Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard – Glasgow, Oran Mor

‘Eclectic’ is a cliché in modern music. Journalists pen it about acts for simply speeding up the drum beat, and herald the addition of a string section to an average rock record as if Wheel 2.0 has arrived. Bands strive for it, everyone falling over themselves in the rush to show hitherto-undreamed levels of depth [...]

Stag and Dagger Festival, Glasgow – Various Venues 23rd May

Following hot on the heels of Hinterland is another boutique festival, the rather interestingly titled Stag and Dagger at the end of this month. Last years event was London-based – snarl, boo, hiss say the regional types – but this year they are taking it on the road, first to Leeds and then to Glasgow. [...]

Happy Birthday to Us! – Extreme Listening Mode is 1

Doesn’t time fly? The world was a very different place 12 months ago when what would soon be the recognisably scary orange and black colour scheme loaded up and Extreme Listening Mode came into being. Since then we’ve seen a lot of changes but what has been undeniable is that ELM has continued to exist. [...]

Low – Glasgow Oran Mor

by Vespertine This was advertised as ‘the Christmas show’ due to the promise to play their new Christmas single and the now legendary Christmas EP first championed by John Peel many years ago. ‘Little Drummer Boy’ even got used in a Gap advert. But…it is November and it is a Monday. Can the Glaswegian audience [...]

Connect 2008 Special

How do ELMers. The ELM team has just returned home from festive Inverary, where we witnessed a myriad of acts and will praise and sneer at them in equal measure over the week. We can say, with all certainty, that it was incredibly muddy and that Carling really is the devil’s piss. One little story [...]

(We Are) Performance – King Tut’s Glasgow

There’s a great story about R.E.M. when they first started. They literally drove round America, taking any gigs they could. Didn’t matter where, didn’t matter who, just anywhere that would give them petrol money and an audience. And, as Bill Berry said ‘if we played to six people the first time, there would be twenty [...]

Welcome to ELM

You know, there’s a lot of it about. Music, I mean. And frankly, you don’t have time to listen to it all. But you want to listen to some. So how do you know the wheat from the chaff, the Udon from the Pot Noodle, the (Lazer) Guided Melodies from the Girls Aloud?* Well, you [...]