Music & Arts

Glasgow music celebrated

How will Glasgow sound after Covid-19? The question hangs over a city famous for its live music. Thriving venues have been closed and silent for over a year.  But, welcome signs of life returning begin to grow with most Covid restrictions lifting on Monday 9 August.   […]

Released from lockdown: a song for our time

  From Scotland to Canada via London, four musicians and an artist came together during lockdown to create a song to raise funds for Médecins Sans Frontieres, to help the worlds most vulnerable people. Here, Moray-based singer songwriter, Abi Rooley-Towle explains how it happened.  […]

Love and kindness in a time of Covid19

With Spring greening, human life is in lockdown. How will we survive this unprecedented crisis? Abi Rooley-Towle sees hope in the power of kindness, community love and care. […]

This is not a love song: just saying Scotland needs the Ironworks

Where did Johnny Rotten have one of his best gigs? Which venue was pivotal in Rachel Sermani’s career? Where did Gerry Cinnamon nearly take the roof down? What’s the best place to play in the Highlands? […]

Abi’s accidental mountain bothy ‘gig’ finds unexpected fans

Now, building a fan base is an important step – if you want anyone to hear your work. The best way to go about is to gig. In all kinds of venues. That’s right, isn’t it?  […]

Introducing Abi: ‘accidental singer-songwriter’

How to make a music career in the middle of nowhere? Ask Abi Rooley-Towle. She writes her haunting songs and stories from ‘a tumbledy cottage’ roughly half way between Elgin and Forres on that sturdy north-east shoulder of Scotland. […]

Rip It Up and Open Up: museums for everyday people

A gateway opens. Where does it lead? To a wider world? To inspiring people in unexpected places?  To be honest right now I have no idea, but I’m tentatively opening the gate…. Why? […]

Young Fathers: win-win for Scottish can-do creative spirit

  The audience falls silent as Alloysius Massaquoi takes the mic. ‘You’re hearing right,’ he says with a smile,  ‘I’m a black guy with a Scottish accent. I’m not here to take your jobs, or steal your women…’ A pause, the smile grows wicked… […]

Loki and Shogun: Talking Feet Episode 2

Aye, it’s candyfloss. No food for thought. You take it and put it on your tongue and it dissolves, and you’re left with candyfloss. I’d rather a meal, mate. I’d rather sit down and have something to digest […]

Freedom to roam Glasgow music city

“I wander inside, passing the ‘famous jukebox’, and am persuaded to enter the bathroom.” So writes Alan Tennie, one of the most inquiring reviewers of the Glasgow Music Tour to date. He’s clearly not a man to take a short cut.  […]

Saw Doctors return to Glasgow

  They’re back! Glasgow rocked in a rapturous welcome to the Saw Doctors after three years apart. Writer Anna Levin was there at the O2 Academy for ‘a kind of homecoming’. […]

For Manchester, London and love of life

‘Singing louder, prouder now than cities twice the size, as twenty thousand voices strong, we sing a single song.’ Two years ago Tony Walsh wrote and performed We Are Manchester for the twentieth anniversary of the [...]