Rockabilly - The Ginger Quiff

Three ‘n’ Eights – Leopard Print Hearts – album review

March 6, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

I believe I once commented in a live review something along the lines of Three ‘n’ Eights being the ultimate party starters, a band that will have your foot tapping from the very first note, but more importantly by the end of their set you’ll no longer be in control of yer dancin’ feet.

I mean, part of that might be the levels of drink imbibed on occasion, but all joking aside, I challenge even the soberest of souls not to find their feet moving of their own accord, and unconscious smiles breaking out across the most miserable of faces while listening to the fourteen slices of rabble rousing anthems from this gallus group who never fail to bring the shenanigans to the shindig.… 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

The Best of ‘24

February 2, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

Life has kind of caught up on me this year and I’ve pretty much missed the boat for “Best of 2024” lists, so this is probably a much abridged version than published in previous years.

2024 was another phenomenal year for music with a myriad of new albums and EPs from bands old and new, a cornucopia of singles (725 in total across the years singles round up playlists (links below)) and a plethora of brilliant live experiences.

For anything not mentioned here, just take a trip through last year’s blogs and you’ll find many other joys to treat your eardrums and warm your souls.… Read the rest

25 for ‘25

January 2, 2025 By neilho27@sky.com

I’ve still to finish several reviews for last year and finalise my best of 2024 lists, but here goes for a list, in no particular order, of 25 music related events, bands, gigs etc I’m looking forward to in 2025…

Tanzana – having witnessed them live for the first time in 2024 supporting Death Valley Girls alongside Junk Pups and being blown away by their performance, I’m looking forward to more from Tanzana including their debut single, Covet, released on 9th January.

Tanzana

Xtro Ghost – Rob and Suze from Diablofurs have been posting clips on socials of rehearsals for songs for their new project Xtro Ghost.… Read the rest

December Singles Round Up – Pt 2 – The Dead Shout, Carol Hodge, Parliamo, The Wildhearts, Keeley, Stephen Hero

December 27, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

Part two of the round up of singles for the month of December features the second single from Jack Elfick and Co. in The Dead Shout, the third single from Carol Hodge’s excellent 5th album EffortLess InSecurity, Parliamo have the superb new song Every Ounce, and Ginger returns with his new Wildhearts line up and their new single, while Keeley has an alternative mix of Forever Froze from her second album Beautiful Mysterious and closing off part 2 is Imagine Me Gone from Stephen Hero.

The Dead Shout – Drag You Down

Drag You Down is the second single from ex-Bikini Bottoms guitarist and singer and his latest incarnation, the band The Dead Shout.… Read the rest

Singles, Singles, Singles…. August to October 2024 (Part 1)

November 21, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

I’m admitting defeat, I can’t keep up the pace with what I’d really like to do with The Ginger Quiff. The Singles Round-Ups are an onerous task… what with adding all the links and videos and the like.

I’m going to have to re-think my approach, after all the reason I want to feature so many singles is because I like them… not because I feel I have to. But I do need to make the process more manageable, and to get the joy back into it, and not have that “oh fuck, I’ve still got another 30 songs to write about” feeling that I currently experience.… Read the rest

Shrunken Head Promotions present Thee Scarecrows aka in Glasgow

November 4, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

It was a Saturday of highs and lows. The highs? Back to back plays of the stunning new album from The Cure, Songs From a Lost World, a record that is going to be top of so many end of year “Album of the Year” lists. The lows? My football team’s unbeaten run ended… well not so much ended as was ripped asunder with a humiliating annihilation at Hampden…

Nothing else for it, who cares about the football anyway? There is music to be enjoyed…

If you missed out because you didn’t heed the recommendations and low ticket warnings, more fool you as you missed a quite extraordinary experience.… Read the rest

Singles Round Up 2024 – Part 5 – May

July 24, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

I am so unbelievably behind it’ll be Halloween soon and I’ll still be at Easter… I’m still working month’s behind in singles round ups, and about 6 months behind in album and EP reviews. I’m putting that down to shit like life getting in the way, but I’ll also use the excuse that there is so much fantastic new music out there by bands old and new that I can’t keep up with the sheer volume of music to listen to, which to be fair, ain’t that far from the truth.

My May (yeah I know, May, that was like months ago, literally…) round up follows, as does a playlist of all the songs on Tidal.… Read the rest

GIFTSHOP – A Bunch of Singles – album review

July 3, 2024 By neilho27@sky.com

It is fitting for my favourite Queens, NYC band with such a strong back catalogue of exquisitely infectious singles to finally release an album celebrating that fact. But Bunch of Singles isn’t just an opportunity for Giftshop to pull all their singles together into one place. As the first song on the album states it is More Than That, taking the compelling urgency demonstrated on their singles of the last few years and mixing in a handful of new songs packed with a crunching commotion and occasionally a hint of tender emotion, both of which are demonstrated on their cover of Radiohead’s anthem for the dispossessed and weirdos worldwide.… Read the rest

King Kurt & The Three ‘n’ Eights live in Rocknrollas

November 12, 2023 By neilho27@sky.com

As the chorus of their opening song says, King Kurt are back again, and the way my body feels this morning, it was the first steps on my own road to rack and ruin. I need to remember in the future I’m a man in my 50s and perhaps wrecking should be in the past. But fuck it, it was King Kurt what was I supposed to do?

My first time in Rocknrolla’s in Paisley and it certainly is an imposing and impressive venue. What wasn’t my first time though was seeing tonight’s support band, The Three ‘n’ Eights. A band who, for the uninitiated, play, in their own inimitable style, their unique combination of country punkabiilly, for want of a better description.… Read the rest