Added on Monday 15 Feb 2010

West End Volume 25

One of the side effects of sobriety is that I just don't have the urge to hit the streets of Glasgow as often as I usually do. It has to be said that I miss the sometimes bizarre exchanges with the bartenders (female) of this no mean city. After all, how often have you had a discussion on the merits of giving up cheese?

Nevertheless, that gave me the opportunity to rattle through a bundle of reviews of things physical and metaphysical (that's me trying to make up an interesting description of those mp3 things). Among the good stuff was the debut - recorded in Glasgow - EP from Ayrshire band What The Heroes Say that bounced along very nicely indeed and a fine, and free, single from the Kays Lavelle called "The Hours".

Also impressing - and the main reason for once gain pondering matters of sound instead of matters of cheese - was the album from Atlanta based band Girlyman that was recorded using a $10k Brauner microphone paid for by fan donations that made the songs sound good enough to eat. Seriously, this sounded expensive and showed what can be done on what was probably not an impressive budget. I compared it to the worst sounding album I had to hand (Shakira's She Wolf - never in the history of mankind has so much processing been applied to one woman's voice...) and the difference was night and day. Of course, Shakira is petite enough to fit in hand luggage for low cost trips abroad but now I'm drifting off into fantasy land again...

This time next year, I think I shall give up cheese instead of beer and see what happens.

What the Heroes Say - www.myspace.com/whattheheroessay The Kays Lavelle - www.myspace.com/thekayslavelle Girlyman - www.girlyman.com