Year: 2017

Morrissey – Spent the Day in Bed

September 19, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com

I was wishing I had taken Mr Steven Patrick Morrissey’s advice and “Spent the Day in Bed” when I was listening in to Radio 2 for the world’s first play of his new single. I was sitting in my car on the M8 going absolutely nowhere….

Morrissey joined twitter yesterday with his cryptic first tweet being the title of the single. I must admit to be slightly concerned about Moz on twitter. He often opens his mouth and spouts a lot of mince these days. And look what Trump gets up to on Twitter….

Anyway, back to the song and thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed.… Read the rest

Gun – Favourite Pleasures is a welcome return for this Glasgow band

September 17, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com
Gun

I’ve followed Gun since the beginning. Enjoying seeing live gigs with the likes of Texas and Slide when they were all starting out. Their first album, Taking on the World, was packed full of riff laden tunes. Shame on You, Money and Better Days all songs which I still play regularly.

The three bands went on to varying degrees of success. Gun scored a number of hits and changed line-ups several times over the years. One period had Little Angels Toby Jepson on vocals. I freely admit that this part of the band’s career passed me by slightly as I was never a fan of Little Angels.… Read the rest

Daniel Wylie – Interview and new Cosmic Rough Riders album

September 12, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com
Daniel Wylie has been around the Scottish music scene for around 30 years. From his beginnings with The Thieves and their catchy debut single “Talk Your Head Off” through various incarnations of Cosmic Rough Riders and solo releases. He has just released new album as Daniel Wylie’s Cosmic Rough Riders and it is a great listen. On the album, he has enlisted the help of some other well-known names within Scottish music to record the album with.
Daniel took some time out to answer some questions for me.
New Album and previous releases
Thegingerquiff: This album is the latest in a growing list of releases from you via The Thieves, Cosmic Rough Riders/Daniel Wylie’s Cosmic Rough Riders and solo.
… Read the rest

Crimedesk and Thirteen – Album/EP reviews

September 11, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com

It’s a bit of a coincidence that I received Crimedesk’s album and Thirteen’s EP within a few days of each other.

I say this, as I’ve recently featured Drunk Gods and earlier this year I saw all 3 bands in Ivory Blacks. It was a great nights entertainment. 3 very different bands in sound but all enjoyed by a small but enthusiastic crowd.

In another coincidence, the gig should also have featured Heavy Drapes. I also wrote about recently, unfortunately they had to pull out at the last-minute.

Crimedesk – Louder…..FASTER

Crimedesk have been around and about since ’79 and are a hard-gigging 3 piece punk band from Fife featuring the 2 Alan(n)s on guitar and bass & vocals and John on drums.… Read the rest

“What have you got to be worried about?” and other unhelpful comments….

September 11, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com
Depression isn’t real!

Just recently this Twitter account has been brought to my attention.

I say Twitter account rather than using the associated name, you can see it for yourself, as I don’t want to humanise this entity in any way. The idiot appears to be devoid of any humanity whatsoever. This is just one of many tweets they have made on the subject.

Thankfully, I have never come across this nonentity before.… Read the rest

Kiss This Tarbeach NYC in Glasgow – Review

September 10, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com

I’m not long back from attending “Kiss This” in Broadcast and a huge thanks needs to go out to all involved. What a brilliant night.

I had been looking forward to seeing the 3 bands together for a while and none of them disappointed.

The warnings were out in advance all over social media – the gig was a sell-out, returns only and the first band would be on PROMPT at 8pm as it was an early curfew.

Sure enough, and true to the word, as I arrived at the venue with my mate, there was a queue of people waiting to pick up their tickets and the first band were already on.… Read the rest

Heavy Drapes – De Liberate speaks…

September 4, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com
Heavy Drapes

I’ve been banging on about Heavy Drapes for some time now. Recently things have really started going stellar for the band. They are one of the most talked about bands on the punk scene.

The band has very definite ideas, knows exactly where it wants to be. Important it has the tunes and the image that live up to those ideas. Lead singer De Liberate’s swagger and confidence is not unfounded.

Having seen the band on a number of occasions in the last couple of years, they never fail to disappoint.  Heavy Drapes have a tight sophisticated sound that doffs its cap to the classic punk 76-78 era.… Read the rest

Drunk Gods

August 31, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com

Drunk Gods are a 3 piece from Lanarkshire, Scotland. Having previously played together as Gobstopper, Ewan released the debut “Drunk Gods” album in 2014 and got the members of Gobstopper back together to play the songs live.

I recently caught up with Drunk Gods main man Ewan McGhee to talk about what motivated him to make and release Drunk Gods. I also wanted to find out what is next for Drunk Gods.

Drunk Gods Album

The first track on the album is “What’s Ma Motivation?”, so what is your motivation?

‘What’s Ma Motivation?’ Well, at the time when I was writing and recording the album, there was very little music around that I found exciting and provocative.

… Read the rest

Kiss This – Tarbeach NYC in Glasgow

August 28, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com

Glasgow music fans are in for a treat on the 9th of September.
3 of the top current Scottish punk bands are playing at an event called “Kiss This” in Broadcast. All Tarbeach Records labelmates, the event is in association with Vive Le Rock magazine. Glasgow legends The Zips, Airdrie’s very own ReAction and current hot property Heavy Drapes are getting together to put on a not to be missed show. They will be joined by well kent face on the Glasgow music scene, Danny Mac (Testifying Time Radio Show) as compere for the night.
I caught up with the multi-talented Joe Whyte (ReAction & Jericho Hill guitarist and scribe for Vive Le Rock and Louder Than War) to find out more….
… Read the rest

Meditation isn’t just for Hippies!

August 26, 2017 By neilho27@sky.com
Meditation? – It’ll never work for me!

If you’re anything like me, when someone first suggested meditating to help me deal with my anxiety & depression I laughed.

At the time my mental image of meditation was of someone sitting cross-legged on the floor, arms outstretched, middle fingers touching their thumbs and chanting “ohhhmm”. Nothing like stereotyping eh?

Of course, I was wrong. I know it won’t work for everyone and not all meditations work for me either. Everyone has different strategies to deal with their own mental health. Meditation is only one of the tools in my box too.

What works for me?
… Read the rest