Drunk Gods - The Ginger Quiff

Fistymuffs – We Fight EP review

April 28, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

Feisty feminist Riot Grrrl/punks Fistymuffs have recently released their second EP, We Fight. And I’m delighted to say the four tracks on offer live up to the EP title. The four songs see the trio pulling no punches as they deliver their manifesto in a powerfully incisive manner.

Hey You! is typically vociferous rallying cry. Ashley’s urgent vocal pleading with the listener, over choppy dissonant post punk guitars, to give themselves a metaphorical shake, to wake up and smell the coffee and stand up for themselves. “Listen to me” she implores with increased desperation as the song reaches its climax.

Ashley and her co-vocalist Suky are both performance poets and it is Suky who takes lead vocal on Riots Not Diets.… Read the rest

Singles Round-up

March 5, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

Loads of great singles blasting out in the Ginger Quiff towers just now. Where to start…

The Best Bad Influence

One of the hardest gigging bands on the scene just now are the phenomenally talented three-piece The Best Bad Influence. They seem to be ubiquitous currently. Every time I look on social media, I see them announcing more live dates. If someone were to ask me to name one band I want to be huge it is this pack of young wolves, so it gave me a huge rush to see that they hadn’t only announced more live dates recently but had dropped a new single.… Read the rest

Turning Black Like Lizards – Perspex EP

January 13, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

Following up their previous 3 track EP, Spiral Eyes, Turning Black Like Lizards Perspex EP proves these penetrating earworms were no fluke by offering up three more slabs of hypnotically addictive psychedelic garage rock.

After a couple of listens the effect these brooding compositions has on the psyche is one of creeping into your consciousness and taking up residence. “I’m going outta my head” sings Andy Black on the lead track as the throbbing insistent melody does the opposite and surreptitiously worms its way into your head and stays there.

While Outta My Head has a down and dirty Black Rebel Motorcycle Club-esque feeling with Sympathy for the Devil type woos running through it, Perspex takes on a much more meditative laid-back groove.… Read the rest

Sequence 3 6 9 – Gatefever – album review

January 12, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

First review of 2020 and it is the impressive debut from Sequence 3 6 9, hotly anticipated around these quarters. The band features some well-kent faces from around the Scottish alt/punk scene featuring in its line up luminaries with backgrounds in acts such as The Media Whores and Nine Bullets among others. This album ticks all my boxes musically and lyrically, so it is a cracking way to bring in the new year

I have enjoyed many crossover bands in the last few years. Bands like Rats From a Sinking Ship, the aforementioned Nine Bullets and Glasgow’s The LaFontaines adding their own marks and twists to the genre.… Read the rest

Goodbye Mr MacKenzie – Live in Barrowland

December 23, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

Its Monday. I’ve just about finished peeling myself off the ceiling after the festivities of Friday night. No, it wasn’t Christmas night out madness on the last Friday before Christmas, trying to avoid the once a year drinkers and unbearable queues at bars where people don’t have a clue what they are ordering. No, although there were a few beers involved, this was a far more cultured affair. It was the return of all conquering heroes, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, to the world’s greatest music venue, the legendary Glasgow Barrowland.

Who knew 12 months ago, this would be the last gig I attend in 2019.… Read the rest

Def Robot – Sabbatical album review

October 7, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

5 months, 5 albums

I’m playing catch up with a burgeoning inbox of new music, and in doing so I am too slow for prolific band Def Robot. As I prepare to write some words about their 4^th album, Sabbatical, they have announced the release of their 5^th album, Play This When We’re Gone next week.

Based on the album release rate by other bands you may be forgiven for thinking I am way behind with this one, but if I tell you that their first album was released on 24^th of May, with the 5^th due on 18^th of October, you can maybe cut me some slack…

Filler or killer?

… Read the rest

ElectraJets Transatlantic Tales album cover

ElectraJets & Fur Dixon – Tarbeach Records new releases

September 2, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

Vox

I have just finished reading a disturbing novel, Vox by Christina Dalcher, a frighteningly dystopian view of a future America where men have taken away all women’s rights, limiting them to speaking 100 words per day in the process.

Thankfully, we are currently in a place where strong women are celebrated, a situation reflected in the latest two releases on New York’s own Tarbeach records.

Fur & Cynthia – Bass legends

Bass playing legends of the alternative music scene Fur Dixon (The Cramps, The Hollywood Hillbillys) and Cynthia Ross (The “B” Girls, New York Junk) feature front and centre and as usual both are loud and proud, Fur on a new 7” single, preceding the vinyl release of her magnificent WTFukishima/Return 2 Sender album later in the year and Cynthia on the imminent Electrajets debut album release.… Read the rest

Vore Complex – A Stranger Breed

August 29, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

I was recently sent a link to an album called A Stranger Breed by Vore Complex. A bit of further investigation reveals Vore Complex to be a former solo project by Ben Powers, with a hefty back catalogue of material (check out the bandcamp page). A Stranger Breed is a collaboration with a guitarist (Ed Rose) which in Ben’s words is “generally poppier and more accessible” than his solo projects under the same band name.

A Stranger Breed

A listen to the songs reveals penetrating industrial electronic soundscapes, with carefully selected samples adding to the darkly atmospheric nature of the songs.… Read the rest

Adventures of Salvador – Welcome to Our Village – album review

July 28, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

Do you miss The Fall, those undeniable grumbling vocals from the late and much loved curmudgeon Mark E Smith? If so, you could do a lot worse than get yer lugs round Adventures of Salvador, a band doing a sterling job of filling the void.

Welcome to their world…

In the space of the 3 minutes 40 seconds of opening track, Girl With the Broken Face on their Welcome to Our Village album I am dragged in several directions, the song appearing to draw on the jangly guitar sound of early Happy Mondays, through the weird genius of Eat to the twisted acerbic Manc drawl of everyone’s favourite miserable bastard the aforementioned Mark E Smith.… Read the rest

Cockwomble – album review

July 25, 2019 By neilho27@sky.com

Cockwomble?

First let’s tackle the elephant in the room. That name. Cockwomble. It seems to divide opinion. After sharing videos and links in the past I’ve had several people say to me the name is ridiculous. I’m not totally going to disagree; the word in itself is ridiculous. But as Adam Ant once said, ridicule is nothing to be scared of…

cockwomble (countable and uncountable, plural cockwombles)

(Britain,slang,derogatory) A foolish or obnoxious person.

21st Century weirdness

This 21^st century created word is a by-product of the weird times we find ourselves living in, creating a new word is not entirely unusual, all generations have created their own words and insults.… Read the rest