We actually grew up in the same town at roughly the same time as our guest on this episode - the singer/songwriter and virtuoso guitarist Marco Rossi. Therefore, apologies in advance if the chat gets a bit 'local' in places. Marco is very much his own man, and this comes across in his gig recollections. From a pre-schooler first gig at a local event watching a jazz legend, we pass through peak punk rock, a Beatle in Paris, and our first ever mention of pop-pysch rockers Gothic Chicken! Plus, we get a live album recommendation that we concur with 100%. And, of course, we manage to chat a fair bit about Kevin McDermott Orchestra ( including a personal message for Marco) This one was well overdue, and in turn we took our time making sure we covered all the bases ( its definitely a two coffee watch/listen). Marco was great company, as we are sure will agree. Enjoy and stay safe

Arguably saving the best till last, we recently spent around 30 minutes in the company of Mike Scott from The Waterboys. Our primary conversation was on Fisherman’s Blues, the album that came out on top of our Greatest Scottish Albums poll – and Mike was generous in both his recollections on making the record and some of the frustrations that it created for him.

However, with the benefit of almost 40 years of perspective, Mike is now rightly proud of what he and his fellow musicians achieved. Mike also gave us a couple of cracking stories connected to the album, including a world-famous producer cold-calling his Mum’s house in Ayr, and reminding anyone who needs reminding of his Scottish heritage.

Mike has been a big supporting of our polling and chat on X over the last few months, which has been appreciated by everyone connected to our music channel – and we are looking forward to the release of the Atlantic Rain album and the subsequent Fisherman’s Blues Revue Tour ( and we’re going too!)

See you on the other side

We were keen to try and talk to some of artists involved in the making of some of the very best Scottish albums that make our final ‘greatest’ list.

One of those albums was Rip It Up by Orange Juice (a semi-finalist, and we were therefore delighted to be joined by their (and many other great bands) guitarist, Malcolm Ross.

Malcolm talked with fondness about how exciting music wasaround that time and gave us some lovely recollections, including being in two great bands in the space of 12 hours, recording the album in Soho London surrounded by goths, and of course making it onto Top Of The Pops. (and that infamous 2nd appearance!)

We also collectively agreed that the album has aged verywell, and is fully deserving of the recognition it is now getting.

Big thanks to Malcolm and check out the album if you haven’tfor a while. It might surprise you.

Enjoy and stay safe

It was touch & go for a while there, however we now have a list of the 30 Greatest Scottish Albums, as voted on by our music friends on X. You may/may not agree with the albums on it or the order they are in, however we believe that it represents much of what makes Scottish music great.

Therefore, on our final podcast we chat about the Final 30, and we compare this to a “Critics 30” that was put together in parallel. We also announced what the best albums cover art is, and the panel gave their own personal recommendation for a Scottish artist album that everyone should own a copy of.

And, we also had a couple of initial ideas as to what our next podcast series subject matter might be ( it involves the M8 - no, really).

We’ve had so much fun doing this one, and a personal thank you to Caroline, Colin ( and Donna) for adding both the glamour and the guile.

See you all on the other side….

This one was a wee bit special - with our guest none other than the award-winning writer ( and musician!) Ian Rankin. Ian's CV as a writer is very impressive. However, his gig CV is a bit more mixed! From a first gig where he ended up watching a different band than planned, to a 'date gig' where his ( now) wife fell asleep during the gig, to getting an apology from Peter Hook for a cancelled Joy Division gig, Ian's chat covered all the bases. Oh, and he also had some performer gig stories of his own to share too. And to finish, Ian gave us our first mid 70's 'prog' reference for his ' one live album to own' recommendation. We can't thank Ian enough for taking the time to join us. It will be a busy year for him, with a new book due out late summer ( details at his website link below)Enjoy & stay safe

https://www.ianrankin.net/

The Crossing by Big County has had a lot of love throughout our Greatest Scottish Albums debate - and is a worthy finalist.

Therefore we were keen to get a bit more insight into the album from someone closely involved with the recording. And who better to talk about it than the producer of the record Steve Lillywhite ( who joined us all the way from Bali!)

Steve shared lots of feedback and general love for both the album and the band, which included a marriage proposal, Stuart being better organised than Bono, and why Steve thought the band were a bit proggy ( in a nice way). Oh, and we also discovered what’s Stuart’s party trick in the studio was ( not for the faint hearted)

We can’t thank Steve enough for taking the time to talk to us, and it was lovely to see how warm his recollections were.

Enjoy and stay safe

We reached the semi final stage last weekend, and our polling on X proved to be both busy and eventful ( we ended up running 3 polls for only 2 ties - no, really).

Therefore, this podcast was mainly about picking the bones out of that lot. We also chatted about the upcoming final, nominating artists for the 'Over Our Garden Wall Music Prize' , and re-visiting the age old question of when is a Scottish band not a Scottish band?

Answer: well it all depends....Enjoy, and stay safe

Another winter weekend, another Greatest Scottish Albums poll on X, this time to determine our four semi finalists.And, as per the last few polls we have carried out, we ( and everyone else bar one person on X!) didn’t predict the four albums that would go through. Plenty therefore for our podcast panel to chew over, which they did, and then some. We also made the draw for the semi finals, discussed persuading the winning artist onto the last podcast, and gave the voters some advice on how best to maximise their own fav album’s chances when the polls kick off ( it involved fully utilising all family & friends to max effect, especially when they leave their phones unattended) All fair in love and war, sometimes…Enjoy and stay safe