Walking on Snow Awards- Best of 2005

Is everyone kickin' out the jams for Christmas? Magical good wishes, and here's the rundown- the best of the year-

Best Album- The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree- Duh, obvious, but it beat off otherwise formidable opposition from Death Cab for Cutie's Plans, which I made ridiculous fun of eariler in the year, and Jandek's magisterial Glasgow Sunday, which tilted the axis of our world. It was a good year for music.

Best Single- Harder, but I'll take this opportunity to bring to world's attention The Pipettes with their mindless It Hurts To See You You Dance So Well. Special menties to Yeti for making the summer sunny with Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder, and Pussycat Dolls' Doncha (and for that matter, let's not be ungrateful to The Sugababes...)

Musical Discovery of the Year- Tilly and the Wall

get it, but I'll be expecting letters from unhappy members of the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone family.

Death of the Year- JPII wins this one, but Mitch Hedberg will feel aggrieved on this (he gets Rock n' Roll death of the year), and Luther Vandross, Sandra Dee and Arthur Miller get honourable mentions.

Best Gig- Belle and Sebastian in London gets night of the year, but for sheer love of life, Bright Eyes in Somerset House in London steps up. Four days after the London bombings, there was a perfect night on The Strand, and the people there still swear time stopped for seconds at a time when he played First Day of My Life.

Best Film- To be honest, I genuinely don't think I've seen a new film this and I'm ashamed- please nominate...

Best Goal- Bellamy at Ibrox? Nakamura v Motherwell? Surely to God wee Maloney, happy, happy wee Maloney wins this one...

Best TV Moment- Has anyone seen Totally Frank? Ahem, I'll say nothing then (episode 10 is the one to check out...). Otherwise, I hope you didn't miss Status Quo bringing the house down on Coronation Street?

Best Random Happiness- One word- Shunsuke?

Fill in your own and argue on the comments!

Keano- World Class and Playing For Us (Update)

He's here and he's staying- he's got something to prove, and he'll behave himself. Welcome, welcome, welcome Keano!

Streaming the video here dudes, streaming the video here...

And for anyone here who believes the nonsense about '£45, 000 a week' and 'highest ever paid player in Celtic's history', go here.

And click here for a cracking video of the man in action...

Explosions In The Sky

Is that not the most beautiful name for a band you've ever heard? I didn't rate them for ages, but they've got me now. Try this- twelve minutes of stratospheric transport called 'The Only Time We Were Alone'...

Three Seconds of Light

Here are the highlights from yesterday's game. Enjoy, because it was a cracker; the photo above was taken when Celtic were 2-1 down, seconds before Shaun Maloney equalised from the free kick pictured.

Celtic Park looked beautiful, both teams played open football, and the place was buzzing. High on football indeed...

Twenty Five Years Ago Today

High Five!

Iraqi freedom fighters and US troops take time out of conflict to celebrate the news that Alex McLeish stays as Rangers manager. Rangers fans on a fans' forum are less pleased...

The Fifth Element

5ive will make you get down...

Rangers earned another hard fought point at Ibrox on Saturday- it leaves them well placed to grab a much coveted top six place in the SPL. Manager Alex McLeish (left) said after the game, 'Those critics who said we were in freefall- they're not laughing now.'

Falkirk manager John Hughes (right) said, 'Ha ha ha ha ha- I thought when we gave them a two goal lead (through an own goal and a dodgy penalty) they would at least be able to hang on to that, but they blew it with only twenty two minutes to go. Ha ha ha ha ha ha- I just think it's really funny.' Then he started singing this little song.

This result leaves Rangers a heady fifth in the SPL, and extends their unbeaten run to one game in a row. See the action here...

Hey Music Fans

This is the single best music site I've found on the internet- oh my God, the possibilities...

The Strokes Live 29/11/05 Radio 1

Go here to hear (and see) the Strokes' archived live webcast from their secret London show. Room on Fire is one of the finest albums made by anyone- totally, totally underrated...

A Life Less Ordinary- George Best RIP (1946-2005)

As happy and sad, lucky and cursed a figure as we can imagine. Sleep tight- the football shines on, you crazy diamond...

Smoosh- Is it real...?

Not sure what to say about this, except, yes, they're two really young girls who are one of coolest US indie underground bands of the last year. They're touring Britain this week. Is it just me, or does nobody else find this really really weird?

Anyway, check out a live performance here... I recommend 'Make It Through'.

Wee Maloney

What a wee boy- a towering performance left Rangers in tatters. This youngster has grown, physically and emotionally, in the last two years to become at the minute the first name on the team sheet after Petrov. Fantastic work, young fella...

Ego and the Bunnymen

Against the better advice of the WoS legal team, my story must be told...

The scene: a toliet in the Barrowlands, the Gallowgate, Glasgow.
The time: 23.10, 23rd October, 2005.
The players: Ian 'Mac' McCulloch and the girlfriend of a mate of a mate of my mate.

Went to see the Bunnymen in the Barras etc etc... mostly disappointing etc etc... too much new stuff etc etc... 'Bring on the Dancing Horses' was beautiful etc etc... 'Nothing Lasts Forever' was a shocking mess (why play all of 'Walk on the Wild Side' in the middle of a perfectly good song?) etc etc... went backstage after it etc etc... first time in the Barras dressing rooms etc etc.... holy of holies etc etc... mate and his girlfriend went to the toilet in the dressing room, next thing we know Mac is hurling my mate out of the dressing room, (allegedly) kicking the door of the toilet in on the girl's head, she's bleeding, police called, details taken, statements given by me and my mates, and then it turns up on the front page of the paper the next week etc etc... got a taxi home, quite expensive to the West End from the Barras etc etc...

Mac should learn from this man- totally devoid of ego, thrillingly as one with his work: we present- exclusive to Walking on Snow- exclusive pictures from Jandek's gig in the Arches, which are exclusive to this website: an exclusive.

So there you have it. Anything else? Maloney had another cracking game yesterday at Falkirk, and I was delighted for little Aiden McGeady. And while we're at it- let's hear it for the Big Bad John- 100 not out...

Breaking Into Heaven

As requested- football links to transport you to a better place...

The new Celtic clicked on Wednesday with five sublime moments against Motherwell. Shunsuke Nakamura (left) was at the centre of all the best bits. Here is the evidence, courtesy of Clum... The commentary is, as they say, so bad it's good. Two guys talking in their front room?

Secondly: the sublime Ronaldinho- this takes a while to load, and also is a bit slow at the start, but has anyone ever been filmed doing something so sublime- Paris Hilton excepted?

As for music, I repeat my plea to check out Tilly and the Wall (pictured below sitting outside my house)- I could listen to this band all day- go to the music bit of their site, and 'Sad Sad Song' will make your day.

Also, what about Neva Dinova? Go to the 'free' bit of the site and listen to some comedown soul- especially recommended is 'Tinman', but they are all just lovely...

Raining Down Diamonds: Jandek in the Arches, Glasgow, 14/10/05

We wanted to see him play guitar. Despite the beauty, the unexpected fragility of the CCA gig last May, where he sat behind a baby grand piano, we wanted to hear the diamond-hard storm of the 'Glasgow Sunday' live cd, also recorded in the Arches this time last year. In giving us that, the thing had the familiar feel of a Greatest Hits show- if it's possible to know where you where in a world where there's no light.

He played loud, he howled like a dog, he nearly smiled at one point, and the first song even had a chorus of sorts ('I'm gonna put on my walkin' shoes/ I got those walkin' blues...')- the strange wonderment of the show came from the suspicion that Jandek is a confident and practised performer. The most anonymous and enigmatic recording artist ever is a live hit.

I'll tell you what I didn't expect- I didn't expect him to tune up before he started, but he did. Then he tuned up again halfway through. The guitar, I think, was so new that it still had the sticker on it from being bought in the shop. There was a moment of poignancy where, at the end of the last song he gathered up his lyrics from the lyric stand and wandered to the back of the stage, where he waited for what seemed like forever on his drummer and bass player friends to gather up their stuff. He didn't want to leave alone. Even isolation and disconnection, it seems, need company in public.

Exchanging Palare: Belle and Sebastian, Barbican Theatre, London 25/9/05

How weird- a Belle and Sebastian concert where we didn't spend at least half the time grinding our teeth in a simmering rage over the shambolic 'oops, I forgot to plug my guitar in' type of nonsense that has characterised their shows over the past ten years. That said, the thing didn't start off very promisingly when Stuart Murdoch forgot the second line of the first song- fair enough, can happen to anyone- and then forgot the fourth line of the same song. That augured badly for a show which went on to become one of the very finest things I've ever seen.

The idea was that they would play a couple of songs first off, then they would play the classic If You're Feeling Sinister (bad title for a truly great album) in its entirety- this formed the middle section of the show and was, as expected, fragile and shimmering: the Morrissey-at-his-greatest moments of lines such as 'You only did it so that/ You could wear/ Terry underwear/ And feel the city air/ Run past your body...' melting into the so-twee-you-have-to-like-it of 'Fox in the snow/ Where do you go/ To find something you could eat?/ 'Cause the word out on the street/ Is you are starving'. Special mention goes to the stomping 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' and the majestic 'Judy and the Dream of Horses'- that last one turned the show into a rock 'n' roll show for the first time that night.

An early highlight was the naive dance music of Electronic Renaissance- a really rare performance for a wee belter off the first album. The last section of the show was a compressed greatest hits type thing, which kicked off in real style with the song that it seemed most of the English crowd were there to hear, 'The Boy With the Arab Strap'. My friend Chris had heard only one song by Belle and Sebastian before this night's concert, and it was this one, which he insisted on calling 'Teachers', after the dodgy Channel 4 show for which it provided the title music. Of course, after they'd played it, that didn't satisfy Chris, who spent the rest of the night shouting for 'Teachers' in between (and during any quiet bits of) the rest of the songs. It was a pretty amazing performance of a great song though.

Final highlight of the set was 'If you Find Yourself Caught in Love', an underrated piece of sixties luminescence. By this stage, the world was a wonderful place, especially when we'd realised that the bar outside the hall, which had shut soon after B&S had come onstage, was not the only one in the venue. Happy times with Mr Grolsch ensued.

That was not the end of the good times though- passes for the aftershow party had been procured, so we hung out with the sublime blonde sisters Siobhan and Maria from London until they had to go home, and we marched onto the Spitz near Spitalfield Market, where, imagine our delight when we realised that flashing an aftershow pass meant that you didn't have to pay for drinks- that was thanks to the beautiful Bob Kildea (above, right). As always happens in such circumstances, we took a tour of the bar via any exotic spirit we could pronounce the name of, and as the night turned into morning, we ended up in the band's hotel, in the keyboard player's room, trying to behave ourselves, but doubtless being a nuisance to the clean living Belles.

The night, we know, was made for living, but as Chris and I parted at Liverpool St station at ten am, we could only murmur a little sorrowfully how quickly the time had fled and hid his face amid a crowd of stars. The day, as so often, returned too soon, but the night runs continually in the concert hall of the mind.

Then we had a session...

The Echo Session Gig at King Tuts, Glasgow on 24th September was ruined by a very drunken man (pictured, left) who heckled the band. Man was last seen sneaking home from King Tut’s at midnight to enjoy a Kebab in his spare bedroom prior to waking up his very annoyed wife. 7/10.

Thanks to Hungry Roy for the gig review- hopefully many more to come...

Woo Hoo

We've seen them all before, but they're always worth seeing again- click here.

But what's been left out? Van Basten? Carlos Albertos? Gemmell? Nominate your own faves in the comments...

Best Laid Plans

Death Cab for Cutie's new cd- Plans- is ok. It saddens me to write that. On first listen I was thinking 'Excellent work, couple more listens and it'll be album of the year'. A couple more listens later, and it strikes me that Death Cab have gone for the charts at exactly the time in their career when they would have attracted more attention by turning their backs on sales.

Their core fan base would have been enough to push it into the Bright Eyes territory of 'only the cool people have heard of it, but everyone's going to like it once they've heard it because it's actually so accessible' (exactly where another Photo Album would have left them). The production is so polished that it's hard to hear a human being on the album at all, and in some songs they've gone a bit too far down Snow Patrol Avenue for my liking.

That said- 'Soul Meets Body' is the best New order song that New Order didn't write (and can't anymore)- well worth checking out here. Otherwise, go to Tilly and the Wall, click 'enter site, click on 'music' and download Walking on Snow's new ineluctable favourite 'Sad Sad Song'...

Looking forward- a review will be forthcoming on Belle and Sebastian's Barbican gig- where they will play If You're Feeling Sinister from start to finish (hopefully some other stuff too, otherwise I'll be travelling the length of Britain for a 35 min set).

And, of course, the indomitable, the transcendent, default-damager-power-to-the-people Jandek's second Arches gig will be given due reverence and veneration.

And while we're completely off topic, I thought this was great (and it's safe for work...)

Guess who's back/ Back again...

He's back, he's in the Arches on the 14th of October- it's a Friday night, it'll be the start of the school holidays, and I'll be drinking champagne. Another chance to bow ye down before the majesty of Jandek live...

A Kind of Magic (and some Vanishing Points too)

In the interests of parity, I have decided to post the highklights of both Old Firm matches from last weekend. See Celtic here and the Rangers here.

Work it to the bone...

Philip Larkin, perceptive old racist mysogynist that he was, said this:

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion...

That was in a poem called 'Toads'. Towards the end of his life, he wrote a follow up- 'Toads Revisited'- and that sad document of emptiness ended like this:

...No, give me my in-tray,
My loaf-haired secretary,
My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir:
What else can I answer,

When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road.

Excellent Old Firm Preview

Clik here for the best Old Firm preview I've read this week...

Sound and Noise

American Indie is the only pop music currently being made worth listening to.

Punk is corporate, hip hop is disappearing into itself like a dog turning on its own tail, dance is dead, British Indie is a worse state than at the nadir of Britpop. Heavy metal is off the radar, except for greatest hits tours by very old men like the members of Motley Crue (who on their last tour, and on their last album (a Greatest Hits, naturally) covered 'Anarchy in the UK'- a moment of sublime horror that in itself signals the final end of 'punk' as a meaningful term when discussing music).

Even chart music, traditionally the last flicker of light in the search for surprising perfection, has miscarried. Where are the gulity delights even of Busted's 'Air Hostess' or Kylie's 'Slow' or Christina's 'Beautiful'? What do we have? The appropriately named James Blunt; The Kaiser Chiefs and Craig David and the Black Eyed Peas...

Compare with these destitute lands a country which produces a new Death Cab for Cutie album this month, a Tilly and the Wall tour this summer, the Mountain Goats' 'Sunset Tree' (album of the year already) in the spring, Bright Eyes, The Shins, Say Hi To Your Mom, Explosions in the Sky.

American Indie is the only music currently being made that, after listening to it, doesn't make you a slightly worse person than you were before you started. Thucydides said it first: 'They have the numbers, we the heights'...

Stop Scotsport Petition

The atrocities continue...

Vote here to put an end to the suffering of innocent football fans of all denominations in the STV and Grampian regions.

Dancer!

UPDATED- Here are the highlights of the Falkirk game and a few more bits and pieces here... Also, view brief footage of Jamie Smith's ripper today against Rangers by clicking here.

That feeling you have when you're thinking 'last bottle of beer, better make this one last', then you open the fridge and you've got one one more bottle.

Look at this... and turn the music up loud.

Tell me with a straight face you didn't shed a tear while watching that...

Otherwise- Nakamura did well, put in a devastating cross for Hartson's equaliser, and there will be updates as they arrive...

This is probably the greatest rock 'n' roll song of the last five years...