Dipping a toe back in with The Bloodstrings.

Okay, I've had enough time off and a few gigs have been booked.
First of these will be German rockabilly/psychobilly band The Bloodstrings.
Touring the UK in support of their debut album 'Coal Black Heart' this is their first time in Glasgow and I am hoping that it won't be their last.

If you love the sound of the Horrorpops, Kitty in a Casket and The Creepshow then these guys will tick all your boxes.

Along with them will be The Sux Pastels and Party Asylum.
Most people will know the latter as they go from strength to strength with every gig, but the former from East Kilbride have all been doing the rounds for a number of years in one band or another such as Jesus and Mary Chain and Baby's got a Gun to name just two.

It's looking good.
A solid three band bill at a fiver.
Maybe Wednesdays will be the new Fridays.
School night rock and roll a go go.

Over the next few days another couple of gigs will be announced.
Just awaiting tickets for this one and they will be on sale from Tickets Scotland and NHC Music* and of course The Sux Pastels and Party Asylum.

* No booking fee from NHC


Event page (Feel free to invite people)

NHC Music

Tickets Scotland

The Peacocks - Don't Ask

It seems like a long time ago now, but back in the nineties some rock and roll in the form of an double bass started to make its presence felt in melodic punk bands.

Bands like The Living End and The Peacocks had the purist 'billy fans throw their hands up in despair in a similar fashion to how older generations always do as they bemoan that 'that's not how it is supposed to be played'.

I remember going to see The Living End on what must have been their first UK tour and the sound guy just didn't have a clue what to do about the bass.

Thankfully the bands with their double basses were having too much fun to have their train derailed and nary a fuck was given, and quite rightly so.

Now The Peacocks from Switzerland's who were one of the first to kick down the doors* are back.

With some fantastic releases already tucked under their belts, and literally thousands of club gigs left littered behind them they return to the fray with their latest on 'People like you Records' and it may just be their best.

In fact scratch that. 'Don't Ask' is their best.

It's fourteen tracks of polished, but not too polished, punky goodness wrapped in that driving signature slap bass.

The musicianship has always been top notch, but on this release the song-writing has matured and has reached the level that as a band they could compete with any of the stadium players in the genre they are in.

Just as everyone is getting into a bit of a state about Green Day being on the cusp of releasing three albums straight here's the Peacocks slipping in the back door, and delivering an album that if you seek it out will provide plenty of ear-worms that don't have any discernible expiry date.

This is actually the album that everyone who likes their punk poppy, but still retaining a modicum of exhilarating toughness to it, should be excited about.

Don't let it be an underground classic. 

Buy it and shake the status quo up.

*Yeah. I know. The Stray Cats and Levi & The Rockats were doing it far earlier, but that was a different sound and far closer to the traditional sound of rock and roll than bands like The Peacocks are.

Peacocks on Facebook

Peacocks website

People Like You Records

The Dark Shadows - The Garage - Glasgow - 7/11/11

Another gig, and another low turn out.
This time it is the turn of The Dark Shadows to be playing to a crowd that could be counted using two hands and half of one foot. Or just two hands of you come from the land of the six fingered banjo players as I do.
It's not the usual apathy that's at the root of the problem though, but instead its second cousin zero promotion.
Both seem to be equally at home hammering nails into the live music scenes coffin though.
So let's be brutally honest about this show.
There's something far wrong when a mate in Australia can tell you about a gig taking place in Glasgow but no one knows anything about it locally. (Thanks Al)
No posters, unless you count the photocopied ones in the stairwell of the venue on the night, no flyers, no mention on the venues own website and nothing in the press.
Fuckin' useless.
The only way my mate in Oz knew about it was because he was following the bands tour on facebook. So unless you were checking daily on their updates you would be completely in the dark about certain dates that had been added.
Now I've said this before, but maybe it's worth repeating that if a gig is treated like a state secret with details only being made available to the public after a request is made under the freedom of information act then you can be sure of one thing, and that's that it will bomb.
This gig may as well been part of some witness relocation scheme with everything about it wrapped up in a file with 'on a need to know' basis stamped on it's buff sleeve
None of this is the fault of the band though.
As they're based in Australia the tour is booked on a sight unseen basis.
They don't know the venues, the local acts that would complement them as a support, or if there is even a fan base for what they do that they can tap into.
It's all done on trust, and when it all goes wrong, as it did in Glasgow, then it provides the band with a skewed impression of the UK music scene with the worst case scenario being that they don't come back.
I could be wrong, but the four friends that I dragged along and myself may well have been the only members of the audience who paid to get into this show with the remainder of the audience being made up of members of the support bands.
That's how bad this was.
It really is to the bands credit that they didn't let the low turn out phase them and still played a fantastic gig.
In still giving it their all they displayed a professional attitude that should shame the people who promoted the gig on their behalf.
From opening the set with Alien Movies they moved swiftly into Invisible and followed that with Sleeping with a Vampyre, and in the space of those three songs they went from being a band that my friends were taking a chance on to one who they were thankful of getting the opportunity to see.
Requiem and Denial came next, both from the Invisible ep, and kept the pace going before the band ran into airing four tracks from the forthcoming 11.11 mini album.
The new songs, Dark Shadow, Blame, Eisbar and Written in the Snow all highlighted that on a musical level the band are still moving forward and refusing to let themselves be pinned down.
The set had a real chronological flow to it with those in attendance being able to see where the band came from, and where they are going.
It would be fair to say that there's no real feeling of their rockabilly and punk roots in the new material but instead a real sense of the grandeur of certain goth bands like the Sisters of Mercy being dragged into the present coupled with an unmistakable nod to the isolationist oeuvre ploughed by Joy Division.
The ghost of the eighties is certainly there in what they are doing, but instead of overshadowing everything it instead adds a frisson of familiarity that works as a reference point to leap forward from. A very nice touch that provides a great live experience.
All things considered I would have to say that regardless of finding out about this at the last minute, the scrambling about to get people to go, the hassle of trying to sort out travelling arrangements to get there and back and all the other obstacles that sometimes felt insurmountable the Dark Shadows made it a very enjoyable experience.
For those who missed out.......well don't blame yourself, or The Dark Shadows.
Blame the lack of promotion and get on their facebook page to say that if they come back you will endeavour to attend.
Big shout out and mucho respect to Cass, Sandie Noone, John Milligan and Abi Sociopath for making the effort to go and see the band on my recommendation.

Wanda Jackson - The Party Aint Over.

Have you ever been to a hole in the wall pub in Glasgow?
I'll tell you about them.
They're the sort of place that used to have white walls but the nicotine has stained everything the colour of sepia.
Framed pictures adorn the walls, but there's no theme.
You could be sitting under a picture of a famous football player while looking across the bar at another featuring a chimpanzee drinking a cup of tea.
Then you might realize that it's not a chimp at all, but the barmaid staring at you from the hatch that leads to god knows where.
They have brass tack hanging about for some reason to.
There's no link to a history of it being a coach house, but that never matters.
The good thing about them is that the drink is usually cheap.
A pint is never watered down and there is rarely any hassle.
The down side is that pensionable aged women go out on the pull to them, and with a couple of shandy's in them think that anyone that has a pulse is fair game.
The only thing worse than them trying to pick you up is when they have a karaoke night.
It's on those nights that these ladies of a certain age get up and shake themselves into a frenzy while belting out songs old and new.
By some strange coincidence no matter what the song is they all end up sounding like something that was classed as country music in the seventies though.
They drink too much, they cry on stage, they yodel, they point the finger at you and beckon you closer while licking their shark thin lips.
Uuuuurgh. It's horrible
You haven't lived until a seventy year old woman has spat the words of 'The Old Rugged Cross' into your face with whiskey stale breath, and then whispered 'You're mine sonny-boy. What do you prefer. I keep my teeth in or take them out?'
I suppose you might be wondering what any of that has to do with Wanda Jackson's new album.
Well it sounds like a bootleg recording of one of those nights.
Fuckin' aweful.
The party is certainly over.