Dear Scotland

Vic Galloway has said of St Deluxe that their sound is reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine with near-whispered vocals, fuzzed-out guitars and a stoned haze of production culminating in a very, sweet whole! The Glasgow band will be making their highly anticipated SXSW debut next week. Full schedule below:

St Deluxe have been creating a lot of buzz back in Scotland recently, and that’s not just the feedback from their unapologetically loud guitars. Dear Scotland spoke to lead guitarist Martin Kirwan last week about SXSW and how he grew up with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Bobby Gillespie recording drums next door:

Inspired by his visit to sports mad Melbourne, Billy continues his list of the best and worst stadia in the World. This week – The Worst:
Wembley, London, England
(What, did you really expect anything else?)

Trembling Bells will be bringing their mythical, psychedelic folk music to South by Southwest for the first time. The New York Times has already been won over and their unique sound is likely to win many new fans in Austin. Details of their St Davids’ Church showcase below:

Glasgow based collective Trembling Bells will be making their first appearance at SXSW next week and they’ll also be playing in NYC at Webster Hall on Tuesday night before heading down to Austin. Alex Neilson recently spoke to Dear Scotland about his Scottish influences and one memorable experience he had with Bonnie Prince Billy.

The Law will return to Austin for SXSW 2010 having been part of the Scottish contingent in 2008 and at the time of writing, the band have 8 gigs scheduled during the 4 day festival. Full details on these performances are below and will be updated if and when further gigs are added.

Hailing from Dundee, The Law will start a US tour next week which includes dates in New York, California and Texas. The East and West Coast dates are below with the South by Southwest gigs listed here. The Law’s lead singer Stuart Purvey spoke to Dear Scotland about SXSW and playing abroad:

This week in SEAN, Brian Cox has a new film coming out, Gerard Butler promotes his new rom-com with that one from Friends, John Barrowman talks Desperate Housewives and Glee, Alan Cumming films his last day on the set of Burlesque and more. Saba has all the details:

Let’s reflect on the state of Scottish literature of the 1980’s. James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, Iain Banks and Iain Rankin came to wider public attention and William McIllvaney continued to write gritty stories of West of Scotland hard men. As another cultural icon of the 80’s Frank McAvennie might have asked; ‘wherz the burdz?’