Richard Purden

There is something cinematic about Hollywood Vampires before they have played a note. A film shows the four members as skeletons before they transform into their human forms; smoke fills the stage, and Johnny Depp looks as though he has risen from the grave or wandered straight off the set of The Lost Boys. A […]

Pip Utton as Francis Bacon is combing his hair while bathed in red light. A bottle of champagne is within reach, hair swept back, leather jacket and polo neck in place, the award-winning actor appears less like a performer than a man who has wandered in from 1950s Soho and brought the Colony Room with […]

Fiona Allen has a strong northern accent that recalls a tradition of British male comedians who could turn the frustrations of ordinary life into material.

Some crimes become part of the national memory, but many others gradually disappear into the shadows of history. The story of Dr John Bodkin Adams belongs to the latter category, although nothing about its capacity to shock is diminished. Northern Irish journalist Andrew Johnston brings the case back into unsettling focus during Ulster’s Doctor Death: […]

The year 1988 marked a new musical chapter for The Waterboys, and at the OVO Hydro we returned to that sense of discovery. Fisherman’s Blues was an album born at an exciting time for music when The Waterboys were among the leading exponents of what became known as The Big Music, alongside the likes of […]

Evan Dando appears on my Zoom screen, walking towards me, with a guitar in his hands. There are now some grey patches in his beard, while the top half of his hair is scraped back.

The Liquid Room is already humming when the lights go down. There is an anticipation in the room that feels less like a conventional concert and more like the promise of something slightly improbable. Then Michael Shannon walks onto the stage in red cords, colourful Converse and a shirt covered in tiny red hands. It’s […]

Australian guitarist Johnny Took found a different musical perspective while living in Leith. Now, as DMA’S prepare to bring their new self-titled album to Edinburgh, he reflects on Scotland, songwriting and the music that first inspired him. A particular kind of musical journey can only be understood by following the trail backwards. For Johnny Took, […]

The evening begins with Five Years, and that drumbeat remains haunting. Woody Woodmansey is not simply recreating the past; he helped shape it, and hearing him play the opening of the song that began the Ziggy Stardust era gives it a weight no tribute act can manufacture. Tony Visconti and Woodmansey lock in together on […]