Glasgow music scene

In 1974 the Scottish writer and playwright, Tom McGrath, founded The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow. Described by the Guardian as ‘a shrine to the avant garde’, the centre hosted visiting artists and performers such as Allen Ginsberg, Whoopi Goldberg, John Byrne, Edwin Morgan and Kathy Acker, as well as quickly becoming the focus for…

There’s great things happening at this year’s  Milton Music Festival . Huge thanks to the team behind the scenes for taking time out to tell us more about the festival and the project.       How did the festival come about and how much work has been involved in pulling it together? Milton Music…

A new crowdfunding project, 16 Years: Gigs in Scotland 1974-1990, is right up our street, we love the sound of it and would love to see it in print. We invited Chris, the man behind the project to tell us more… 16 YEARS is a comprehensive photobook I’m currently Crowdfunding, showcasing 2,000 rare live gig…

Anyone who has taken our Merchant City Music Past and Present tour will already know how much we love Jim Lambie’s Album Pathway in Barrowland Park, which records the artists who have graced the Barrowland stage since its conversion to beloved gig venue in 1983. For International Women’s Day,  on Friday March 8th we want…

Thanks Glasgow Music City Tours for inviting us to write this blog. We’re Fans of Barrowland Park, a community group campaigning to save the park. If you haven’t been yet (and if not what have you been doing with your time..?), Barrowland Park sits a few hundred metres along from the Barrowland Ballroom, in the…

Hi, I’m Tracyanne (Camera Obscura) and I want to tell you that I have a new record coming out. Myself and Danny Coughlin from Crybaby have become Tracyanne & Danny. After hearing a rumour we were all Indie purists up here in Glasgow, Danny from Bristol sent me a handwritten letter along with a C90…

Glasgow Music City Tours is pleased to present Cover Stories, an illustrated discussion on the art of the record sleeve, as part of Merchant City Festival 2016. Our guest panel of writers, artists and musicians will be discussing the art of the  record sleeve. We would like to extend huge thanks to; Manda Rin, Niall Smillie, Nicola Meighan and Francis…

A couple of weeks back, Glasgow Major Events sent out a film crew on one of our Glasgow’s Music Mile tours. We had a chat with them about why we set up Glasgow Music City Tours; how the tours work and what we would like to do in the future. For some reason, Hollywood agents have been…

We found Dave Pollock’s Guardian piece about the ‘slow death of music venues’ thought-provoking and a lot of research has gone into it. We’re less convinced that it told the whole story about Glasgow. A number of us at Glasgow Music City Tours have or still do work as music journalists. We understand that an article has to fit the brief, make clear points and not muddy the waters but Glasgow’s live music scene appears to be in rude health rather than facing a slow death. We wrote a reply on the article’s comments page: ‘As a former music journalist who wrote about many of the same Glasgow and Edinburgh venues as David Pollock, I appreciate the power of a punchy headline. However, this article greatly exaggerates the slow death of live music in Glasgow. While the closure of The Arches was indeed a…

We recently took the blogger Rob Lloyd out on a Glasgow music city tour. Rob writes the mighty fine Stop Having a Boring Life blog which documents his travel adventures all over the globe. We took him all over the Merchant City and East End of Glasgow. Barrowland Pathway At Jim Lambie’s Album Pathway in Barrowland Park, Rob was particularly taken with the blue police box which sits at one corner of the park. When you live here, police boxes are still common enough that you tend not to notice or remark on them. Of course, if you are a visitor then the sight of an old blue police box means only one thing: Dr Who. But, aside from Barrowland Park police box, do you know the connection between Dr Who and Glasgow’s music scene? It’s a story we cover on our Glasgow’s…