2022 - The Ginger Quiff

Ramonas/Reaction – Live in Glasgow/Nice n Sleazys

May 9, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

The second gig of the weekend for me was an entirely different affair from the night before, a full throttle punk affair featuring Airdrie’s Reaction and the high octane thrill ride that is Ramonas. Unfortunately due to train cancellations I missed the start of Reaction’s set, but appropriately, when I arrived, breathless from a quick sprint up from the station, they were part way through Faster, a theme which was to be a core principle for the evenings entertainment.

As I sat in the station earlier, and the announcements came over the tannoy about cancelled trains, I almost chucked it and went home, my head telling me “Its Sunday night, maybe you’d be better having an early night – work tomorrow”.… Read the rest

Sister John and The Bluebells – Last Night From Glasgow – CCA – Live review

May 8, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

The oft rescheduled second night of the Last Night From Glasgow double header of Sister John/The Bluebells finally took place last night, and boy was it worth the wait.

The return to live music was apparent across the city with gigs ranging from The Monochrome Set to Vlure, When Rivers Meet to Dead Pony and Atom Age, and not one but two LNFG double headers, the other being St Dukes and The Muldoons in Stereo.

This time around it was The Bluebells kicking off the evening, one which saw both bands on fire both musically and with their on stage banter with the crowd.… Read the rest

Marianne Dissard – Rappel – album review

May 4, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

Marianne Dissard’s collection of cover versions recorded in 2020/21 during lockdown, in conjunction with Raphael Mann, and featuring a smorgasbord of talented musicians playing across this extraordinary collection of songs, finally gets a well deserved release as a truly coherent album.

Rappel (which translates as Reminder) is just one of the many projects from the French born multi-talented chanteuse, who now resides in the Dear Green Place, in a career which has seen her take on the role of singer, songwriter, author, film-maker and photographer. Not one to let the grass grow under her feet, despite residing in Glasgow for a relatively short time, Marianne is already in the throes of arranging a photography project/exhibition revolving around the Clyde.… Read the rest

tAngerinecAt – Glass – album review

April 29, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

The latest album, Glass, from tAngerinecAt, the Welsh based Ukranian/English duo of Eugene Purpurovsky and Paul Chilton, is an extraordinarily mesmerising work of unadulterated alluring charm. Their extraordinary music is as engaging and beautiful as it is dark and undefinable.

Having formed in Ukraine, where non-binary Eugene, to put it mildly, had a dark and traumatic childhood and upbringing and where Cheshire born Paul (also non-binary) lived for 18 years. Follow the link below to the band’s website to read more about their roots and previous recordings.

This new album Glass is both simultaneously an unnerving and difficult but thoroughly captivating and uplifting listen, a fact that is borne out of by description of the album provided by the band, which I couldn’t put any better “”Glass” is based around Eugene’s personal experiences as a neurodivergent person, severe trauma, acute poverty and Chornobyl disaster survivor, and a queer multiethnic refugee activist from Ukraine.”… Read the rest

Bob Vylan – The Price of Life – album review

April 28, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

Fresh of the presses, the new long player from the band that keeps punk relevant into the 21st Century and beyond picks up the baton passed on from We Live Here and runs full tilt with it, leaving those punks stuck in a rut around 1982 wallowing in their own self pity.

The seamless handover is evident in the coherence between the two albums, with The Price of Life allowing Bobby & Bobbie to continue to vent their legitimate anger at lying politicians, meathead racists, right wing gammons, lefty liberals and beyond… hitting each of them square on target with every knockout verbal punch aimed, no-one escaping in a full on aural assault on the current post-Brexit dystopian climate across this clusterfuck of nations, which in many ways has regressed further since the release of their hard hitting debut.… Read the rest

Run Into the Night – Common Stream of Consciousness – single review

April 28, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

One of the Ginger Quiff’s “22 for ’22”, the revamped Run Into the Night release the first single recorded as the new 2 piece with Christina on guitar and vox and long term friend and collaborator Andrew (also of Powderkeg) on drums, with additional backing vox from Steven Young.

The result of their hard work is the addictively compelling Common Stream of Consciousness which will be available to purchase (or stream) tomorrow, and infiltrate your own consciousness, lodging itself firmly there and refusing to budge.

Hulking great dirty crunching riffs from Christina accompanied by a vigorous thunder of drums from Andrew herald the arrival of this deeply resonant rumbling growl of a tune.… Read the rest

Weekend Offenders – a weekend of punk’n debauchery

April 24, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

My creaking bones and tired feet are just recovering from my old folks weekend out (no offence meant to anyone else on the wrong side of 50).

Talking of offence, the weekend offending started on Friday might with a gathering of the usual suspects in the intimate surroundings of McChuills on High Street, for what seemed like the first time in forever.

This is Scotland Calling …

On the bill, two of Scotlands finest exponents of harmonious first wave of punk rock sound, The Zips and Reaction. This was one of several gigs around Glasgow on the eve of Scotland Calling and Record Store Day, triggering conversations around the reasons why bands such as these two are constantly overlooked for the annual punk festival in Glasgow, an ideal opportunity to showcase the best in Scottish punk.… Read the rest

DITZ – The Great Regression – album review

April 21, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

The second great album of 2022 that I’ve picked up from Alcopop! Records so far. On the back of January’s superb release This is My World from Helen Love, comes the debut album from DITZ, in the shape of The Great Regression, an album title which is unerringly accurate for the dystopian post Brexit times we are currently living through.

Brooding

An entirely different beast from the Helen Love album, DITZ produce an unsettling blend of abrasive post punk, mixed with often vicious and seemingly threatening metal guitar grooves and riffs, nigh on industrial in places. Elsewhere the mood is much more brooding, on the likes of Instinct, with a low key vocal backed by an equally low key, but incessant guitar line, the song does, however, rise to a cacophonous clamouring finale.… Read the rest

James Domestic – Carrion Repeating – album review

April 20, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

James Domestic (James Scott) isn’t one to rest on his laurels. The frontman of hardcore punk band, The Domestics, he has a list of other bands/side projects the length of your arm, Carrion Repeating is his first solo offering which he describes as “post-punk pop music for weirdos”.

Swagger

How would I describe this solo project? Let me try… To me the album lives in a place somewhere between the cockney geezer swagger of Ian Dury, living in a world of John Cooper Clarke observational poetry and all bundled up with a soundtrack like the coming together of The Fall and Sleaford Mods.… Read the rest

Ginger Wildheart/”Random” Jon Poole/Carol Hodge – live in Bannermans, Edinburgh

April 20, 2022 By neilho27@sky.com

Being a lifelong weegie, I don’t often venture through to the East for a gig, normally sticking to Glasgow City centre or its immediate environs. However, with no Glasgow date on this tour, I risked a nosebleed and made my way, with my brother, another ginger Hodge (sans quiff) through to my first ever Bannermans gig.

As I thought may be the case, we immediately bumped into another West coaster who had made the trip through and soon, I was bumping into several friendly faces, making the trip worth it before a note was even played.

Carol Hodge

This was a night of firsts, and despite my championing her music for some time, reviewing her albums and interviewing her for the blog, this was the first time I had seen my fellow Hodge live (apart from on several online gigs during COVID – but they don’t count).… Read the rest