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Okay, so The Beach Boys’ seminal Pet Sounds is fifty years young this year, but we at Glasgow Music City Tours are minded to celebrate an album anniversary which strikes closer to home. Belle & Sebastian’s debut album Tigermilk was released twenty years ago this summer, heralding the arrival of a special Glasgow band, irrevocably linked to their city…

Glasgow Music City Tours founder and guide Fiona Shepherd is the subject of one of the twelve beautifully-shot, documentary-style online films which capture the spirit of Scotland through the eyes of those who live and work here. Images of Glasgow will be beamed worldwide as part of the new VisitScotland cinematic TV advert set to be shown…

On Tuesday 23rd February (GFT 6pm) the 2016 Glasgow Film Festival will play host to the world premiere of Hamish. 14 years in the making, Robbie Fraser’s film pays tribute to Scottish cultural colossus Hamish Henderson – poet, soldier, intellectual, activist and musician. The premiere will include a musical overture featuring two of Scotland’s most respected singers, Adam McNaughton…

On Friday 19th February Barrowland Ballroom will be turned into a cinema for the first time as part of the Glasgow Film Festival. The occasion is the World Premiere of Paul Fegan’s documentary Where You’re Meant To Be.  It’s sold out, but as we write there are tickets available for the screening on 24th February at the GFT….

Mary Barbour: The Clutha Mural A gala concert organised by the Remember Mary Barbour Association to raise funds to create a memorial to one of Glasgow’s greatest heroes takes place this Sunday at the Old Fruitmarket. Five sculptors were shortlisted to create a statue of her to be placed in her community of Govan. Mary…

VisitScotland have just launched their new Spirit of Scotland campaign and our guide Fiona plays a starring role in the campaign’s video about Glasgow’s music scene. From the Barrowlands to Franz Ferdinand, Fiona talks about the venues and bands which have shaped the sound of the city. Experience it for yourself by booking on one of our walking tours.

On our recent Celtic Connections tours, we really enjoyed chatting to our guests after the tours. Lars from Norway sang to us, John told us about his job —counting Capercaillies in the Cairngorms —and there was even an unexpected family reunion. Most memorable though were the treasures that our guest Joan Brown brought along to share with…

Glasgow Music City Tours had a terrific first Celtic Connections. We’d like to thank everyone who signed up for our tours, we hope you enjoyed them as much as we did…you just can’t beat a Jeely Piece singalong… People were incredibly generous in sharing their personal stories about Celtic Connections, and some even brought related memorabilia to show us, which we will feature in our next blog. In the meantime we’d like to thank everyone who worked with us and made our first Celtic Connections tours such a success. Donald and Lesley Shaw were extremely generous with their time, coping all the while with crazy schedules, and Colin Hynd shared some great stories with us. Thanks too to our guest bloggers for making the time. The tours wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t had such enthusiastic support from our working partners;…

BENT MELTDOWN (Redux) is nostalgia for an age yet to come. Distant echoes. The event is in association with Celtic Connections, following on from the Creeping Bent organised Pop Group / Sexual Objects performance for Celtic Connections in Jan 2014. The Bent Meltdown takes place at Oran Mor, Glasgow, on Thursday 28th January. Come early, doors are…

One of our favourite Glasgow singers, Emma Pollock, is poised to release her latest solo album, In Search Of Harperfield, on Chemikal Underground Records, the fine, fine indie label which she set up with her bandmates in The Delgados way back in 1995 and which paved the way for so many other DIY labels and projects in…

JR Green are brothers Jacob and Rory from Strontian, a remote Scottish village a few miles from the most westerly point on mainland Britain, who describe their music as “Low-fi traditional skronk”. When we saw them support Joe McAlinden at the Poetry Club in Glasgow last year it’s fair to say we were very impressed, and it’s great to…

The Clutha mural: showing Glasgow’s music heritage. In between raiding the mince pies and making inroads on the whisky, Glasgow Music City Tours spent much of the festive period polishing our stories for our Trad Trail walking tours, which we are running as part of Celtic Connections in 2016. Our first tour is today, and our initial scheduled tours…