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