Music - The Ginger Quiff

Hens Bens – World’s Strongest Band – Album Review

February 23, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Do you miss off the wall 70s eccentrics Devo? Do you yearn for the cartoon rave-punk of Hadouken!? Are the three Michael’s (and The Shoe of course!) of Slime City one of your favourite live bands? Do you revel in the music of Glasgow legends The Mickey 9’s? If you answered “yes” to any, or all, of the above, then your new favourite band comes in the form of the anarchic comic-nihilism of Hens Bens.

The bands genre-bending debut album is World’s Strongest Band, thirteen tracks of chaotic electro-punk pandemonium. You could equally change one of the vowels in the album title and it would be equally true, the music being so radically leftfield in its offbeat eccentricity, and with some riotously outlandish lyrical tales meaning its general weirdness causes a wide grin to spread across this listener’s face.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – January – Part 7

February 22, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Vampire Slumber Party – Polka King Of the Midwest

Part seven begins with a joyous blast of full throttle pop punk in the form of this boisterous three minute anthem from London based Vampire Slumber Party, it’s like the early noughties all over again.

Vampire Slumber Party

Gypsy Pistoleros – Whatever Happened to the Old Town

Another earnest glam punk rocker from the greasepaint daubed Gypsy Pistoleros, the lyrics initially yearning for time gone by, before the mid song tempo rise tells a different story “I ran away from the old town” sings Gypsy Lee Postolero, before the song closes out in more meditative mood as he ruminates about “home”.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – January – Part 6

February 19, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Swervedriver – Volume Control

The last part of the round up finished with Miki Berenyi, one of the most recognisable vocalist/guitarists of the 1990s indie scene fronting Lush. The part starts with one of the prime movers in the shoegaze scene of the era, blasting into the scene with mighty juggernauts of sound like Son of Mustang Ford. The band now have 6 albums under their belts and in January released this track from a new EP coming in March.

Swervedriver

Ditz – Four

Four is one of the highlights of the bands new album, Never Exhale, the follow up to the potent debut, The Great Regression.… Read the rest

Gates of Light – Gates of Light II – Album Review

February 17, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

If you enjoy the electro-clash synth sounds of Alison Goldfrapp you’re going to love the new album from Louise Quinn’s current project, Gates of Light. And when I say love, you better believe I mean luv, L-U-V…

Gates of Light II from the former A Band Called Quinn singer/songwriter is a compelling listen, at times the smooth electronic rhythms are soothingly hypnotic while later shifting gear into vibrant joy inducing driving beats.

Better Now is a case in point for the former, a blissed out synth driven feel good anthem, just close your eyes and allow yourself to be engulfed with the sonic soundscape and drift off into the ether as the soothing sounds medication to ease the worst of days, before you know it you have surrendered yourself and you are a willing captive to the sublime sounds of I Keep Reaching for the Sun, and despite the bitter cold outside you’re now lying back in the grass, the hazy summer sun forcing you to squint as you drift away into your subconscious.… Read the rest

Jenny Don’t & The Spurs & Wild Devils – live in The Rum Shack

February 13, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

A rare midweek opportunity for a night of Rockabilly and hard-rockin’ Honky-Tonk Cowpunk in one of my favourite local venues, how could I resist? The Rum Shack is garnering a strong reputation as a much sought after venue for live music, a great size, with great sight lines and sound, and when you add to that a band who are quite obviously in their prime, basking in the success of their superb latest record Broken Hearted Blue and clearly enjoying their performance you’ve got a perfect recipe to counter that mid week slump, injecting a bit of joy back into that gloomy feeling… last weekend was a distant memory and this weekend still seems a lifetime away… On this dreich and cold February Wednesday night, Jenny & Co.… Read the rest

f.o. machete – Mother of a Thousand – Album Review

February 12, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

After an extended hiatus of a dozen or so years, the mighty machete returned to the fray in style around this time last year with a live show supporting another legendary Scottish band who had also returned after too long out of the limelight. That show in Room 2 featuring The Hedrons and f.o. machete will live long in the memory, both bands at the top of their game, with The Hedrons celebrating the release of their long awaited sophomore album and f.o. machete quite obviously just stoked to be back playing live. Now it is f.o. machete’s turn to release a new album, their hotly anticipated follow up to My First Machete.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2025 – January – Pt 5

February 10, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Gates of Light – Advance

An incessant drum beat underlining Louise Quinn’s shimmering vocal gives way to an intense throbbing electro baseline (that somehow gives me 1980s TV show Miami Vice vibes) which gets under the skin as Louise’s breathy dreamlike, almost otherworldly, vocal begins to take hold and give you a woozy spaced out feeling that entrances you and you can’t help but let yourself be taken under its spell.

Gates of Light

Sweet Unrest – How Are You Feeling?

The energy ramps up several notches when Sweet Unrest pick up the baton and runs with it, pounding staccato drums set the furious pace picked up by frenetic guitar bursts, everything coming together like an inescapable burning fireball hurtling towards earth.… Read the rest

VIDEO PREMIERE – Burnt Log – Sharks

February 10, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

The Ginger Quiff is delighted to bring you the VIDEO PREMIERE of Sharks, the new single from Burnt Log. Burnt Log is the solo music project of Midlothian based Andy Smith, whose last single Sleeping featured in my January Singles Round Up. Sharks is the latest single to be released in a year where Andy’s plans include further singles and collaborations and a third album from Burnt Log.

Musically Sharks has a vulnerable, dramatic and bewitching melancholy which at times verges almost on a disturbing starkness when you match the music with the lyrics. The song is a gloriously discombobulating fusion that somehow has the ability to both soothe with its mesmerising arrangement, but which could also give you sleepless night, with it’s lyrics serving as a warning to us all that we are all under constant attack from people trying to steal the money we’ve worked hard to save “for a rainy day.”… Read the rest

Sultans of Ping FC & Meryl Streek – Live at St Lukes

February 9, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

At 16:00 today my plan was a lazy Saturday night in front of the telly, probably moaning about the shite that was on, probably involving at some point three of the unfunniest people on the planet, Michael fucking McIntyre and the talentless dullards from Tyneside, haudit and daudit who are constantly laughing at us as they gratefully take their millions earned purely for being halfwits.

By 16:15 though, my plans were turned on their head by the gracious intervention of several folks. including Meryl Streek himself, after a fortuitous visit to Mr Tony Gaughan’s veritable music emporium, the mighty Blitzkrieg opposite the best music venue in the world, Glasgow Barrowland.… Read the rest

Save Face – All the Gold in the World – EP review

February 7, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Glasgow’s Save Face released their debut single, God’s House, the third song featured on their debut EP All the Gold in the World released in January, a month which also saw them play a blissed out set as part of King Tuts New Years Revolution alongside Tanzana, Naked Actress and Aldous.

Like their live set, the EP suitably kicks off with Intro, a beautifully spirited folk infused instrumental, which, despite having no lyrics,, manages to capture the warm dual vocals which are a feature of the bands sound. The vocals are one of the factors which are a highlight of following song An Understanding, the interplay and timbre of the voices have the ability to radiate a feeling of wellbeing.… Read the rest