolly Parton on Cher’s television show; appeared in the cult Olivia Newton-John disco movie Xanadu; and went bust when the hugely expensive, S&M-themed circus show they took on tour (designed by Kenny Ortega, later choreographer of Dirty Dancing) grew too big for its own good. That’s a legacy if ever we heard one. (David Pollock) ■ Liquid Room, 226 0000, 12 Aug, 7pm, £23.