MUSIC

DESCRIBED by one reviewer as “a class act in highly listenable, bedsit star-gazing music”, Passion Pusher aka Edinburgh’s James Gage melds the clattering, ramshackle pop of Pavement with infectious songs about vulnerability, self-doubt and the occasional flash of optimism. Funny, self-deprecating and unconcerned with approval, think Jonathan Richman with the sharp enunciation replaced by love of pizza. After his Glasgow gig, Gage plays Stirling’s Tolbooth as part of Strange Behaviours Summer Party with PAWS, Canal Capitale, Spinning Coin, Graham Costello’s STRATA and Loki. Given how the latter said his recent album Trigger Warning would be his swansong, it may be one of the last opportunities to see Loki rapping live.

July 7, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, £5, 7.30pm. Tickets: bit.ly/PPHairdressers July 8, Tolbooth, Stirling, 7pm, £12 advance, £14 on the door. Tickets: bit.ly/SBTolbooth

The National:

WITH ryhmes to match Kate Tempest and the looks of a matinee idol, musician and poet, Declan Welsh (above) is a born popstar — if pop had more figures who were taking sharp, well-aimed pops at lad culture, our class-ridden society and the onwards march of hard-right populism. With his band The Decadent West (“the only band to play T In The Park, Palestine and London Fashion Week in the same summer”) they headline this King Tut’s Summer Nights gig to coincide with new single Mirrors, which is backed with a new recording of anti-fascist calling card No Pasaran.

July 14, King Tuts, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £10. www.kingtuts.co.uk www.facebook.com/DeclanWelshMusic

VISUAL ART

BRAZILIAN artist Jac Leirner is best known for the sculptures she creates from everyday items and ephemera with seemingly little conventional value, such as plastic shopping bags, used tickets and empty cigarette packets. Add It Up, her first solo exhibition in Scotland, combines new work made especially for Fruitmarket audiences with pieces from major collections such as Skin (Randy King Size Wired), an installation connecting boarding passes with aeroplane ashtrays, and 120 Cords (2014), a work made from as many one metre lengths of rope as she could find.

Until Oct 22, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 11am to 6pm daily, free. www.fruitmarket.co.uk

The National:

TWO exhibitions at Edinburgh’s Summerhall are worth catching before the end of their run in the middle of the month: the debut UK solo show from Scotland-born, Finland-based installation and video artist Anneli Holmstrom (above), which ends on July 14, and Unturning by fellow multi-discipline artist Irineu Destourelles. Born in the Cape Verde islands in West Africa, Destourelles grew up in Portugal as it struggled to heal from its authoritarian past. Now a resident of Scotland, Destourelles’s work addresses colonial patterns of thinking in contemporary western society, and this show, which ends on July 16, presents two new video works exploring the legacy of Thatcherism on UK politics and our ideas of personhood.

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 11am to 6pm, free. www.summerhall.co.uk

FESTIVALS

SCOTLAND’S biggest free multicultural festival, Glasgow Mela (top) returns to Kelvingrove Park tomorrow for eight hours of music, dance, theatre and fun for all ages. As well as the three stages of live performances, one of the most vibrant, joyful days in the city’s year also features a tastebud-teasing world-village of food stalls and the Mela Bazaar, a cornucopia of textiles, fragrances and toiletries, gifts, clothes and accessories. Keep an eye out for traditional dance from Greece and Southern India, and for Jaardu, an Indian magician whose act features a flying carpet.

Tomorrow, Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow, noon to 8pm, free. www.glasgowmela.com

JUDGING by the responses Radiohead’s recent Glastonbury set received, there were a lot of folk so happy they needed a lie down in a darkened room afterwards. Thom Yorke’s crew headline TRNSMT (pronounced “Transmit”) on Friday, the first night of the three-day festival on Glasgow Green. Hometown heroes Belle and Sebastian (above) also play on Friday, while Kasabian headline Saturday and hairy rockmen Biffy Clyro (left) wind things up on Sunday. If guitars aren’t your thing, TRNSMT also features a quality dance music line-up which features DJ sets from veterans Coldcut and local heroine Nightwave.

Friday to Jul 9, Glasgow Green. Day tickets are £59.50 standard, £99 VIP, two-day tickets £110 standard, £185 VIP and three-day tickets are £155 standard, £235 VIP. All prices subject to booking fee. trnsmtfest.com

EVENTS

AS public libraries become fewer, so too do the spaces where people can gather in relative comfort for no fee or expectation. Preferring the local library to the one at school, it was the first place where I spent extended amounts of time in the company of strangers of all ages. We didn’t need to talk: Whether revising, researching, rustling broadsheets or just enjoying the heat, the experience was rich and bristling with potential simply by virtue of being shared. Programmed in collaboration with artist Nick Thurston and a range of other practitioners and organisations, The House That Heals The Soul focuses on the political and social status of libraries and how controlling access to them can be used by states to control and occupy. At once an exhibition, a series of talks and workshops and, through the Publication Studio, an open-source resource for self-publishing based in the venue, it will see the CCA becoming — like the public library — a space for reflection, enquiry, serendipitous meetings and exchange.

July 22 to September 3 2017, CCA, Glasgow, Tue to Sat 11am to 6pm, Sun noon to 6pm, free. www.cca-glasgow.com

RUNNING across Scotland until July 23, the Architecture Fringe was created to help “change Scotland for the better” by exploring how the built environment affects our lives. The world’s only fringe festival for architecture organised by a grassroots collective, it runs for three weeks and features more than 50 events across Scotland, including exhibitions, installations, talks, tours and debates intended to help broaden our understanding of architecture and how it can play a key role in improving and enhancing what organisers describe as our “shared civil society”. Highlights include Taxi, where a member of the public joins an architect and a taxi driver on a journey offering differing perspectives on a city’s architecture, and National columnist Lesley Riddoch joining fiddler Adam Sutherland to explore land reform and hutting.

Until July 23, venues, times and prices vary. Architecturefringe.com

SPOKEN WORDS

The National:

LIKE fellow comic Mark Steel, Phill Jupitus (above) is set to receive an honorary degree from the University of Kent this month in recognition of his “contribution to British popular culture”, something this writer would let him have for his work with heroic 1980s indie label Go!Discs, once home to The Housemartins, Billy Bragg, Kirsty McColl and The La’s. Talking of heroism, the broadcasting stalwart takes his newest stand-up show Juplicity to Birnam (July 19), Strathpeffer (20), Kirkwall (21), Lerwick (22), Banchory (24), Findhorn (25), Ullapool (26), Stornoway (27), Drumnadrochit (28), Fort William (29) and Stirling (30).

Times and prices vary. Tickets: offthekerb.co.uk/on-tour

AT turns endearing and lurid, boyish cheekster Larry Dean (above left) previews new Fringe show Fandan followed by an hour of work in progress from comedy rock star veteran Tom Stade (right), a Canadian who is currently living in Edinburgh.

Jul 12, The Stand, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £15, £12 concs. Tel: 0131 558 7272. thestand.co.uk

RUNNING from July 4 to 8, The Village Storytelling Festival shares the ethos of the arts charity behind it: a belief in the importance of stories to inform, share and empower. Highlights include a steampunk version of Frankenstein, a one-woman show from Shakespeare’s Globe storyteller Debs Newbold (left), and More Than Words, a programme exploring non-traditional and non-hearing forms of storytelling. Many events are free, and all are ticketed.

July 4 to July 8, CCA, Glasgow, times vary. Tickets from bit.ly/StorytellingEventBrite www.villagestorytelling.org.uk

THEATRE

The National:

ADAM (above) and Eve are two new shows about trans lives featuring as part of Traverse Theatre Festival in August, created by Cora Bissett and Jo Clifford respectively. This July preview of Adam will be the first performance by actors Neshla Caplan and Adam Kashmiry, the latter of whom writer Frances Poet’s drama is based on. Born into a girl’s body in deeply conservative Egypt, Kashmiry did not have the language to explain his conviction that he really was a boy, and Adam is his true story of finding a country and a body which he can call home. The National Theatre of Scotland is inviting trans and non-binary individuals to take part in the production as part of a global digital community choir — The Adam World Choir. Contact leonie.gasson@nationaltheatrescotland.com if you wish to take part.

July 31 (then Aug 5 to 27, times and prices vary), Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, £15, £9 concs. Tel: 0131 228 1404 www.traverse.co.uk

ANOTHER Edinburgh festival preview this month is Stellar Quines’ Last Queen of Scotland at Dundee Rep, an exploration of a community in exile in Scotland after Idi Amin expelled all Asians from Uganda in 1972. Directed by former Rep artistic director Jemima Levick and performed to a live soundtrack by Patricia Panther, Jaimini Jethwa’s autobiographical work spans “messy” parties in Dundee housing schemes to the baking heat of Kampala where she returns to reclaim her stolen Ugandan heritage.

July 21 and 22 (then Aug 3 to 26, 6.50pm, prices vary, Underbelly, Edinburgh), Dundee Rep, 7.30pm, £11. Tel: 01382 223 530. dundeerep.co.uk