Category: Feature

Panic Shack – Live in Glasgow, The Garage

October 17, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

All Panic Shack photographs courtesy of Chris Hogge Photography

Panic Shack were re-visiting our Dear Green Place as part of their powerhouse of a debut album tour having slayed a packed King Tuts in May prior to the album release. Having had the pleasure of being part of the sweaty mass on that occasion, the anticipation was great, and expectations high.

First up it was Punchbag and, having been introduced to the excellent duo The Pill on Panic Shack’s previous outing, then enjoying their return to Glasgow later in the year in Nice n Sleazy, I was hoping for another impressive support band.… Read the rest

Pick of the Glasgow Gigs for (the rest of) October

October 16, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

I’m aiming to have a more structured approach to my blog moving forward, and I’m planning to introduce a variety of regular features. I’m conscious that I write a lot about gigs, but that’s often too late for some people who’ve said to me something along the lines of  “I wish I’d known about that” and the like, so one of the new blogs will be a monthly look ahead, the focus being on Glasgow, the home of the blog, at some of what I think will be the pick of the gigs for the coming month, whether I’m attending or not (that’s my get out clause – I can’t possibly cover everything).… Read the rest

Tenement Trail 2025

October 15, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

I’ve not written a blog/review since April… and reading that one back now, the negativity in my tone probably said as much about my state of mind at the time as it did about the event itself.

Maybe I should have noticed the slow decline from then until a few months later when things came to a head and my brain, for want of a better word, imploded and became my worst enemy once again. but hindsight is a great thing isn’t it? Slowly getting back on track means revisiting the things that bring a bit of joy and relief into an insane world and try to regain some sanity and balance, it means bringing some conscious positive habits in to replace all the unconscious negative habits that insidiously creep in.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 5

April 24, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

If it was down to me, I’d listen to and write about music 24/7, but unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the bills, it only adds to them! So work has to take priority which doesn’t help when you have to burn the candle at both ends just to stand still…

Anyway if I don’t change the way I do these singles round ups it’ll be July before I’m done with February.

So here goes…

All the way from Brazil, Signo 13 served up another slice of moody gothic post punk with Onironautus while The Faint revival continued apace with an unreleased single, Brokers, Priests and Analysts, from their reissue of Blank-Wave Arcade.… Read the rest

This Questionable Life – Exquisite Torment EP review

April 22, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Exquisite Torment is the second EP from This Questionable Life following up their debut, The Softest Heart, from 2022.

The EP’s gloriously named title track is the opening song of the three on show. It just takes a glance at the names of the songs to give an indication of what you can expect musically. With Exquisite Torment and the closing eponymous song bookending the self-deprecatingly titled Car Crash of Me, it’s glaringly obvious that these aren’t going to be happy go lucky pop songs. Thankfully. Yeah, OK, maybe sometimes you need those throwaway songs that wash over you without touching your soul but, arguably for me, I need music to make me feel.… Read the rest

Dead Pioneers – Post American – album review

April 20, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

If there is any justice, this album is destined to be on album of the year lists across the globe for 2025. Dead Pioneers are out to set the record straight, a band not afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and tell it like it is. These songs reveal the true account of American history past and present, a much needed adjustment of the white-washed “American as apple pie” version of the USA that Presidents present, and past, and the genocide denying lies of the silver screen will have you believe. 

Apart from redneck Amerikkka, those of us with our sanity intact around the rest of the US and beyond are looking on in shock and disbelief as the future takes on a dystopian slant with the orange one m, and his brainwashed cronies in charge.… Read the rest

Keeley/The Phlegm/Reverse Cowgirls – live in Glasgow

April 19, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

For some reason I didn’t get around to writing about this one… It was one of those usual dilemmas on a Saturday night in Glasgow, with so many great gigs in every weekend, there at least two that vie for attention, the decision usually having to be made to pick one over the other. On the night in question though I had the opportunity to get to two gigs in one night, and who am I to pass up an opportunity like that.

One not to be missed was Keeley’s first gig in the (in)famous King Tuts. This was Keeley’s fifth gig in Glasgow, and I was sure I wasn’t going to miss it, having missed the last visit supporting The Boo Radleys in Mono.… Read the rest

House Guest Festival 2025 – Review

April 14, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

In 2024, the inaugural House Guest Festival was such a roaring success, I had high hopes and expectations for this years event. My hopes were most definitely not dashed as Scottish Music Collective & Crowded Flat pulled off another cracker of an event, planned perfectly and executed with a pinpoint precision, with timings being a major factor in events such as this, everything flowed as gracefully as as a swam gliding across water, but I’m sure this meant no end of unseen frantic exertion behind the scenes. Kudos to all involved.

Count the Days


The Sankaras opened proceedings in Sleazys, but my starter for 10 for the day was a furiously energetic Count the Days.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 4

April 9, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The Gorgeous Pouting Mr AR ft. Carla J Easton – Hands in the Air

Hands in the Air feels like a dancefloor smash akin to a Scottish Murder on the Dancefloor, or along the lines of a banging Moloko track, whatever the comparison I may be trying to make, the song has a huge sound, with a real (showing my age here) disco sound, and when you cap that off with the distinctive vocals of a distinguished Ms Carla J Easton, you’re onto a winner.

The Gorgeous Pouting Mr AR

Second City Sin – Morose

Morose has a strong driving rhythm with plenty of intensely ardent riffs, paired with a suitably passionate and earnest vocal delivery befitting of a song with such a title.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – February – Part 2

March 28, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Mark W. Georgsson – Tripping With You

Mark W. returned in February with this boisterously energetic slice of cosmic psychedelia, Georgsson will play his first gig since 2022 supporting Brownbear in Coatbridge.

Mark W. Georgsson

flinch. – i heard monogamy and the patriarchy are best of friends (and Tennyson wrote that poem about his best friend)

Winning the February prize for longest song title is the always wonderful flinch. I heard… is a prime example of what flinch. do best, making their point quietly and assertively, thought provoking lyrics paired with gentle guitar riffs and sung in the familiar hushed tones are interspersed with excerpts of an interview with Avril Lavigne.… Read the rest