Glasgow

On each of our Glasgow Music City Tours, there are places that evoke particularly strong memories. The site of the late, lamented Apollo, which features on our Music Mile Tour, is a favourite, where people pause and sigh at the memory of what used to be. Such is the fondness in which its memory is…

The 2015 Glasgow Jazz Festival ended on a high note with a 20% increase on ticket sales. Far from resting on their weary laurels, planning has already begun for 2016 when the festival celebrates its 30th edition. We grabbed a quick natter with the festival’s indefatigable director, Jill Rodger, about how she came to be…

Our second Merchant City Festival tour is on Thursday 30th July at 2pm. Starting off at the Old Fruitmarket, we take a walk through the musical past and present of the Merchant City and East End. From the dung-flinging audiences of the Panopticon to the Barrowland’s more romantic stories, the tours bring some of Glasgow’s most famous venues to…

Next week from the 13th -17th July, Girls Rock Glasgow holds its brilliant Rock’n’Roll Summer School for Girls; a week long music programme aimed at girls aged 8 to 16. You can donate to the summer school here.  Alisa Wylie, who writes the music blog Ambivalent Peaks, is volunteering at GRG and we asked her to share her reasons for…

To mark the success of our first rehearsal run of the Glasgow’s Music Mile tour on Saturday and in anticipation of the maiden voyage of our Merchant City Music Past and Present tour this Friday, we are pleased to launch our Spotify playlist. It’s over there, on the right. You’ll probably need to scroll down Like any good jukebox,…

As AC/DC limber up to play Hampden Park on Sunday night, writer and founder of Glasgow Music City Tours, Jonathan Trew, goes all misty-eyed as he recalls falling for the band as a teenager.   Recently, a friend was ribbing me for playing Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, one of AC/DC’s earlier albums. His charges were that the lyrics had a teenager’s sense of humour; the music was basic rock ‘n’ roll and that the guitarist, Glasgow-born Angus Young, still dressed as a schoolboy at the age of 60. Guilty as charged, m’lud, but nothing to apologise for. You might not want to try and justify many of AC/DC’s more crude lyrics before, say, your Mum but the band’s absurd sense of fun and unswerving commitment to simple but effective blues rock are exactly what have made them one of the biggest…

Tonight, Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey’s group Holy Holy and Glenn Gregory perform Bowie’s classic The Man Who Sold The World album and a new set of other Bowie songs from 1969-73 at the 02 ABC in Glasgow. Rock critic for The Scotsman and founding member of Glasgow Music City Tours, Fiona Shepherd, caught up with Tony Visconti recently…

This weekend Mogwai celebrate twenty years of dynamic noisemongering with two sold out hometown shows at Barrowland. They have asked fans to bring along donations for local food banks – more information on that here. We will be taking our dried/tinned goods and ear plugs along just like everyone else but, in the meantime, let’s take…

This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival is awash with primo rock documentaries. Amy purports to get beyond the public profile and under the skin of the late Amy Winehouse, while former KLF man and all-round cultural mischief-maker Bill Drummond asks us to Imagine Waking Up Tomorrow and All Music Has Disappeared (must we, Bill? must we?). But the one…

Oh, be still our fluttering hearts. Tomorrow is a big day for those of us who believe that the only thing better than a Franz Ferdinand gig or a date with Sparks is the smooshing together of the four Franz boys and the Mael brothers in the exquisite meeting of hearts, minds, musical talent and…