Fringe comedy reviews: Nina Conti | 1000 Years of German Humour | Neil Delamere | Fiona O’Loughlin

[Reviews written for The List]
Nina Conti - Evolution
4/5
Charles Darwin is enjoying a bit of posthumous publicity on the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, from Richard Dawkins’ worthy TV celebration to Conti with her hand up a puppet monkey’s rear. She’s been bringing her postmodern ventriloquism to the Fringe for a few years, [...]

Fringe comedy review: Ginger & Black

Rating: 3/5
Ginger & Black aren’t just deadpan. They’re the pan that’s been buried, left to rot, dug up and smacked about just to make sure. They would grimace at this metaphor, and thereby prove my point. In fact, they would grimace if you composed the most eloquent literary distillation of their comedic style possible. They [...]

Shout Out Louds @ Cabaret Voltaire, 7 Aug

Rating: 2/5
If, as popular conception dictates, Swedes really do only follow one of two musical extremes - church-burning black metal or polyphonic, wide-eyed pop - then Shout Out Louds have definitely chosen the latter. The Stockholm quintet combine the dreamy ambience of The Cure with the resonant guitar of U2, adding their own lush harmonies [...]

August in singles: Punks, divas, has-beens and a will-be

[Nacional: recipients of August's single of the month award. But there is no award... more like an accolade actually.]
Punk is all the rage - on the evidence of the first two singles this month anyway. The King Blues are a London act who project a renagade, guerilla-gigging image. Let’s Hang The Landlord (*, 4 Aug), [...]

Ratatat @ Cabaret Voltaire, 1 Aug

Rating: 4/5
A post-gig Google of the name of the support act I’ve been provided with (Dead Boy Robotics anyone?) returns no MySpace, but maybe it’s better that this emo-tronica duo remain anonymous. Their oh-so-ironic yelping and synth-prodding wankery is head-splitting to say the least.
So how especially welcome it is to see the professionals arrive on [...]

The Blakes - The Blakes (album review)

Rating: 2/5
It’s easy to get an idea of what to expect from The Blakes by citing their apparent influences: early Strokes in the playful kick of ‘Modern Man’, ‘Country Girl’-mode Primal Scream in the bluesy ‘Magoo’, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in the loose, grungy sway of upcoming single ‘Don’t Want That Now’. And the [...]

XX Teens - Welcome To Goon Island

Rating: 4/5
Some bands have no luck in the name game. After being threatened with legal action by a copier corporation under their previous guise of Xerox Teens, this London quintet settled on the dubious-sounding XX Teens. (And they’re not even teenagers.) Never mind all that though, because their debut album Welcome To Goon Island is [...]

Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things

Rating: 2/5
Jakob Dylan is either immensely brave or immensely foolish. To pursue a solo career in the shadow of Dylan senior - and in an acoustic, country-blues style at that - must require great self-belief or gross ignorance of the implications. Because, let’s be frank, under the family name the Wallflowers frontman is always going [...]

T in the Park: Sunday roving report

So much for Saturday. Sunday was all set to be the great day, with the clouds clearing and a glut of exciting bands to enjoy. The only problem was how to take it all in…
After a brief sojourn in the Media Village that proved uneventful (no ‘celebs’ to watch being slobbered over by the Daily [...]

T in the Park: Saturday roving report

With memories of a litter-strewn airstrip and 80,000 dancing, drinking, singing, colliding, wretching, cavorting, exposing, stumbling, pissing people fading as fast as my sunburn, it’s time I posted my second annual T in the Park roving report…
Straight off the trusty shuttle bus - via the bar, of course - we decide to sample some sounds, [...]