Ólafur Arnalds Plays Broadchurch. Glasgow Film Festival, ABC. Live review

Ólafur Arnalds Plays Broadchurch. ABC, Glagsow. Live review. 25 Feb, 2015

There ended up being an accidentally Northerm European slant to the events in this years Glasgow Film Festival which I managed to get to. First there was the "Moomins on the Riviera", a traditionally animated cartoon, bringing Finn Tove Jansson's bizarre characters to the big screen. Then I went with my son to see Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds perform from his soundtrack of the TV series Broadchurch amongst other pieces. I had been listening to it at home the previous week and my 12 year old son thought it was great so we decided we'd both go. 

About 10 years ago we went on a family holiday to Iceland, one of the best trips we've had. As is my want, at the time I was trying to soak up some Icelandic culture before we went. As well as reading the novels of Halldór Laxness and Hallgrímur Helgason I took in any Icelandic musicians that were passing through Glasgow. As I liked what I found I've kept on doing it. This meant that I have got to enjoy Múm, Sigur Ros, Mugison and Amiina amongst others (I suspect this may mean that I've seen Ólafur Arnalds cousin, Ólöf Arnalds, perform at some point). Since I made that trip the opportunities to hear the distinctive sound of Iceland has become increasingly easy in Glasgow ever since BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conductor Ilan Volkov joined the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. In the past couple of years diverse acts such as S.L.Á.T.U.R. and the fabulous Hildur Guðnadóttir have played in Glasgow as part of the Tectonics festival which Ilan Volkov curates. 

So as well as the Icelandic angle appealing to me for this concert there was also the fact that I am a big fan of soundtrack music, although I don't really think it counts as a distinct musical genre as it contains such a diverse range of stuff. When I was younger the soundtracks from the films "The Godfather"  and from "Betty Blue" were two of my favourite albums. More recently I have had been listening a lot to Broadcast's soundtrack for Berberian Sound Studio, Mogwai's album for French TV series Les Revenants and driving about Glasgow picking up strangers in my car whilst listening to Mica Levi's Under the Skin soundtrack. I haven't ever watched Broadchurch but I guess it is a pretty tense, haunting and melancholy affair as that was the feeling I got from listening to the soundtrack album this week. 

For the live performance at the ABC in Glasgow Ólafur Arnalds sits at the grand piano, synthesizer and iPad. He is accompanied by a string quartet (have at least one of them been in Aamina?), two musicians on French horn and another on keybord/ Octapad/ trombone. At times the playing is quiet and ethereal whilst the audience's attention is gripped throughout. At other times, supplemented with a crescendo of electronic percussion, the drama mounts, augmented by the austere lighting at the back of the stage. Despite the sombre and unsettling music, between tracks Arnalds is affable, witty and chatty with the audience. As well as the Broadchurch music he dips in and out of his back catalogue too, giving us a bit of context to the music.

In the middle of the performance singer Arnór Dan joins them onstage. Looking like John Hartson and sounding like Andy Bell, he gives us a chance to hear his song from the Broadchurch end credits, which he laments is usually interrupted by the ITV continuity announcer. It is an excellent change in the tone of an evening which has been put together so well, and flows perfectly. 



The well put together shape of the evening is made clear by the two songs of the encore. At the end Arnalds is left alone on stage to round off the night perfectly by performing the evocative "Lag fyrir ömmu" (For Granma). 

As I am making another trip to Iceland this summer I am putting together a new holiday playlist. I've got Ásgeir on there, I'm waiting patiently for Bjork's Vulnicura album to come out, but I've just added a few Ólafur Arnalds tracks to it in the meantime. It is rare for my taste and my son's musical taste to overlap, but tonight it did.

Ibeyi. Live gig review. Broadcast, Glasgow

Ibeyi. Live gig review. Broadcast, Glasgow. Feb 2015

Just like comic book superheroes, bands need a good "origin" story to grab the interest. Maybe the murder of your parents as a child or being descended from a Viking god. Perhaps something that makes you a bit different, to stand out from the crowd, such as being bitten by a radioactive spider or possessing a healing factor. 

It seems like Ibeyi were created by someone with a vivid imagination. They are 20 year old French-Cuban twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz. Their father is Cuban musician Anga Diaz, percussionist with the legendary Buena Vista Social Club. After his death when they were aged 11 they took up playing his instrument, the cajón, a box-shaped percussion instrument you sit on and slap. Their Venezuelan mother taught them the Nigerian Yoruba language and songs, brought to Cuba by African slaves. Now they have their debut album out, on groovy label XL Recordings and sing in Yoruba and English with Lisa-Kaindé calm and soulful on keyboards and Naomi antsy and lively on percussion. With a backstory like that it is no surprise to find that playing live they are incredibly charismatic. 

I didn't know much of this when I turned up to see them at their sold out show in Broadcast on Sauchiehall Street last night. I had read a good review of their album and picked it up last week and liked it, and when googling them found they'd be playing in Glasgow a couple of days later. Other people had been following them for a while longer it seems. The group of girls standing beside me who had come down from Dundee to see them, told me all about who their father was and when they played the lead track on their album, River, the crowd largely sang along. 

The sisters are clearly different personalities and the music seems a bit pulled in two directions at times. When Naomi plays percussion on "Mama Says" it starts on the cajoné then goes onto chest slaps and finger clicks and you feel she just wants to rip loose, but her sister draws her back (I'm guessing that really is their mum in the video for that one).




When called back for an encore they admit that they don't have any more songs so give us a more a capella version of "River" with everyone in the room singing along this time. We've had a good time, they look like they've had a good time, but where they go from here will be interesting.

On a side note there are more and more venues in which it is nigh on impossible to see much of the act if you don't have the physique of a basketball player. This is largely due to the fact that all the people over six foot in height seem to feel it is their place to stand at the front of an audience these days, whereas in the past they skulked slightly embarrassed at the side. I'm not necessarily saying "down with tall people" but maybe forcing people over a certain height to kneel would be an idea, or possibly higher stages in some venues? Just a thought. 

Gruff Rhys - American Interior. Live Gig Review

Gruff Rhys, Art School, Glasgow. Feb 19th 2015. Live gig review

Gruff Rhys brought his American Interior show back to Glasgow last night, in its fully polished, multi-media version. Last year I enjoyed reading his book which told the story of Rhys following in the footsteps of 18th century Welsh adventurer John Evans. Proving that truth can be weirder than fiction, we hear the story of how a misguided, one man expedition to track down a long lost tribe of Welsh speaking native Americans led Evans on an extraordinary adventure. He goes from hunting bison to joining the Spanish, languishing in prisons, annexing North Dakota from the British to mapping rivers unexplored by Europeans through the American interior. In the book Rhys takes a felt mannequin version of John Evans with him as he tries to recreate his route, playing gigs and writing songs along the way. The book is a great read, a "psychadelic travelogue" written with Rhys's usual droll humour. This has spawned an album, a book, an app and now a live tour.

The live show starts with a 10 minute clip from a 1970s documentary in which a strident, stalky Welsh historian in cyan flares tells us about the myth of Prince Madoc who allegedly sailed to America in 1170, founding tribes of Welsh-speaking descendants. Rhys and his band then talk and sing us through the story of John Evans who sought out these tribes in the 1790s. Star attraction onstage amongst the paper mache cacti was the John Evans mannequin himself. With Rhys controlling his powerpoint presentation of photos from his travels we went with John Evans from London to Baltimore, St Louis and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers towards Canada, before going back to New Orleans.

From the vigourous drumming of the song "Iolo" (for Iolo Morganwg who came up with the notion of Evans's expedition) to the power ballad "Walk Into The Wilderness" and "Allweddellau Allweddol", sung in Welsh above the chanting of children, the music swings from one style to another. Rhys's magpie like collecting of details on his trip obviously fed his imagination on the songwriting front too.

We finish Evan's story with the stand out track on the album "100 Unread Messages" and it has been fun, if slightly bonkers, to accompany Gruff Rhys on his road trip. Excellent, inventive and imaginative stuff.

Horse - The Diamond Speaks. Celtic Connections Jan 2015

Horse - The Diamond Speaks - Live gig review. Jan 29th 20154

Looking for my passport recently I came across some old ticket stubs for concerts I'd been to in the 1980s and 1990s. Amongst them was a ticket for a very memorable concert in Level 8 at Strathclyde Student Union, where I was taken to see Horse by a friend who was right into her stuff. It is a concert that really stuck in my mind. Hearing her fantastically strong, rich voice live led me to follow her output in the intervening 24 years.

Horse McDonald, to give her her full moniker, is a singer-songwriter originally from Fife whose distinctive, deep, soulful voice appears to be undiminished by the passing of time. She was performing at Celtic Connections this year in a concert called "The Diamond Speaks". After coming across the works of neglected women poets she has decided to put music to their oft forgotten words. Before coming to that however, she gave us a blast through some Horse highlights, performing songs such as Breathe Me, Careful and Home alongside her classy five-piece band.

The second half started and ended with poems by Mary Queen of Scots. The first of which pictures the gift of a diamond Mary gives to Queen Elizabeth, speaking on her behalf. Her musical interpretations avoided using tropes of traditional music to interpret this 450 year old poem, and at times the music was quite modern and experimental as the night went on. 

I'm sorry to say that beyond Mary Queen of Scots I hadn't heard of any of the women whose works were performed and I guess that is one point of the exercise. We also had works from Anne Hunter, an 18th century songwriter who wrote the words to some of Haydn's English Folk songs, Mary McKellar from Fort William who wrote in English and Gaelic, the Jacobite Lady Nairne Caroline Oliphant and Ellen Johnston, a working class Victorian poet from Hamilton. The twentieth century was represented by Marion Angus from Arbroath and Olive Fraser from Aberdeen. The programme notes and the introductions by the singer gave us a thumbnail sketch of these women and maybe a chance for other works of theirs to surface.

I like poetry, I like Horse, so I was always going to enjoy this show and I hope that it ends up resulting in an album sometime soon. She has a great voice and always something interesting to say. 

Glasgow Ice Rinks and the ABC Cinema

Glasgow Ice Rinks and the ABC Cinema

Quick quiz for you.

Where was Glasgow's first indoor ice rink?
Where is there a 110 year old outdoor curling rink in Glasgow?

I had been reading about both of these things recently when I saw the answer to one of these questions come up in a news article in the Daily Record today.

ABC Regal Cinema, Sauchiehall Street

I was pleased to see a story on the Daily Record website that the O2 ABC concert venue is temporarily to revert back to its former guise as a cinema, for one night only. This is for a night commemorating the O2 ABC on Sauchiehall Street's former life as the ABC Regal cinema, as part of the Glasgow Film Festival in February 2015. However the news article was illustrated by a picture of a different building altogether, which is nearer the O2 Academy venue on the south-side. The photo they used from the 1930s was the Coliseum cinema, now sadly demolished after a fire, where the first "talkie" movie was shown in Glasgow.

Daily Record article on "A Night at the Regal", illustrated with a picture of the Coliseum

I've been to many concerts in the Sauchiehall Street O2 ABC and quite like it as a venue. They did a decent job refurbishing it and keeping it as an entertainment space after the cinema finally closed in October 1999. By then the cinema had been running at this site for 70 years. The picture below shows it in its glory days as a cinema, when it had one screen, a 2300 seater auditorium and an RS McColl's by the door to get your sweeties. In this picture you can see the empty space to the right where the 1960s extension was added to provide an extra screen. In 1979 the main screen was divided to make four more smaller halls, so that when I was going to it as a child it always had rather labyrinthine corridors taking you to one of the five screens. I can remember which films I saw at which cinema when I was younger. Nowadays all the cinemas are so uniform that they merge into one. I remember seeing Highlander here at the ABC with some friends from school in 1986. I remember that I saw Gremlins and Dumbo at The Grosvenor Cinema off Byres Road, Watership Down and Rocky 3 at La Scala on Sauchiehall Street, Ghostbusters and Star Wars at the Odeon on Renfield Street and Grease at the Salon off Byres Road. The grim live action/ animated version of Lord of the Rings from 1978 I think I endured as a very wee boy in the GFT (only at the end of the film did you find out that this was only half the story, no sequel was ever made).

The ABC Regal Cinema, Sauchiehall Street

...and the ABC today

I was intrigued to discover that the ABC cinema when it opened in 1929 was in a building already 55 years old, that had gone through several uses. Built in 1875 it started out as a circular building, a domed "Diorama" - where paintings of famous battles would cover the walls. By the time of the 1888 "International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry" at Kelvingrove it was called the Panorama, with an illustrated re-telling of the Battle of Bannockburn adorning the walls for people to enjoy. If you look at the etching below you can recognise the shape of the arched windows still seen at the Sauchiehall Street face of this building.

1888 etching of the "Panorama" on Sauchiehall Street

What is harder to picture is a circular building filling this space, unless you look at this picture below taken during the extensive refurbishment work in 2002. From the Scott Street side which leads up to Mackintosh's Art School building behind, you can see the circular shape of the original auditorium space.

2002 refurbishment work at the ABC building.
Picture from "Scottish Cinemas and Theatres Project" website

The hall was owned by South African impresario Arthur Hubner, who later owned the Brittania Panopticon. When he decided there was no future in dioramas he converted the building into Scotland's first indoor ice rink in 1895, the Glasgow Ice Skating Palace. The circular rink 95 feet across had an orchestra performing on the platform seen in the architect's drawings above which were done for the conversion. It was apparently home to Europe's first international ice hockey match when crowds of 1000 people watched exhibition matches against an English team.

As an ice rink it wasn't a great success and lasted only two or three years. During that time Hubner showed Glasgow's first ever film screenings here with the newly invented "cinematograph" in 1896. These included short films of local interest, eg a paddle steamer heading off from Rothesay pier or the Gordon Highlanders leaving Maryhill barracks.

Only visible brickwork from the outside of the original circular building,
halfway up Scott Street beside the fire exit you leave the ABC venue from

The building was then converted into The Hippodrome, complete with a circus ring and water tank underneath. From 1904 to 1924 it was home to Hengler's Circus, showing films in the hall when the circus was not performing (the name lives on as a JD Wetherspoons pub across Sauchiehall Street opposite the dental hospital).

In 1927 it re-opened as the Waldorf Palais dance hall and in 1929 finally was re-invented as "The Regal", the ABC's grandest Glasgow cinema. The thread in the Glasgow film festival this year marks Glasgow's place as a "cinema city" in the 1930s, with more cinema screens per head of population than anywhere else in the world.

Other Glasgow Ice Rinks

January 2010, my dad dusted off his skates to give the ice on Bingham's pond a go

Before anyone came up with the idea of indoor ice rinks people were skating and curling on Glasgow's ponds and rivers, particularly during the colder winters 150-200 years ago. A "Glasgow Skating Club" was formed in 1830 and a Glasgow map of 1894 of Bingham's pond calls it a "Boating and Skating Pond" with a rectangular "Curling Pond" laid out alongside.

After Glasgow's first indoor ice rink closed in the late 1890's it was a few years before Glasgow's skaters had a new indoor venue. Crossmyloof ice rink opened in 1907 and this was where I first went ice skating aged about 12, a few years before it finally closed in 1986. When I was there I think it was on its last legs and we had the ice to ourselves. I could hardly stand up as the leather in the scabby old ice skates that they handed out was so knackered that they gave absolutely no support. The boots didn't seem to hold my dad back though, who had skated there as a youth. However from the picture below you can see that it did have grander days in the past and was home to ice skating, curling and ice hockey for almost 80 years. It is now demolished and the Morrisons supermarket at Crossmyloof stands where it once was.

Crossmyloof Ice Rink a few years after opening, with  an
orchestra suspended from the roof in the middle

In 1918 with falling attendances during the war, the building was sold to Beardmore's who used it for manufacturing airplane engines, but in 1928 it was redeveloped as an ice rink again. There was a flurry of ice rink building at that time of which only the Kirkcaldy rink (built in 1937) and the Murrayfield rink (built in 1939) are still up and running in Scotland. In Glasgow the Kelvin Hall briefly had an ice rink, but it was 1986 before Glasgow had another rink, the Summit Centre in Finnieston. I had many a portion of chips in the cafe when hanging about down there, resting my aching calves after skating with their big solid plastic boots. This lasted from 1986 to 1998 when it had to close due to subsidence blamed on the River Kelvin flooding. Since then Glasgow has had no indoor rink. Skating, curling and ice hockey has migrated to the rink at Braehead, which opened in 1999.

When I've looked at old maps of Glasgow in the Mitchell Library my eye is often caught by the now long gone "curling ponds" marked in them. 

"Curling Pond" on Peel Street, Partick map 1861

The Drovers Inn on Byres Road changed its name to Curlers in 1849 as the Partick Curling Society (which exists to this day) used to meet here and a curling pond was laid out in the land behind it. Another curling pond could be found up in the Botanic Gardens. The map on the website "Historical Curling Places" shows some of the sites of the 80 curling ponds that have been identified around the Glasgow area including at Church Street, St Vincent Crescent and several at Anniesland and in the grounds at Gartnavel Royal Hospital. 

One of the most interesting though can still be found in Victoria Park. As warmer winters meant less chance to curl on natural ponds John Cairnie, a former surgeon with the East India Company, devised a way to make artificial curling ponds. The idea was to have a shallow bed with a raised edge that could be artificially filled gradually with water which would freeze in layers. Once John MacAdam invented macadamisation, the perfect lining for these ponds was available. Partick Curling Club now practice at Braehead rink, but their clubhouse in Victoria Park still stands beside their Cairnie rink, which was built in 1902.

Partick Curling Club curling pond in Victoria Park
(filled with water due to today's Glasgow weather)

Markings visible on the Victoria Park curling pond

Their clubhouse still contains a lot of the club's old curling equipment apparently and is now a Grade A listed building, but unfortunately is hidden inside a Glasgow City Council parks department depot. However from Balshagray Avenue you can see the curling pond and the markings on the floor of it.

The back of the Partick Curling Club clubhouse in Victoria Park, now marooned in a council depot

So Glasgow has no indoor ice rink, and when we go to visit relatives in Fife this weekend I'm planning to drag my children along to the Fife Ice Arena in Kirkcaldy, where the Fife Flyers ice hockey team play, for a wee bit of skating. 

So...
Where was Glasgow's first indoor ice rink? - At the ABC on Sauchiehall Street.

Where is there a 110 year old outdoor curling rink in Glasgow? - In Victoria Park in the west end. 

Final thought

I can't finish this without mentioning the dark cloud that now hangs over the annual Glasgow On Ice festival, which has featured an open air ice rink in George Square every winter over recent years. I've taken my children there or to see the lights, I've gone along as a helper with their primary school classes, everyone in the city knows it inside out. This year Christmas shoppers and people heading to enjoy the activities in George Square were caught up in a tragic accident, when a bin lorry crashed into the crowd here. Several people died and many are still recovering from their injuries. Details of how to donate to the fund set up to help those affected by the incident can be found here.

Xylouris White, Gig Review, Glasgow

Xylouris White, Gig Review, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow. Nov 2014

I like it when you happen upon an album, look into the musicians a bit and then find that they are playing my town a couple of days later. I picked up the album Goats by George Xylouris and Jim White (performing as Xylouris White) after reading good reviews of it in several places. I was always going to warm to it as I have a strong affection for Greece after spending several summers there, where I have many good friends. One thing my Greek friends have tried to teach me is the difference between decent Greek music and "dog music" - skyladika music. I have kind of got that now and my personal preferences are towards Rembetiko, but I still never got the hang of what music would suddenly spring a sedate crowd onto their feet to dance around the room with the first chord. 

George Xylouris is from Crete, the lute playing son of famous musician Psarantonis (Antonis Xylouris). He has played before with Australian drummer Jim White and the pair have now come together to record an album and tour. White was co-founder of the Dirty Three (with Warren Ellis and Mick Turner) and has collaborated with Bonnie Prince Billie, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey amongst others. These diverse backgrounds come together on a largely instrumental album that feels like an extended jam session, the album produced by Fugazi's Guy Picciotto. When I was driving up to Crianlarich last week in the dark to get up a mountain early, this album, Goats, was on repeat in the car and accompanied the trip perfectly.

Jim White and George Xylouris at King Tut's, Glasgow

Their gig in Glasgow drew out a large Greek following to King Tut's. Glasgow based psychadelic-folk-rock band Trembling Bells, with drummer Alex Neilson, provided lively support. Then the wild-haired pair came onstage and riffed back and forwards between lute and mesmeric drumming. There was more singing from Xylouris in the live show than on the album, and some beautiful music on show. The Greek crowd were a bit more unruly and chatty than the usual Glasgow audience, but the experienced pair on stage were able to reel them in again and again and after a quiet piece hypnotised everyone, they were sprung into life for a Greek dance around the room, with it has to be said some impressive solo efforts on the dance front. A lovely evening, and the only time that I've ever bought a set of worry beads/κομπολόγια from the merchandise stall.

Τι όμορφη μουσική. Ευχαριστώ πολύ

Wintersong, The Platform, Easterhouse - Gig Review

Wintersong Festival, The Platform, Easterhouse - Gig Review. November 2014

I've been to a couple of events at The Platform in Easterhouse now and always found it a great venue. Nice staff, decent spaces for performances and just about accessible from the city centre with a short walk from Easterhouse train station or, as on this occaision, those nice people at Mono often run a bus to gigs. It goes without saying that this is what the people of Easterhouse have to do in reverse when gigs are elsewhere.

Wintersong was billed as "an evening of music and song based around the theme of winter". With eight acts lined up it promised to be a busy evening and Northumbrian guitarist and singer Steve Malley (who performs as Horse Loom) had the task of kicking things off whilst it had hardly got dark outside, or many people had yet got to the bar. He admitted to not having done his homework on the winter theme but played a grand set of folk-tinged tunes, and told some creaky jokes. (On a side note if you Google "Horse Loom band" you do get to see some lovely ponies that people have made with those colourful wee rubber bands, I bet he never thought of that when he chose the name.)

Next up Plinth had Michael Tanner, sporting beard and sailor's cap, and friend looping their accordion and violin into bleak drones. Then Howie Reeve played solo with his acoustic bass, giving us lyrics like a "one legged pigeon pecking at a battered sausage" and looking on winter as a political winter we are going through in the post-referendum Britain of David Cameron. 

The winter theme gave Alasdair Roberts plenty of scope to indulge a very Scottish list of seasonal cold hearts, death, betrayal and poison. His folk leanings seem to view winter as a dark place. Mesmerising as ever, I could have watched him perform for another hour, but the tight schedule didn't allow for that and it was back across the hall again to hear Richard Youngs. At this point it is obligatory to use the phrase "prolific and diverse" to describe Richard's musical output. Tonight he bemoaned a sore throat, so he played guitar whilst his young son Sorley was the star of the evening with a 30 minute, impeccably delivered piece. He'd suggested that the piece was based upon the 154 days between the clocks going back and then forwards again in the spring, 14x11 dividing the piece (also the same number as Shakespeare's sonnets by the way). Whatever the reasoning it was the stand out performance of the night. 

As Grumbling Fur Alexander Tucker and Daniel O'Sullivan and a lot of kit delivered a half hour set of psychedelic electro-prog-rock. Very enjoyable it was too and I'd look out for them performing again. They feigned an attempt to find a wintery theme to their songs, but Louis Abbot, lead singer of Scottish band Admiral Fallow, didn't even pretend. As he tried out the novelty of playing solo, it did feel a wee bit as if he was missing his band. 

Finally, the previous Scottish Album of the Year winner RM Hubbert played a specially composed instrumental piece on unaccompanied guitar, giving us a quieter, more reflective perspective of winter, like a wee mouse having to "thole winter's sleety dribble". I wouldn't have been surprised to step outside to find the silence that a sudden 6 inches of snow creates, but it was the usual mild, wet Glasgow winter nonsense and the strum of the traffic on the M8 back to town soon shook me out of my tranquil repose.