Feature - The Ginger Quiff

Last Night From Glasgow – A success story for 2020

December 31, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

My love for certain record labels is well documented with NYC based, while retaining its Scottish roots, Tarbeach Records up there amongst my favourites. A fact that is ably demonstrated by the inclusion of The Cundeez Teckle and Hide and New York Junk‘s Dreaming (shortly to be available for ordering on red vinyl) amongst my favourite albums of the year.

It is probably the only record label that I can say, hand on heart, that I own every pone of their releases. Here’s to another successful year in 2021 from Tarbeach.

Last Night From Glasgow…

This year though, one record label stands out amongst the others.… Read the rest

The Countess of Fife – album pledge

December 24, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

Having been fortunate enough to witness this band live, and having watched several of their lockdown performances, I’d highly commend pledging for their debut album.

The Countess herself provides a powerfully emotive vocal backed by a tremendously evocative perfect storm of country punk noise from the band, as demonstrated perfectly on their earlier live EP – reviewed here

There are a few days left to pledge towards their new album campaign. With a fantastic range of opportunities to pledge, from signed CDs all the way through to private gigs.

if you’re still swithering over that perfect Xmas gift…here’s an opportunity. And if anyone fancies getting me a private gig, I’d be more than grateful 🙂

… Read the rest

Singles Round Up – Autumn

December 22, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

The last few months saw an other bunch of quality singles appearing in my inbox or facebook news feed…

Def Robot Vs Kerosene

Paul Taylor brought back the 90’s again, joining up his current band, the most prolific of albums bands of the last few years, Def Robot with his 1990s punk incarnation, Kerosene. Following up their 2019 Brexit song with the power pop punk comment on the clusterfuck that is 2020, Save Our Souls. Could be the anthem on 2021 based on the way things are currently looking…

Kerosene – Bandcamp – Facebook

Def Robot – Bandcamp – Facebook

CJ Wildheart

CJ announced the arrival of his latest long player, Siege, with the full on aural assault that is State of Us.… Read the rest

Pick of the Pops – Xmas songs 2020

December 14, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

I’m hoping many of you won’t have been in the same position as me, having had the misfortune to hear three monumental fuck ups of Christmas singles. The words-fail-me-how-bad-it-is cover of the greatest Christmas song of all, Fairytale of New York by Jon Bon Jovi, talent vacuum Gemma Collins (I’m hoping most of you don’t actually know who she is, your life will be better for not knowing) duetting with Darren Day. Finally, the cheeky chappie that I wouldn’t tire of smacking in the face with a shovel, Robbie fucking Williams, and his Christmas song, the lyrics of which seem to have been written by a chimpanzee who has an extremely limited vocabulary and has learned most of their words and phrases from watching a succession of idiots on daily COVID 19 briefings, cobbling them together clumsily in a vain attempt to create a song.… Read the rest

Dead Sheeran Vs TV Smith (album reviews)

December 11, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

Two COVID related albums caught my attention in recent weeks.

One of them brimming with bristling brio, the other packed with very personal reflections. Both of them, despite their different music styles, bursting with energy and anger and overflowing with punk attitude.

One of these albums is the debut from the remarkable Dead Sheeran. Draw a Venn diagram of John Cooper Clarke, Sleaford Mods and IDLES and you’ve pretty much got the picture. The other is from the grandaddy of punk, the punk rock warlord himself, TV Smith. When so called icons of the first wave of punk, like the washed up MAGA loving controversial-for-the-sake-of-it muppet Lydon are playing to the gallery, Smith has quietly unleashed a monster.… Read the rest

Lockdown Ramblings

December 10, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

I recently almost killed the Ginger Quiff website. I had reached a point where it wasn’t giving me any joy, it wasn’t serving the purpose I first started it for. It felt like a chore and I was putting myself under stress and pressure to get some content up. I began to see it as an unimportant “nice to have”. And in many ways, it is. Nothing I write is going to change the world or have a massive effect on anyone’s life. Well, that’s not entirely true, it has made a massive difference to my life since I started writing.… Read the rest

IDLES – Ultra Mono

September 27, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

I’m not sure if you’d call this a review. Its more me trying to rationalise why I’m finding it so hard to love the new album from IDLES…

I’ve swithered about writing anything at all about this album. It is a total conundrum for me. I’m having a strange relationship with this one. The first time I listened, I was underwhelmed. The second time I began to appreciate some of the tracks. Appreciate – wow even that sounds like damning praise. The next time again, I found myself picking holes. Time and again I changed my impression on various tracks.… Read the rest

More Pandemic singles…

September 27, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

The Filthy Tongues – Pandemic Pete

The real-life apocalypse that 2020 has become has fucked with The Filthy Tongues schedule of recording the third album in the apocalyptic trilogy they started with the darkly magnificent duo Jacobs Ladder and Back to Hell. To keep Tongues fans satisfied the band have just released the second of their global epidemic related tunes, following up Gas Mask Blues with the mighty Pandemic Pete.

The song is a microcosm of everything you could want or would expect from The Filthy Tongues. Colourful storytelling and characterisation. Biting lyrics with a wry dark humorous edge. The opening couplet drolly listing the ways in which an disaster that writes off a whole year might have announced itself…”I wanted zombies and diamond dogs, I wanted triffids and a plague of frogs….”… Read the rest

Letters From Lockdown – Natalie Pryce

September 12, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

If you like your humour a bit close to the bone you could do a lot worse than listen to the (so far) four Letters from Lockdown from the enigmatic Natalie Pryce. Increasingly darkly humorous bizarre snapshots of how some desperately odd and sinister characters are dealing with 2020.

While you’re at it check out their tremendous 2020 album Humans of Late Capitalism for some eerie futuristic space rock n roll. Definitely one of my albums of the year.

Letters from Lockdown 1

Letters from Lockdown 2

Letters from Lockdown 3

Letters from Lockdown 4

… Read the rest

Black Lives Still Matter

August 30, 2020 By neilho27@sky.com

I’ve started writing this blog several times and ended up deleting it every time. The reason? I was constantly doubting myself. Was I the right person to comment on the topic? Did I have a right to write about it? After all, I’m a white West of Scotland male, what do I know about being at the end of sharp end of racism?

Recently, the more time I spent on Facebook, the more time I spent feeling exasperated and incensed. Yes, I know Facebook isn’t the real world, and I should let it wash over me, but there seems to be an unabated increasing level of unsavoury types commenting on news stories or posting frankly exasperating statuses on social media.… Read the rest