Venuewatch: The Hydro

There's trouble at the Hydro, the music venue spin-off of the SECC in Glasgow. A few weeks after it opened with a Rod Stewart gig, the manager has quit. There's a lot of politeness about it public:

The SECC said: "John believes this is the natural time to take on his next career challenge and allow a new successor to consolidate the potential of the new, expanded SECC campus and enlarged business. He will announce his future plans at a later date."

City council chief executive George Black said: "Having driven this complex and successful project to completion, I wish John well in his future endeavours."

Mr Sharkey said: "It is undoubtedly a massive privilege to have had the opportunity to see the SSE Hydro from its gestation through construction to its successful opening and now it's time for me to take on another challenge."

According to the Herald, though, behind the scenes there's been a hell of a battle over the size of salaries being paid by the project. Not to everyone, of course. Just to the management.

Glasgow: Weather axes gigs

Thin night in Glasgow tonight: Billy Bragg and Emarosa have cancelled their dates.

Good news, though - there are tickets on the door for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - but there'll be no Duke Spirit.

It was 20 years ago todaythe day after tomorrow

The Daily Record had a nice piece yesterday on the Big Day Out in Glasgow back in 1990.

You have to tip your hat to the organisers - they did get every big name in the nation who were operating at the time:

Wet Wet Wet, Hue And Cry, Texas, Big Country and Deacon Blue were enjoying massive success in the charts.

Okay, however much horror that line-up might strike in our cold hearts now, you've got to be impressed by the sheer heft there, right?

Their blue-eyed Scottish soul, along with chart fodder from the likes of fellow Big Day acts Goodbye Mister McKenzie, Kevin McDermott Orchestra, The Silencers and Love And Money, briefly defined an era in British music history, Scottish culture and even politics.

I'm not sure by any stretch of the imagination the Kevin McDermott Orchestra or the Silencers defined anything, but you know what they mean.

Pat Kane, though, suggests there was more going on than simply the bringing together of Lorraine McIntosh and Paul McGeechan onto the same stage:

"People were thinking, 'This might matter in some way'. It was consciousness-raising, like an alternative media, almost the way Gospel music was used during the Civil Rights movement. I know from one of Tony Blair's former researchers that he didn't want to give Scotland its own parliament in 1997.

"This guy said that if it wasn't for the evidence that Scotland was culturally militant, that they wouldn't have been able to point to anything in support of a Scottish government."

I suspect even Kane would accept he's slightly over-selling this, but perhaps not by much - it was a key part of Glasgow's City Of Culture celebration, and the success of that year helped shift UK-wide perceptions of Scotland. Nobody would give you a government simply because you had the power to deploy former members of Hipsway at a moment's notice, but you can believe it was a step towards something much bigger.

Arab Strap weekend: Don't Ask Me To Dance

An acoustic Strap performance - which, to be honest, doesn't require a great deal of effort for the unplugging - just outside a Glaswegian vegan cafe:



[Part of the Arab Strap weekend]

Embed and breakfast man: Bis

Oh, yes, Bis played Glasgow at the weekend. Look, there's evidence and everything:



[More, and via, Manda Rin's blog
Buy: Bis catalogue downloads]

The illustrated Hello: Charlie Parker

Not Charles Parker, who produced the BBC's Radio Ballads, which led to the creation of songs like this one, written by Ewan McColl, and performed here by Raymond Crooke:



And certainly not Bruce Parker, who rode the South Today desk for what seemed like an eternity:



Nor, sadly, is it Peter Parker, our current Glaswegian crushes:



No, the Beloved were hailing Charlie Parker, the legend of jazz. Not only for how he played himself, but for the way he shaped Dizzy Gillespie's sound as well:



[Buy: Peter Parker - Swallow The Rockets

Charlie Parker 10 CD Box set]

[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

George Best Weekend: Don't Be So Hard

You might need to squint a bit for this one - Don't Be So Hard, live at QMU in Glasgow in 2007:



[Part of the George Best weekend]

Gordon in the morning: He went to Glasgow

First, let's just be fair to Gordon Smart: He did actually bother to head off to Glasgow for the Mobos.

And - given how the winners were drawn heavily from the sort of people that Smart plugs his column with when there's nobody interesting to write about - it's no wonder Gordon was thrilled. Thrilled to the point of awkwardness:


But The Sun has been pretty sniffy about the Mobos in the past - how can Gordon save face?

THE MOBO Awards have been rubbish for years.

Bizarre dubbed them the "no goes" a few years back when half the celebrity nominees failed to show up for the bash.

But this year, on my home soil in Scotland, the McMOBOs were finally something to celebrate.

It's unclear if - when writers from the English Sun travel north, they suddenly cease to believe the Tories are a good thing, in line with their newspaper's somewhat odd double-dealing, and sadly Gordon doesn't let on if he suddenly finds Cameron vapid once he's out of Northumberland.

Nor does Gordon seem to have noticed that, yes, the winners did turn up in Glasgow, but that this might be more because the prizes have gone to bands which issue press releases when one of them buys a drink in a bar or has a bad head cold.

Gordon shares an astonishing statistic with us:

It was a brave shout, considering only five per cent of urban sales come from north of Watford.

What? So - generally - people in Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford don't buy music by black artists? Or is a Scottish journalist making the Southern solecism of assuming that "anything outside London" counts as Scotland?

Mobos proudly celebrate all music of black origin, regardless of how good it is

It's perhaps indicative of how far the Mobos are from being a national staple that BBC News treats the story as one of the "TOP GLASGOW, LANARKSHIRE AND WEST STORIES" rather than an entertainment one.

Mind you, given the results, it's not surprising:

JLS and N-Dubz win two Mobos each

Really? That's the best we can do?

Accepting the award for best song for "Beat again", JLS's Marvin Humes said: "The band's success would have been inconceivable just a year ago."

It's still pretty hard to get your head around right now, Marvin.

Even the winners seem to have noticed that the prize giving seems to have spotted that there was something terribly wrong:

Speaking after the awards, N-Dubz's MC, Dappy, said rapper Tinchy Stryder should not have been overlooked.

"There's no-one like Tinchy, nobody's doing what he's doing, nobody's got his swagger," he said.

"I'm really upset. He should have won something."

Those winners in full:

Best UK: N-Dubz

Best Newcomer: JLS

Best Song: JLS, Beat Again

Best Album: N-Dubz, Uncle B

Best DJ: Trevor Nelson

Best Hip Hop: Chipmunk

Best R&B: Keri Hilson

Best International: Beyonce

Best Video: Beyonce, Single Ladies

Best Reggae: Sean Paul

Best Jazz: Yolanda Brown

Best Gospel: Victizzle

Best African Act: Nneka

JLS winning... well, anything. Whoever would have thought? Hang about... that's going to make someone happy, isn't it?

Gordon in the morning: You don't listen to N-Dubz for the sense of musical history

Sweet joy for Gordon Smart today, as he finds someone with even less of a steady grip on popular culture than he has:

N-DUBZ star TULISA CONTOSTAVLOS proves she's got soul but she's no fan of THE KILLERS.

The singer confessed she had no idea the sample for the brilliant new War Child track which she features on was from All These Things That I've Done by the US outfit.

She confessed that. And asked for three other charges of not being able to tell U2 from Radiohead to be taken into consideration.

Tulisa and the rest of the Young Soul Rebelswill perform the song, I Got Soul, for the first time at Wednesday's MOBOs in Glasgow.

Ah, yes, Music of Black Origin - N-Dubz singing a song based around a Brandon Flowers piece. There's a celebration.

Still, it must be exciting for Glasgow, this week preparing to hold an event that it's pumped cash into to help shift the idea of Glasgow from being a crumbling, old-fashioned, bypassed city into something new and modern and a little multicultural. Isn't that right, Gordon?

I'll be there tapping my foot, drinking Irn-Bru and eating Tunnock's Tea Cakes.

Oh.

I suppose the good people of Glasgow can take comfort that he didn't mention hot battered confectionery. Although there's still time.

Elsewhere, Gordon manages to spin a lead article from the somewhat humdrum news that Kate Moss is now a member of the PRS.

Mobos go North

In what I'm going to be generous and put down to a well-conceived plan to raise the profile of the MOBO awards - the annual music event where prizes are given to people whose music is, in some way, black - has decided to hold its prize-giving in Glasgow this year.

Lemar - for some reason - was given the announcement to make:

"Bringing the MOBO awards here to Glasgow, a city with such a strong and vibrant music scene, is the perfect fit," the singer said. "I love touring in the UK and the welcome I receive when I come to Scotland is incredible."

That'll be why it's Glasgow, then. Because Lemar likes playing in Scotland. Similarly, the locations of the Grammy awards were fixed on using 'where would David Crosby most like to have breakfast the next morning'.

It's not because the event's partners this year are Event Scotland and Glasgow. Oh, no, no. This is nothing to do with chasing subsidy.

There's no reason why a major event should automatically be held in London, although in these straightened economic times, the London-centric music business might be a bit reluctant for people to run up expense bills traveling north for a second division event.

Free Manda Rin

If you live in Glasgow - or can get there - and want to spend an evening looking at Manda Rin doing her stuff on March 4th, but don't want to pay: good news. There are free tickets to be had for her and Sugar Crisis at the Mill.

Hope Is Important; Warnings And Promises is for Saturday

The 'playing an entire album through start to finish gig' has become slightly flat-cappedly old fashioned in recent years. Idlewild have decided to raise the stakes, though, by deciding to play their entire back catalogue, start to finish, over a series of gigs at King Tuts Wah Wah Hut this December:

'Hope Is Important' and others (December 17)
'100 Broken Windows' (18)
'The Remote Part' (19)
'Warnings/Promises' and acoustic set (20)
'Captain' and 'Make Another World' (21)

You can get a season ticket for all five shows, although nobody will think badly of you if skip the disappointing one.

Glasgow: a million twees bloom

Earlier, news about one of Marine Research. Now, news of an indie club opening in Glasgow. This is only going to confirm the suspicions of those Slayer and Iron Maiden fans, isn't it?

Anyway, Glasgwegians and those prepared to travel, prepare yourself for Half My Heart Beats, on the second Saturday of every month. The team behind it are affiliated with the indie-mp3 blog in some way, which is a guarantee of the quality of what you'll be hearing. And dancing your pretty little asses off to.

Dizzee does it for himself

Who knew that Dizzee Rascal is more C86 than underground grime? He's genuninely indie:

"Dance Wiv Me was the first fully independent song to go to No.1 in 14 years."

He's proud of his achievement - understandably so. The main difference between Rascal and most indie acts, though, is that he's quite keen to remain indie.

And, he tells the Daily Record, he's keen to return to Scotland:

He added: "I think Scotland is very urban in the sense of rough council estates.

"You've got black people in Scotland and always had a good history of black music.

You had Average White Band so there's always been relations to urban.

"You're not that far away from England, know what I mean?"

Dizzee played at Glasgow University during last year's Freshers' Week.

He said: "I went to their ball. It's good to rave with the students.

"It was my 23rd birthday and they mademe feel really welcome."

Ah, yes. You'll generally find the Freshers' ball at Glasgow consists almost entirely of kids from the rough council estates.

The wrong paper

For reasons we can't quite fathom, people who've bought tickets for the Coldplay gig in Glasgow have been asked to send their tickets back in order to get new ones. On, erm, different paper:

Ticket distribution company Ticketmaster has asked fans to send back tickets bought through them for the shows on December 5 and 6 as soon as possible.

All customers affected by the mistake have been sent out freepost envelopes to return the tickets in, with Ticketmaster saying that they will refund all service charges.

We're at a total loss as to understand why it matters if the tickets are on the 'wrong' paper - obviously, it's a bit of a slip but since the tickets are good enough to swap for new tickets, why aren't they good enough for gaining entry to the actual gig? And what happens if someone doesn't swap out the tickets? Will they still be able to get in?

The faintest air of something dodgy hangs over the affair:

A spokesperson for promoter DF Concerts said that while all tickets bought direct from Ticketmaster would be exchanged in time, fans with tickets bought from secondary sources such as Ebay might end up disappointed.

"It will be more difficult to replace tickets originally purchased through Ticketmaster and then sold on through the secondary ticket market," the spokesperson said.

He added: "In this case, ticket holders should contact their point of purchase. We urge these secondary sources to look after their customers at this time."

This isn't an attempt to try and fight touting by creating a "but what if you bought your tickets from eBay and they needed to recall them" worry, is it?

Also: if Ticketmaster has the names and addresses of ticketholders to be able to send them an envelope for them to return the tickets, why didn't it just send them new tickets and cancel the old ones? Wouldn't that have been simpler?

If it really is a genuine mistake, it makes Ticketmaster look something of a shambles. If it's all a stunt, it makes Ticketmaster look like a shambles being run by knaves.

Velvet Revolver: You're all fired

There's a possibility that Velvet Revolver might be calling it a day: Scott Weiland told the Glasgow audience last night that this was the last tour - shortly before having a hissy fit. A blog posting by drummer Matt Sorum today didn't add very much beyond alluding to Weiland's bad mood and some hopeful Bad Newsisms:

"Everybody could see who was unhappy last night, but all I can say is let's keep the rock alive, people!!!! In this life, you just pick up and keep moving. And don't ever let anybody stand in your way."

Four exclamation points, you'll note. That's convincing, that is.

Vampire Weekend pull UK dates

No Vampire action for Glasgow or Manchester, it turns out, according to their MySpace:

“We're very sad to announce that we have to cancel this week's shows in Manchester and Glasgow due to illness. We were very psyched to come, but at least we'll be back in May.

We sincerely apologize to anyone who was planning on seeing us. Hope we can make it up to you in a couple of months.

Please send positive health vibes our way.

Best,
Ezra”

Probably something to do with garlic. It usually is.

Keys told to keep quiet

Alicia Keys' European tour is on hold; apparently doctors have told her to "rest her voice". So far Glasgow and Manchester are being rescheduled.

Hammer Time again

There's much to be enjoyed in the news of MC Hammer's comeback tour from the Daily Record, not least the botched way they've cut and pasted chunks from one of those "you're a child of the eighties" emails into the end of the article to "get you in the mood", and the strident attempt of the management of Glasgow's Classic Grand to try and talk-up the prospect of a Hammer gig as being anything other than a nostalgic attraction:

"We are thrilled to have him and have gone all out to get him. He has a hefty entourage of around 20 people and such a massive list of demands that we won't see much change out of £20,000 after all his needs have been met. But we think he will be worth it.

"The night is not targeted at mums and dads who want a bit of nostalgia and it's not just a student night either. It's on a Friday night so will have an edgier vibe for fans of people like Calvin Harris."

Hmm. A forty-five year old evangelical preacher who had his own cartoon series for kids and was mainly known for comedy trousers. Yes, that's going to be edgy.