Category: Dead Hope

Junk Pups, Apologies and National Playboys – live in Nice n Sleazy, Glasgow

July 14, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

I’ve not been at many gigs recently so a Saturday night in Sleazys was a most welcome release from the pressures of life that are sent to try us. And after missing a couple of Junk Pups recent performances, including their appearance at the Variety Bar for Crowded Flat’s third birthday celebrations, having this most extraordinary of bands at the centre of the nights entertainment made it all the better.

Glasgow’s Junk Pups were bookended by Apologies from Falkirk and Edinburgh’s National Playboys. Apologies were the first band on the bill, playing what I believe was only their second or third gig as a four piece.… Read the rest

Scorpio Leisure – Audio Pleasure – Album review

July 7, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

The witching hour edges ever closer. The album launch gig (or should I say release gig – especially for Coco) for this majestic brooding masterpiece in Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms on 19th July looms large. I for one am expecting nothing less than a spectacular show from this singularity unconventional quartet who are currently one of Scotland’s most exciting music exports. To coin a phrase oft made by the bands manager “you should go”! 

Audio Pleasure is a uniquely bewitching album from a band like no other, each member brings something different to the mix from their varied backgrounds in several Scottish bands from across the decades.… Read the rest

Walt Disco – The Warping – album review

June 20, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

2024 has already been an outstanding year for album releases, however, Walt Disco certainly do not need to be fazed by what has come before as their second album finally hit the shelves. The Warping twists and turns, contorts, confounds convention and delights in equal parts as the serpentine songs worm their way into the very fibre of your being, and while not totally vitiating all comers, the album lays waste to much of the competition.  

Where Unlearning announced their arrival as the ones to watch, The Warping takes that complex blueprint and not so much runs with it as rips it to shreds and starts again, taking the sum of their parts, adding layers of instrumentation, multiplying their sophisticated textures by distorting, altering and reshaping their already distinct signature soundscapes and somehow making their music even more passionately intense, akin to some sort religious awakening.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2024 – Part 4 – April

June 15, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Life seems to have got in the way again, its now June and not only have I not got anywhere near publishing a May round up, April’s has been languishing incomplete and unpublished too…

But hey, its Singles Round Up Part 4! One third of the way through the year already and the great songs keep on coming.

I read something recently commenting on how bad the state of music is these days. I think this must have been written by a person who relies on the charts and certain radio stations for their daily dose of music, or should that be daily doze of muzak, as I’m inundated by brilliant music on a daily basis.… Read the rest

James King and the Lonewolves – The Mortality Arcade – Album Launch gig review

June 9, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

My gig going has taken a hit this year, especially recently. I think I’ve given away more tickets than attended gigs in the last month or so…with the vagaries of life taking over. That meant, apart from managing an hour in The Hug and Pint to marvel at the wonders of Sister MADDs a couple of weeks ago, events around which meant I never did manage a write up (incidentally I bumped into their talented rhythm guitarist Fraser McCallum after This gig). Sister MADDs are a band on the rise with a headline gig at King Tuts lined this summer… (another addendum – the aforementioned guitarist also has a solo appearance during Summer Nights) I’ll certainly be reviewing that one. … Read the rest

Girls Rock Glasgow – Bloc+ Glasgow

May 12, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

A wee afternoon jaunt into the city for the Girls Rock Glasgow fundraiser was a perfect way to wile away a couple of hours on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon. This was more than just a couple of bands on a Sunday afternoon, which indeed would have been enough in itself, no, this was an event laid on by Girls Rock Glasgow, to feature some of the current crop of women in grassroots rock bands, but much more than that it was to,raise funds for this years Girls Rock Glasgow summer programme to inspire the future generation of girls in rock bands, and it has to be said they had loads of potential in the audience for future years.… Read the rest

Autumn 1904 – Tales of Innocence – Album review

May 8, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

This album may have taken 40 odd years to come to fruition, with the band disbanding in 1985 having recorded a session for John Peel the previous year and come so close to signing a record deal, but despite the gap, Tales of Innocence is an absolute triumph, finally bringing together that 1984 Peel Session alongside two long-lost songs and four songs which the band wrote back in the early eighties but never recorded until now. The release of this stunning album finally closes out that circle that was started all those years ago, the story of a band who split before the promise of that coveted record deal was fulfilled, with five of their number departing, three of them going on to form The Crows, finally being told, and acting as a great tribute to one of their missing members, the late Indira Sharma.… Read the rest

For Your Audio Pleasure – Scorpio Leisure Interview and gig review

April 18, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Scorpio Leisure had me transfixed from the minute I first heard their music, this was courtesy of their bass player Coco sharing an enigmatic video clip of their hypnotic song Driving. The band had an air of mystery about them at the time, other than Coco, I had very little knowledge of the who was in the band. The one thing I knew was they had the potential to be one of my new musical obsessions.

And so it transpired, trying to see the band as often as life and work permits, having been wowed by the first time I saw them in The Rum Shack – even heading out East to catch gigs in Sneaky Pete’s and La Belle Angele, I don’t do that for just any band.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2024 – Part 3 – March

April 10, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Another month, another singles round up, and a bumper selection it is too, 61 songs in this month’s list, This month’s selection comes from a range of bands and singers from newer talent such as Dancer, Soapbox and recent BBC Introducing Scottish Act of the Year Bottle Rockets through to established legends such as Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, as well as home grown legends Arab Strap and the continued welcome return of James King and the Lonewolves ahead of their new album The Mortality Arcade.

The Top 25

Single of the Month

Soapbox – Fascist Bob

Several reasons for this being single of the month for March, first and foremost it’s a fucking great song cementing Soapbox as one of the best of the current crop of Scottish bands displaying a punk attitude in the true spirit of the first wave of punk, kicking against the pricks and railing against the right wing.… Read the rest

House Guest Festival 2024 – review

April 9, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

First things first, a huge congratulations must go to Scottish Music Collective and Crowded Flat for pulling off a superb inaugural House Guest event. Not only was the sold out day a huge success due to the phenomenal line up, bulging at the seams with a smorgasbord of new Scottish talent, the day ran like clockwork, the dream team in Sleazy’s (where, despite plans, I based myself all day) from bar staff to event management ensuring things ran like clockwork.  I hope the success helps this event to go on to be a celebrated annual event much like its template events such as Tenement Trail. … Read the rest