Just remember where you saw the name first. The latest addition to the MusicRiot team, our new writer Lou Anderson, is also drummer in the Edinburgh band Modern Misfortune who play their first gig at Studio 24 on Calton Road in Edinburgh on Saturday April 2nd (tickets £6 on the door).  The set is predominantly original material and one storming cover version.  Doors open at 6:30pm.

You can hear the band’s first recorded song here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI1TsYGm874

We’re updating your MusicRiot site – with a new design and new features to make your experience a whole lot better.

We might look a little dodgy until this is all finished, please excuse the mess!

As Electric Six stepped on stage on Friday night, they received a typically warm Glasgow welcome.

It would have been even warmer, had the audience known what a show they were about to witness. Kicking off with the opening staple “After Hours”, frontman Tyler Spencer (aka: Dick Valentine) had everyone in the palm of his hand. This set the tone for the rest of the night.

“Everything you do here, you do the correct way!” Valentine claimed at one point, to enormous cheers from all. It seemed the same for him onstage: during the guitar solo on “Infected Girls”, he assumed a power stance and didn’t move a muscle until the vocals returned. This delighted the audience.

However, the band’s success in winning over the crowd not only resided in Valentine’s charisma. The songs themselves had people moshing, pogo-ing and chanting, with their hit, “Danger! High Voltage”, bringing the venue to an even higher excitement level. In between songs, the band burst into a short cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and during the encore almost ended up playing the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, a moment of comic genius much appreciated by the Scottish audience. Read more

Does anyone else think festivals are crap? Well, I do, and I’ll tell you why.

First, there are too many of them. In the 70s, you only had Reading (Glastonbury didn’t really take off until the 80s). Now, if you look in the NME in any week during what we call the British summer there are dozens of them; and what’s a boutique festival supposed to be? And what idiot would arrange a major outdoor event which relies on good weather in this country during the summer?

And the toilets; you pay a small fortune to go to an event with toilet facilities that wouldn’t have been acceptable in the Middle Ages. I’m with the Manics on this one; take your own bog and don’t let anyone else use it. Next time you’re queuing to use a fetid stinkhole at a festival, ask yourself if the facilities backstage are the same; they’re not and you’re paying while they’re paid to be there (or freeloading). Read more