Positive Tension.

I've got a couple of things to get blogged oot ma nut on today, the first of which is Rangers Football Club.

While I'm a Motherwell fan, I tend to pay attention to other teams and whats going on and whatnot. One thing I don't understand is Rangers transfer policy this summer. Today it appears that Osasuna are caving to their player's demands and Carlos Cuellar is very probably on his way to Ibrox. Jean Claude Darcheville has also signed a pre-contract and is on his way as a free transfer. In my humble opinion (I'm not Graham Spiers, so my opinion means nothing), this is the wrong way to go for Rangers.

It all looked mildly exciting when Big Wattie signed up two great Scottish prospects in Alan Gow and Kirk Broadfoot, signed Kevin Thomson and made noises that Scott Brown would be coming in as well. I'm a big fan of Scottish teams playing Scottish players, after years of watching hopeless foreign imports to the Scottish game (Seb Rozenthal anyone?) dilute the Scottish talent to the point where we were getting excited by the prospect of Jamie Smith breaking into the Celtic team or a change in regulations meaning that Didier Agathe could play for Scotland at national level. As it turned out, the inflated prices clubs were playing and the ridiculous wages that were being paid could never last and the transfer bubble burst.

As it turned out, this was a god-send for Scottish football. Instead of simply buying in talent left right and centre, the Old Firm began to look within the club for talent. Clubs like Motherwell and Hibs were able to produce young talented players with players like Scott Brown, James McFadden and Kevin Thomson safe in the knowledge that their investment in them would be repaid and because of this process, the Scottish national team has come on leaps and bounds. We have a solid group of players with several young players snapping at their heels to get into the squad.

And this brings us back to the signing of Carlos Cuellar. Smith already has a solid and experienced centre back in Davie Weir, he will have Andy Webster fit for the start of the season, a Scotland internationalist with twenty two caps and with Kirk Broadfoot he has a hungry young centre back who can be eased into the team gradually alongside Webster. Should Weir or Webster be injured he also has the option of Ugo Ehiogu, Karl Svensson or even Brahim Hemdani as cover. Instead of this however, with a fee of around £1,000,000 rumoured for Cuellar it is almost certain that he will claim the centre back spot alongside Weir.

All summer Wattie and David Murray have been telling us about how little money Rangers have to spend this summer and that they will have to make shrewd deals rather that big money deals, signing a centre back when you've got another five in the squad is not Shrewd.

Away from my disbelief at Rangers, I saw a phenomenal gig last night at the Balcony in Dundee. Alamos were up first and were pretty good. I've heard a lot about them and have been intending to see them for months, why I didn't before is now beyond me, tight and sold.
End of a Year from New York were spectacular and have reaffirmed my love of music. Their set reminded me of all the reasons why I love music and why I love going to see live music. They didn't really seem to have any idea what was going on and seemed terrified of every Scotsman in the venue, apparently our 'lust for life is a bit frightening'. Everyone seemed into them and a combination of At The Drive In style vocals, rapid guitar licks and a human pyramid by the boys from Archives left me absolutely buzzing at the end of their set.
Archives are loud. Very, very loud. Despite the apparent noise and chaos of their set everything comes together, the heavily effects driven lead guitar and the all out rockin' of the rhythm give a great full sound and is almost the definition of 'controlled aggression'.

Over and out.

G

We're on a Hellslide.

Two years on from Infinity Land and Biffy Clyro are still my favourite band by a clear margin. Puzzle is thoroughly spectacular on so many levels, my greatest fear was that they might have been toned down a degree for a major label. The style is different and they've essentially written an album of pop songs and they're still fantastic. They've still got an edge and an originality which means they sound like no-one else I know.

At midnight on Sunday there was a signing of the new album and a short set in HMV Glasgow. Its strange that instead of only having 'die hard' fans, there are now kids coming with their parents and 'cool' people. I can't say this actually bothers me, big ups to the band that they're being successful and at the Barra's on Friday the entire crowd was going nuts for the whole set. Glasgow was meant to be the end of my following of the Biffy tour until I managed to get myself to the signing. If Glasgow was going to be a finale, what a finale it was. The Manchester date was cool, because I'd never been to Manchester before, Edinburgh was all right but I felt terrible so it passed me by to an extent but Glasgow blew both of them clean out of the water. I'd suspected for a while that Glasgow crowds were the best for Biffy (And all other gigs?) but I've not been to many in Edinburgh and none in England, but I'm pretty much certain about this now; Glasgow > Everywhere else.

Edinburgh was pretty much a non-event for me. After my amazingly fun seven hour day trip in Edinburgh I managed to catch AIDS or something, so I was fucked for the Potterow gig and mainly stood around drinking lemonade feeling like I might die. My day in Edinburgh came about as my dad was held up at the GTC and instead of being done at noon and moving onto Dundee, he was done at 4pm. Anyway, it gave me a chance to piss around Edinburgh and explore a bit. I ended up on Calton hill taking 'arty' pictures.

AEREOGRAMME. Aereogramme are fucking amazing. Its a tragedy that such a massively talented band are unable to make it financially viable to actually afford to continue. Their live show is brilliant, mainly as it sounds like the world is about to end, their albums are fantastic with hours worth of in depth listening. I think this post is fairly disjointed, so I'll give it a clear ending:
I'm away to make soup.