May
Gigs in Glasgow this May –
Boldy James
Sunday 4th May 7pm
Original venue – Queen Margaret Union (QMU) Now Room 2 G21 QY
By his own admission, US rapper Boldy James is an old cat at 42. He grew up on Detroit’s cassette culture, buying tapes from local MC’s. Between 2009 and 2013 he appeared on many mixtapes and started to get noticed by the likes of Pitchfork. This culminated in him signing to Nas’s Mass Appeal Records in 2014.
His music is sample based old school Hip Hop. His lyrics mostly explore themes of street life and drug trade. He is quite prolific, often releasing multiple projects in a single year. I love the work his producers do on his records, the old soul and jazz samples are just so well placed and are a great fit for his laid back style of rapping. This old cat still has claws.
Choice Track: Boldy James – “The Ol Switcharoo”
The Army, The Navy
Monday 5th May 7pm
SWG3 Poetry Club
The Army, The Navy is an American folk-pop band consisting of childhood friends Sasha Goldberg and Maia Ciambriello from New Orleans. They formed in 2022 and released their first two albums in 2024. Yes, 2 albums in one year! “Fruit For Flies” and “Sugar For Bugs”. The duo’s unique style of remarkable harmonies with soothing melodies is steadily earning them a devoted fan base. Once again it was their simple one take, 60sec video posts to TikTok that started it all off. Each one is just so beautifully arranged and performed and both albums are exquisitely recorded and produced too with the sonics being up there with the best of them. All the planets seem to be alining for Sasha and Maia and I think The Army, The Navy might be my fave new band of 2025. I wish them well.
Choice Track: The Army, The Navy – “Persimmon”
David Gray
Tuesday 6th May 6:30pm
SEC Armadillo
I recently listened to an interview with the 50 something English singer/ songwriter David Gray on the influential Bob Lefsetz podcast. He came across as thoughtful and worldly wise… the stories he told make you realise he’s been on a bit of a journey over the last 30 odd years.
After 3 failed albums on Virgin Records in the mid 90’s he recorded his self financed 4th album in his bedroom in his London flat. This album, called “White Ladder” was released in 1998 and went on to catapult him to global success. His successive 5 albums enjoyed top 20 chart positions in the US and the rest of the world too. He owns all the rights to all of his records, what a lucky man, he did it the right way. David Gray is the real deal and is a passionate, considered performer and yes he still shakes his head from side to side when he sings, emoting that he means every single word.
Choice track: David Gray – “Babylon”
Armlock
Sunday 10th May 7:30pm
The Hug & Pint
The Australian duo of Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell call themselves Armlock. The two met studying jazz at Monash University in Melbourne, eventually discovering a shared love of electronic music. You wouldn’t say the music they ended up outputting was electro, but The Cure sometimes appear in Electro best of year charts with their albums and I wouldn’t regard them as electro either. Armlock are more like a chilled Nirvana/Radiohead… guitars, live drums but with a sensitive sprinkling of synths and samples. The soft voice of Simon really draws you in and the guitar work of Hamish is beautifully indie clean and inventive. A wee indie find.
Choice Track: Armlock – “Fear”
Tamzene
Friday 16th May 7pm
SWG3 Poetry Club
It has always been incredibly difficult to find success in the music industry. Very, very few have been lucky enough to experience this. The right time, in the right place with the right song is near on impossible to achieve. I first heard of Tamzene back in 2018. A beautiful piano playing singer from the North of Scotland with a global soul voice. Her recordings would rival any soul records from the US, all made up in Cromarty. To me she had it all. But 7 years later and it’s still not “happened” for her. It’s a complete mystery to me. She’s a thoroughly modern artist tho, making her way with a Patreon site and healthy social media/streaming stats… she will be a star, I’m convinced of that and then I’ll get to say “I told you so”.
Choice Track: Tamzene – “Something Right”
Return to Music Articles
