Latest news with #LastNightFromGlasgow
Glasgow Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Scottish singer on Glasgow roots and the return of 90s band
Everything comes around, agrees Grahame Skinner, probably best known as vocalist of internationally successful 80s funk-soul-pop band Hipsway, but also for an assortment of other Scottish musical outfits: The White Savages, The Jazzateers, The Skinner Group, The Cowboy Mouth. In most, his partner-in-crime has been Douglas MacIntyre, musician, producer and founder of Frets Concerts at the Strathaven Hotel. The two men met at the latter's 21st birthday party and formed a short-lived band, White Savages, who were influenced by the New York sound of Television and early Talking Heads. The bass player in White Savages was Douglas's friend Laughlin Allan, who had been in a band at school in Strathaven with drummer Dougie Hannah. Now, Douglas, Dougie and Laughlin join Grahame as the revamped, revitalised The Cowboy Mouth, who play Frets on Friday (June 6). The Cowboy Mouth - Dougie Hannah, Douglas MacIntyre, Grahame Skinner and Laughlin Allan (Image: Les Hoggan Photography) 'The connections between us all go back years,' nods Grahame. 'Douglas and I had drifted apart, musically – I was in London, he was in Glasgow, but we remained friends. He started up Frets, and said, maybe we should do something…' Around the same time, visionary Glaswegian record label Late Night From Glasgow, which has released assorted albums by Scottish bands of the 1980s and 1990s under its Past Night From Glasgow imprint, re-released The Cowboy Mouth's first album, Life as a Dog, on vinyl. 'We thought we might do a wee show, just to cap that off, so we did Frets and it was great,' says Grahame. 'We really loved playing together.' He adds, wryly: 'Like most things I do it either happens pretty naturally, or not at all…..' Grahame Skinner (Image: Newsquest) The band has since performed at gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and recently unveiled their excellent new album, Faultlines, at a Last Night From Glasgow showcase in Cottier's Theatre, to great acclaim. The new record is a triumph, a mix of upbeat pop and melodic reflection, with Grahame's voice as rich and soulful as it ever was. 'Well, thanks,' he says. 'You make it for yourself, and you hope other people like it. And anybody I've spoken to who's heard it has liked it, so I can't really ask for more than that.' Grahame grew up in Maryhill, a couple of streets away from where he now stays in Kelvinbridge. His early musical influences are a diverse mix, he acknowledges. 'My mother got out of bed and put the radio on,' he says. 'Whether I wanted to or not, I was listening to music all the time. 'And my granny played the piano in pubs. There's always been music in my life.' He 'fell into' bands, he says. Grahame Skinner (Image: Newsquest) 'I used to hang about with pals who went to Strathclyde Uni and they were all in bands – I ended up being in a band with a guy I hardly knew, a friend of a friend," he says. "That's what you had to do in Glasgow back then, there were just so many bands.' The 80s was a great time for music in Glasgow, he agrees. Hipsway (Image: Newsquest) 'There were huge bands coming out of the city – Simple Minds, Altered Images, The Bluebells and, I'd like to think, Hipsway,' he says. 'It never felt competitive. We all knew each other, we were friends, and many of us still are.' At the band's peak, Hipsway (original line up Grahame, Harry Travers, Pim Jones and Johnny McElhone) had a gold-selling album, performed on Top of The Pops, supported Eurythmics and Simple Minds, and headlined their own American tour. They have reformed once before, releasing their first album in 30 years and selling out the Barrowland, but there are currently no plans to do so again, says Grahame. 'Never say never,' he acknowledges. 'I'm not Hipsway on my own. I'd only do it if Pim wanted to do it.' Music in Glasgow is 'like a religion', says Grahame. 'People in the city go absolutely bonkers for music,' he marvels. 'People come to the city to play gigs and I mean, I've never heard of them, but they are selling out huge venues. People know their music in Glasgow, whatever kind of music it is.' He grins. 'My uncle used to sing songs from Carmen. He was a signalman on the railway. 'Never underestimate a Glaswegian, they will always surprise you.' There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in his life and musical career, he acknowledges – from Glasgow to London and back again, in and out of bands. He takes a moment to consider whether the here and now is finally where he feels most settled. 'You never know what's round the corner, but I do love this line-up,' he says. 'It's such a laugh – the easiest record I've ever made." Another album might be on the cards, adds Grahame. 'I've got lots of songs, certainly, and Douglas is a songwriting machine, so if we can find some space to record them, maybe…' he says. 'It would be good to do more. I genuinely love these guys." The Cowboy Mouth play Frets on June 6, supported by labelmates Sister John and Chris Thomson (of The Bathers).
Scotsman
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: The Kooks Louise Connell My Glass World
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Kooks: Never/Know (Virgin) ★★★ Billy Nomates: Metalhorse (Invada Records) ★★★★ Louise Connell: Clients of Suddenness (Last Night From Glasgow) ★★★ My Glass World: Stranded Assets (Luxury Noise Records) ★★★★ Like many bands who rode in on the coattails of Britpop, the appeal of Brighton outfit The Kooks has proved durable. Twenty years and seven albums in, two founding members remain – frontman Luke Pritchard and guitarist Hugh Harris – and it's time for something of a musical reset. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Never/Know won't win any prizes for originality but it does bowl along with a freshness and ease which belies the band's vintage. Opening track Never Know is a sparkling shop window to the album, breezing along with toytown keyboards and summery guitars. The Kooks | Contributed Sunny Baby, a song for Pritchard's children, keeps the touch light (if a tad less engaging) but the indie gospel balm and twinkling synth embellishments of All Over the World has its charms and they keep the indie stodge at bay on the Belle & Sebastian-like retro pop trip of If They Could Only. Compass Will Fracture is a straightforward indie pop joint at heart but comes layered in psychedelic, gothic and classic rock influences while they succeed in styling it out through the beseeching reggae rock of Tough at the Top. In a further nod to their quiet confidence, they amp up the balmy yacht rock elements of Wings cover Arrow Through Me before ending in relaxed mode on Talk About It, a laidback song of encouragement which, like the rest of the album, gets the job done nicely. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Billy Nomates | Jack Dallas Chapman Bristol-based musician Tor Maries, aka Billy Nomates, bounces back in style from the barrage of unjustified and unjustifiable abuse which followed her 2023 Glastonbury performance. Apparently one woman singing and triggering her own samples doesn't cut it for some. Maries moves on with a lick of sophistication to her third album, leaving behind her lo-fi punky roots for slicker singer-songwriting fare, recording for the first time in a studio with a rhythm section. Metalhorse is themed around the rollercoaster of life, deploying funfair imagery from the horses on the merry-go-round to the sideshow games of chance as metaphors for spiralling life events (in her case, the death of her father and her own MS diagnosis) and the precarity of life in the music business. 'When did all the circus get so expensive' she asks on Override, while she dices with the disorientating effects of the hall of mirrors and wall of death on The Test. Along the way, she shows off the country character in her voice on the likes of Strange Gift and swaggers through the dramatic bluesy pop of Life's Unfair. Former Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell intones the title of Dark Horse Friend and the whole enterprise revs up a gear with the motivational workout of Plans and the propulsive drumming of Gas, featuring fluent vocals which are strident and silky as required. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Louise Connell | Contributed Previously recording as Reverieme, Airdrie singer/songwriter Louise Connell releases her new album ahead of her July support slot with labelmate Peter Capaldi. Clients of Suddenness was recorded with Big Country's Mark Brzezicki and bassist Lewis Gordon (Deacon Blue/Codeine Velvet Club) and glides from the elegant electro pop ambience of The Machine to the streamlined pop rock of All the Smartest People. Awakenings exudes a mild Celtrock influence and there is a wisp of Celtic mysticism to Connell's ethereal vocals on Build a Home, playing off the soothing tones of her duet partner, Hipsway's Graeme Skinner. My Glass World is a long-running vehicle for the songs of Jamie Telford, originally from Langholm. Latest album Stranded Assets is garlanded with the saxophone and woodwind skills of Dexys and Edwyn Collins associate Sean Read, creating an eminently listenable soundtrack of baroque pop, 80s soul and jazz funk, burnished guitar textures and chiming percussion which recalls classic The The in mood and execution. CLASSICAL Nicola Benedetti: Beethoven's Violin Concerto (Decca) ★★★★ In a matter seconds you know this Beethoven Violin Concerto will be different. Featuring soloist Nicola Benedetti, the Aurora Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon, it's those four opening timpani strokes - militaristically rigid, dry as a bone - that prepare the ears for a performance that is curiously lean, neatly determined, yet at the same time captures both the visionary and the unpredictable in Beethoven. The latter is intensified by a first movement cadenza - jointly penned by Benedetti and pianist Petr Limonov based on the composer's piano version and featuring a dialogue with the timpani - that journeys into far-flung reaches, stretching the harmonic logic to extremes yet somehow getting back to base. The central Larghetto prolongs the opening movement's lucidity, but with a levitating veil of mystery. Then a sparkling Finale, spirited and impish. If some of the concerto's pungency is perhaps diminished by this novel approach, there's also plenty to gain. Ken Walton FOLK Dan Sealey: Beware of Darkness (Own Label) ★★★★
BBC News
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Peter Capaldi: I've come back to music again after 40 years
You would think the star of Doctor Who and The Devil's Hour would be used to time looping back upon as Peter Capaldi prepares to launch his first album with indie label Last Night From Glasgow, it's hard not to hear the echoes of the music he played in the city in the late 70s and early a student at Glasgow School of Art, he fronted punk band The Dreamboys in a line-up which included another actor on drums, Craig Ferguson."Like a lot of kids in the 70s, I was in a band," he says. "As long as you were committed to the idea, it was quite easy to do. You borrowed instruments, you borrowed an amp, recorded yourself live and took a cassette round local pubs to persuade them to listen, and give you a gig."Glasgow was a great city to be in, full of places to play and there were so many great bands around. I remember seeing Simple Minds but we were never that successful and we all went our separate ways." Music was always a passion but it was acting which took precedence as Capaldi moved to London and appeared in a string of films including Local Hero, The Lair of the White Worm, Dangerous Liaisons, and television shows such as The Thick of It and Dr Who, where he famously launched into a guitar solo in his first episode as the Time Lord."I was never a great player, I didn't spend all that time writing and I wasn't the guy who brought a guitar to a party and got everyone to sing songs but I was always keen on it," he that changed a few years ago when he met Robert Howard - aka Dr Robert of the 80s band The Blow Monkeys."He's fantastic, he IS the guy at the party with the guitar," he says."He has a beautiful voice and he can play anything and he encouraged me to play, and then to start writing stuff, just to see where that would go."The result was Capaldi's first album St Christopher, released in 2021, and that set in motion a return to Glasgow for the latest release, Sweet Illusions. Dr Robert had signed to a small Glasgow indie label which was set up by Ian Smith in Night From Glasgow takes its name from a line in ABBA's song Super Trouper – "I was sick and tired of everything, when I called you last night from Glasgow."Ian, despite not working in the industry before then, was similarly fed-up with the way musicians were treated."The music industry doesn't care about musicians, it's all about making a profit. We wanted to change that," he enlisted 60 friends to give £50 each to establish a not-for-profit business. Their focus was primarily unsigned artists who were paid fairly and retained their intellectual since added a strand called Past Night From Glasgow, which reissues older albums. Their first was Glasgow band The Bluebells' 1984 debut album now have around 100 artists signed to the label, with a turnover of half a million pounds a year."We're not commercial, we don't pursue profit and any money we do make is put back into grassroots talent," Ian says. Peter Capaldi may not be a grass-roots performer but his music has intrigued customers in LNFG's headquarters and shop in the Hidden Lane quarter in the Finnieston area of Glasgow."We've been playing it in the shop most days," Capaldi says. "People seem to recognise the voice, but they can't place the singer. I say, if you can guess, you can have a free copy. Someone guessed Bob Dylan, but no-one has got it right so far."Capaldi is happy for his music to be enjoyed, without album cover for Sweet Illusions - from which Bin Night will be the first single - features Peter at a bus stop in London, thinking about home."I've come back to music again after 40 years, so it seems apt that's in Glasgow.""I'm not doing this to become a pop star. I'm not hoping to change my career. It's just something that I really enjoy. I take it seriously in the sense that I work at it and try and develop it as a craft but I don't expect to be at the Emmys, or to be in the charts."He may not have any say in that. Sweet Illusions is due for release on 28 March and with the first run of 1,200 albums already earmarked, it's likely to score highly in both the UK vinyl and Scottish charts. The Tranent pressing plant is on standby for another order. Capaldi says he's already working on another album, carving time in his acting career to write songs."When I was making the film The Suicide Squad in Atlanta I was there for three-and-a-half months so with all that down time, I just wrote songs," he says. "And they were all terrible but it gave me a start and while I was there, I was able to go to Nashville and that was brilliant. It was like coming home."I think I just picked up where I left off 40 years ago. I often have visions of these characters in this rain-drenched, neon-lit city where there are proto Goths hanging on street corners looking for something to do. It's clearly inspired by the Glasgow I knew 40 years ago."And while he's a reluctant pop star, he is enjoying performing live again."We did a gig about a month ago because I hadn't done a gig for 40 years. I just wanted to see what that was like, if I could still do it, if I could even do it."Stand in front of a band, play in time, stay in tune. But it seemed to work, we enjoyed it."We were asked to play at the Belladrum Festival at the end of July, and I hope we can do a few other gigs too."He adds: "I know I confound people in the music business."I've been approached by a few record companies once they know someone off the telly is making music, but there are obligations attached to that which I don't want to have."I want to do what I want to do, and I want to be true to whatever my music is and that's about keeping it in a certain controllable scale."I don't want to be a pop star. If people like the record, I'm thrilled and that's a reward because it's something I never expected to happen to be making music."Sweet Illusions is due for release on 28 March
