My favourite new band, Part blah, blah, blah.. Yes, I know I say this a lot, but Bay Area trio Neutrals are quite definitely my favourite new band this week. And one of the reasons for that, apart from their obvious musical charms. are the fact that they are truly a Bay Area band with a difference.
And that difference is that singer and main songwriter Alan McNaughton actually hails from Lanarkshire, Glasgow and, as the band's debut album Kebab Disco readily attests, you can take the boy out of Lanarkshire and move him to San Francisco but you cannot take Lanarkshire...oh you do the rest.
Kebab Disco is something of a concept, but trust me, it's not likely to be a concept album that you've heard before. Because it's a DIY Punk / New Wave concept in the best traditions of Television Personalities, Wire, Wreckless Eric, Patrick Fitzgerald, The Jam and Billy Bragg. With the added attraction of Scottish accents.
The concept in question is McNaughton's own story. So what we get is tales of smalltown Scottish life in the early Nineties moving on to McNaughton's shift across the pond after meeting his future wife at Glasgow's King Tut's Wah Wah Hut where he goes on to document San Francisco's growing corporatisation and remaining an indie punk as you experience middle age.
The man has a short story writer's eye for detail. Each song is a self-contained capsule of time and place, the journey from youth to experience. I could document it in greater detail but the tale is all told in this interview with The Sunderland Echo and by the record itself. Just splendid!
The concept in question is McNaughton's own story. So what we get is tales of smalltown Scottish life in the early Nineties moving on to McNaughton's shift across the pond after meeting his future wife at Glasgow's King Tut's Wah Wah Hut where he goes on to document San Francisco's growing corporatisation and remaining an indie punk as you experience middle age.
The man has a short story writer's eye for detail. Each song is a self-contained capsule of time and place, the journey from youth to experience. I could document it in greater detail but the tale is all told in this interview with The Sunderland Echo and by the record itself. Just splendid!
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