First things first: I went to see Best of T Break last night at The Liquid Rooms. To explain, Tennents sponsor virtually all live music in Scotland (fair play to them, it’s great that someone’s pumping that much money into it) and at T in the Park they have a T Break stage. There were ‘heats’ to get onto that particular bill, which is where I first saw Broken Records play. Then there was a vote on the Tennents site for the Best of T Break, with the top four bands playing a slot back in the Liquid Rooms during T on the Fringe – the live music part of the Edinburgh Festival. Presumably they would be the best four unsigned bands in Edinburgh?

Personally though, not for me. The first band, Yashin, were a sort of emo/thrash outfit who I initally thought I hated. Then I realised I just didn’t have a hope of understanding them – basically the music is so far away from being my kind of thing that I just have no idea how to even begin to get a handle on it and basically am incapable of having an opinion that is even slightly relevant. They were certainly really technically accomplished though, so if that’s your bag, pay them a visit.

Next up were a couple of groups that are more in my sphere. Honestly though, they didn’t do that much for me at all though, so I’ll point you in the direction of Chutes and Theatre Fall and let you decide for yourselves.

Broken Records themselves were excellent again. I’m not going to go on about them too much because I only posted about them recently, but they were superb – with new tracks like A Good Reason being every bit as mental as I could have hoped. Also, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t completely gripped by Slow Parade but honestly, it was brilliant live – all mournful strings and plaintive vocals – so I am going to go right back and give it a few more listens. This is why it’s important to go to gigs, people.

The last point about this gig is this (WARNING: REALLY ANNOYING NAME-DROP APPROACHING FAST): I was talking to Vic Galloway – Radio 1 DJ who consistently gives small, up and coming Scottish bands plenty of air time – at the gig and he said that this T Break showcase not only sold out, but sold out faster than virtually any gig at the Festival, with many tickets going before the line-up was even announced. He was buzzing, and I absolutely agree with him, about what this might mean for small bands – people are interested, people care, and people are spending money to see them. Fucking brilliant.

And without further ado, a couple of songs by Broken Records – they have an EP for sale too, by the way, so get in touch via their MySpace page and ask about it – there’s no sign they’ve been so organised as to set up a PayPal thingy yet, but force them to and they might well get round to it!

Broken Records – Slow Parade
Broken Records – Kathy