Scottish Punk - The Ginger Quiff

Scorpio Leisure – Audio Pleasure- album release gig – review

July 20, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

All Photos courtesy of Trevor Pake

I Believe in Scorpio Leisure

2024 continues to be a dick of a year for so many reasons, and yeah, my mood is more negative than positive at the moment. Ironically I started this blog as a way of managing my mental health and mood through writing about my favourite subject… but my output is worse than ever because I’ve slipped into old habits in managing, or should that be not managing, said mental health.

As I reached the end of another working week, my “peopling” quota for the week had reached critical mass, so on arriving at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms I ditched my usual objective of being stage front and slipped quietly to the back of room with my pint of Tennents to enjoy the soothing and entrancing rhythms of Accident Machine, providing just the right balance of helping dissipate the stresses and anxieties of the week, and to build up the anticipation for the main event. … 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

James King and the Lonewolves – The Mortality Arcade – Album Review

May 29, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

There is a certain irony that, in a week when I was reminded by events close to home about our mortality as a species, I am reviewing the new album by James King and the Lonewolves. The Mortality Arcade, is album which, while highlighting the fragility of life and exploring the themes of love, loss and grief, both emphasises that raw feeling of emptiness and sorrow that we go though when we lose a loved one, but also is somehow uplifting, a comfort in hard times and an opportunity to reflect on the positive ways in which those we have lost have touched our lives.… Read the rest

Ex- – Forewarned is Forearmed – Album review

May 28, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Fronted by the inimitable Meek, Ex- is a band who have featured on these pages on several occasions previously, their talented lead singer/guitarist/lyricist a prolific writer as well as talented musician.

Meek by name and meek by nature? He may come across as an unassuming and modest character in person, and look at the bands Facebook description, it is the somewhat minimalistic “Band from Scotland”. This is a description which massively understates the depth and quality of the music of Ex-, a punk band at heart – a hint of proto-punk, glam punk, through the gamut of late 70s harmonic melodic pun – but mixing things up and making them their own while, dare I say, interlacing elements of, for want of a better phrase “indie-rock” (the riffs in Gonna Do a Runner have Shed Seven written all over them). … 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

Soapbox – Hawd That – EP review

May 1, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Punks no dad, no… dad’s no punk, no, my dad’s more punk than your dad. Hawd on… punk’s no deid? Or is it? Who the fuck cares anymore. Over the years the term has lost its meaning. Is it a fashion, a style, a cynical marketing ploy? The aging punk polis would argue ’til their safety pins pop, their mohawks flop and they’re ready to drop about what is and isn’t punk (how very “punk” of them), as they challenge Primark Ramones T-shirt wearing youths on their punk credentials… “Name three songs…” they’ll challenge as they close their minds to anything beyond UK82…

So let me just say this… Soapbox is PUNK as FUCK…because in the true sense of what punk stood for all those years ago, this energetic no fucks given quartet has all the credentials.… 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

Scorpio Leisure – Apology E.P. review

March 7, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

2024 is set to be a bumper year for releases by some of the Scottish music scene’s rising talents. Not satisfied with the release of their self titled debut album later in the year, Edinburgh based post-punk supergroup Scorpio Leisure release their 4 track EP, Apology this month, a treat for those who have a voracious appetite for the band’s music and need an amuse-bouche to keep them going ahead of the main course.

The band is the coming together of like-minded friends and musicians from a variety of bands past and present, representing a cross section of the alternative music scene, all throwing their individual styles and influences into the melting pot and resulting in the serving up of an unconventionally unique and luscious offering in their own inimitable style.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2024 – Part 1 – January

February 28, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

A new year for music and (eventually) the first round up of 2024, and what a bumper crop already for January. A massive 62 songs (OK, so some might be from the end of 2023 as I posted end of year posts early…). Anyway, we’re certainly out of the traps and off running at speed, with this list containing some well-kent names, some new kids on the block, as well as the return of some legends. All told providing a wheen of top quality tunes which succeeded in lifting the January blues. If that was January, this is set to be another cracking year for music…

The hazard of deciding to do a monthly singles round up means also trying to find the time to write up the blog… I seem to be caught in a vicious circle of promising myself I’ll spend more time on writing, then disappearing in a world of work, or spending hours overthinking things and getting fuck all done…

I’ve therefore had to make an executive decision.… Read the rest