Notes for Expats on Scottish bands touring internationally and features on Scottish music, sport, film and the life written by and for Scots around the world. More →
The Tartan Army are still the world’s fluffiest football fans, thanks to the Sun newspaper. The blowhard tabloid rag proudly declared itself the saviour of the Tartan Army after it produced a photograph showing the banana thrown on to the pitch after Brazil’s second goal came from an area populated by Brazil fans.
The one thing I love about Le Reno Amps is the fact that I really don’t know what they’re going to do next. For the past the few weeks I have been listening to their forthcoming album ‘Appetite’ on heavy rotation, each time racking my brains as to how the hell I was going to [...]
During SXSW the other week I was fortunate enough to meet quite a few Dear Scotland readers in person, and the one topic that kept coming up was the mysterious genius that is Swatrick Payze. An encore presentation is overdue. Welcome back Swatpaz, we missed you. Peej.
Vic is off on his jollies this week but I’m sure that he would approve of “unsigned noise-mongers” Bronto Skylift as the international Scottish gig of the week this week. Vic will be be back next Monday and in the meantime you can follow his adventures in Maui here.
Each Sunday we present some of the best new photos of Scotland in the gloaming, the magical time before sunrise or after sunset. This week featuring images of Largs, Arran, Houton and Portencross.
Matthew’s video diary from SXSW continues as he ventures into the East Side of Austin, recruits more unwilling participants to ‘Hipster Cam’ and catches a late night performance from Orkney’s Erland and the Carnival.
I’ve been having a few conversations recently about how Scotland’s current cultural reliance on grim and gritty urban (and increasingly rural) fiction has reached the point of overkill. That particular alcoholic and violent shark has been well and truly jumped. If Scotland’s cultural palette becomes brighter as well as broader then that is surely a positive thing, [...]
If anyone ever asked me who my hero is, I would answer: Tank Man. He is the anonymous person who stood in front of a column of Chinese Army tanks on Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue on June 5, 1989 – the morning after the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square. No-one knows his real name.
For the past year I have had a bit of a weekly routine for my Tuesday nights, I come in late from playing football then sit down to write the introduction for the following day’s Scots Way-Hay post. What this normally entails is me writing the first line, then deleting it as it’s mince. This [...]
