September 2007

When I saw the band play The Garage in Glasgow early in the year I thought they were stupendous – better-than-Springsteen wordplay beefed up through ZZ Top and Lizzy riffing. Then, having moved heaven and earth to catch them at both T in the Park and Connect, they managed to turn up late for both,…

As made by TM Show listener Mark Shiner of Selkie Harps in Orkney. Viking pan pipes, apparently. “An unlimited number of tunes can be stored, as long as a brain is attached” says Mark.

This is the Logik Reciva internet wifi radio. It renders DAB utterly obsolete if you have a wireless internet connection. Basically, using a stunningly simple (just like…tuning a radio) interface, or if you prefer, knob, you can haul in every radio station that has an internet presence, INCLUDING ‘listen again’ wherever it lurks, plus any…

Inveterate TM show listener Hugh Campbell got in touch today to reminisce about the first broadcast from Wunnerful Radio One, exactly 40 years ago….what, he asked, were you doing when Tony Blackburn spun Flowers in the Rain, way back when? On my way to school, I think, gazing out, as we prepared to turn right…

Alex Kapranos and the boys finish their Highlands and Islands tour tonight in Shetland, at the 350-capacity community hall over at Weisdale. Actually, as I write they’re just going on stage, I think, for their second show of the night. I caught the, uh, matinee, put on specially for under 18s (and a suspiciously large…

Saturday’s flight to Sumburgh from Aberdeen was marred by the utter contempt shown to passengers by the despicable Servisair. But really, this is about British Airways’ disdain for its Shetland routes: first they dump the responsibility for operating them onto Loganair, then ground services are hived off to Servisair, whose approach to what is, after…

I’m in the Seaforth Hotel in Ullapool, which is, I think, the hub of activity in this most beautiful of west coast villages. From morning to, well, early morning, it hums…and for that matter, shouts and thumps. Last night I caught the Stornoway band Our Lunar Activities here, who were LOUD. It’s the weekend of…

Really straightforward and completely trouble-free trip to Aberdeen this morning, despite late-night trip to Pacific Quay to find out that the Trainline ticket machine was STILL not prepared to give up my tickets (probably some security measure in the runup to the PM’s official opening of PQ today). I have to admit that the building…

A fairly large amount of last night was spent in the first bar I ever really drank in, the Snaffle Bit in Sauchiehall Street. The Celtic match was watched, Guinness (normal temperature) was drunk, and fractured memories erupted of 1978 lunchtimes spent playing dominoes with the other members of staff at Project Scotland, The Voice…

Ah, the luxury of the internet cafe…or a well run-one, like Sip’n’Surf in Glasgow’s Great Western Road. New computers, all the papers,good latte, fine croissants and reasonable rates for printing stuff out. I know I could just go to Pacific Quay and do all my necessary preparation for the show, but the fact is I…