Bands play for new capital music venue

Bands play for new capital music venue

Roots music outfits Adam Holmes and the Embers and Cera Impala and the New Prohibition, Afro blues funkers the Pygmies and DJ Dolphin Boy take to the stage at the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh on Friday April 18.

It is the first of a series of concerts to raise funds for the new Soundhouse organisation, which plans to open a venue in the capital to fill the gap left by venue closures over the past 20 years.

Soundhouse has emerged from the house concerts run since 2002 by photographer Douglas Robertson and aims to create a venue that offers a fair deal to musicians and a warm welcome to audiences of all ages as well as rehearsal facilities and educational activity.

l soundhouse.org.uk

Games flats row aids book sales

Luath Press has, perhaps understandably, used the controversy around the proposed demolition of the Red Road flats, abandoned yesterday, for the amusement of athletics fans to repromote Alison Irvine's novel This Road is Red, in which she used interviews with residents to construct a fictional history of life in the tower blocks over 50 years.

Irvine is a product of the M Litt Creative Writing course at Glasgow University and her book was commissioned by Glasgow Housing Association and Glasgow Life. She is working on a project about the cultural legacy of the Commonwealth Games, The Winning City. She was unimpressed by the plan to demolish the blocks as part of Glasgow's Games Opening Ceremony.

She said it made her feel sick and angry. The idea was crass and did a disservice to former and current residents and workers at Red Road.

l luath.co.uk alisonirvine.com

More music from Newfoundland

Newfoundland continues its musical charm offensive. Vocal harmony trio The Once's hit show in Glasgow in March is followed by their compatriots the Dardanelles, who play a series of Scottish dates on their way to the Shetland Folk Festival.

Audience favourites at Celtic Connections 2013, the Dardanelles play Glenbuchat Village Hall on Wednesday April 23, Acoustic Music Club, Kirkcaldy (24), Birnam Arts Centre (25), Brookfield Village Hall (26), CatStrand, New Galloway (27) and Edinburgh Folk Club (29).

l thedardanelles.com

Writers choose war theme

The Association of Scottish Literature, based at the Department of Scottish Literature in Glasgow University, has taken the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War as the theme for its annual conference at Greenock's Beacon Arts Centre on Saturday May 31. Speakers include Trevor Royle, and Isobel Murray talking about Eric Linklater's contrasting war novels, The Dark Summer and Private Angelo. Registration is open now and costs £25.

l asls.org.uk