CELTIC Connections kicked off its 20th year last Thursday: pretty good going for what is a relatively niche festival.

Tomorrow night sees the second Beat Bothy, a night of global sounds which fuses the traditional and the modern, but it looks certain to become a yearly fixture.

Last year, Mylo, from the Isle of Skye headlined, and while there are no such global names this time around there's plenty to engage both the mind and feet.

Local trio Halcyon are hosts, combining folk and electronica with "bangin'" dance beats.

Mixing Punjabi folk, Bhangra and dance, digi-bhang duo Tigerstyle team up with Angus Lyon and Ruaridh Campbell, an inventive accordion/fiddle duo.

Lisbon's Batida brings the Angolan electro, while Laki Mera creates sparse electronica with haunting vocals.

By contrast, Saturday sees a return to The Arches' traditional fare as Dutch duo Showtek bring their energetic hard dance to town.

Support comes from Justin Prime, Jordy Dazz and Mikael Weermets.

l Celtic Connections Beat Bothy, tomorrow, The Arches, 9.30pm-3am, £10

l Showtek, Saturday, The Arches, 10pm3am, £17.50

IT'S the January sale weekend at SWG3: on Saturday the generous Electric Frog crew are throwing a party where you can catch Optimo's JG Wilkes alongside DJs from Vitamins, Thunder Disco Club, Melting Pot and Guilty Pleasures of Mother Goose completely gratis: if you have a ticket of course.

And if you don't have one, they're all gone, so tough.

The good news is that all of these clubs and more will be involved with the Frog in 2013, so there's plenty of warehouse action in the pipeline.

Monday sees Sham-Pain's relocation to Finnieston, becoming SWG3's first weekly night in the process.

Sham-Pain's premise is that it's embarrassingly cheap – you can get a bottle of bubbly for a fiver – and it specialises in the kind of student kicks that give parents and right-wing newspapers the dry boke.

I think it sounds quite fun to be honest.

l Electric Frog, Saturday, SWG3, 9pm-2am, sold out

l Sham-Pain, Monday, SWG3, 10pm-2am, £tbc

Pistols at Dawn is a new night that welcomes "the waifs, strays and no-good beatniks of Glasgow" to La Cheetah's Queen Street basement.

As appealing as that sounds in itself, they've got a cracking opening guest in Manchester's Balearic Mike. As you can imagine, his speciality is Balearic party tunes – expect to be glued to the dancefloor for the entirety of the night.

l Pistols at Dawn present Balearic Mike, Saturday, La Cheetah Club, 11pm-3am, £8