With Brexit and indyref2 on the tip of every keyboard warrior’s tongues fingers at the moment, what better way to look forward to the musical feast about to befall the Scottish capital than to single out a few homegrown highlights set to play in Edinburgh this month? And that’s not even counting the rock and pop bonanzas taking place elsewhere in Scotland…
In a very revealing interview with Pictish Trail last month, The Wee Review discovered brains-and-pretty-much-everything-else-behind-the-operation Johnny Lynch has a deep love for Whose Line Is It Anyway?, drunken kebabs and The Caves as a venue… which is handy, because he’s playing there this month. Pop along and witness his supreme wit and supremer facial hair in the flesh (there will likely be some sort of music to accompany both, too).
@ The Caves, Edinburgh, 13th Apr
We know what you’re thinking: wasn’t this supposed to be a list of born-and-bona-fide-bred Scottish artists? Well, despite the misleading name, Lost in Vancouver actually hail from the fair shores of Fife – Kirkcaldy, to be precise. Marketing themselves as the illegitimate Scottish offspring of Kings of Leon and Arctic Monkeys*, the band have apparently cobbled together a debut EP and are going to let us all have a sneaky peek at Sneaky Pete’s later this month.
* Not actually marketing themselves as anyone’s offspring, illegitimate or otherwise.
@ Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 21st Apr
In the band’s own words, Honeyblood’s name “comes from a lazy Hallowe’en costume I once made for a gig. I swirled it [water, honey, cornflour and red food dye] round in my mouth on-stage. And then I spat it over the audience.” Charming, eh? Fortunately, the Glaswegian double act produce melodies that thoroughly warrant being sprayed with fake mouth blood; this April they’ll give their second album (released last November) a thorough airing at Liquid Room.
@ Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 22nd Apr
At a time when the nation and the world as a whole seems to be reaching a divisive, decisive breaking point, the good folks over at Be United are doing their level best to dispel such discord with a night of inclusive, multi-national music at Leith’s Biscuit Factory. Balvada from Senegal, Morgan and the Gs from South Africa and Rumba Radges from Spain join Scotland’s very own James Brown Is Annie for a right old knees-up, complete with national dishes and dances. What fun!