Bollweevil – Rock Solid
Holocaust – Only As Young As
You Feel
Starfighters – Alley Cat Blues
Silverwing – Teenage Love
Affair
Samson – Red Skies
Baby Tuckoo – Rock Rock
Dark Star – Lady Of
Mars
Di’anno – Antigua
Tank – Blood Guts & Beer
Marseille – Walking
On A High Wire
Dumpys Rusty Nuts – Boxhill Or Bust
Bruce Dickinson & Pig Iron – Space Truckin’

So more fool you.  But here’s a wee taster.

Some Samson

Some Di’anno

Some Tank

Some Marseille

Now stop bothering me, so I can get back to being Scotch.

Is there anything a Scotchman likes more than a song aboot the English getting humped.  Well, yes, but only if there’s football and drink involved.  Otherwise, hearing aboot those doon Sarf bandits getting their arses skelped doon the Pans is as good as it gets.

So here’s Alex Beaton telling us all aboot the Battle of Prestonpans - Hey Johnnie Cope

Alex is alive and well and here – http://www.alexbeaton.com/

When I was a wean you couldnae sit in front of the telly without some beardy, straggly haired Scotchman singing proper Scotch songs.  Proper Scotch songs I learnt at my mammys knee.  Before the Gaelic historical revisionist society took over the country and kicked the proper Scotch oot, to be replaced by caterwauling ballads aboot the Highland Clearance.

Which meant you goat loads o’ Silly Wizard, Gaberlunzie and their ilk.

And here are the legends that are Gaberlunzie wi’ a proper weans tune
- Coulters Candy

I was amazed / shocked to discover that Gaberlunzie are still alive and well and here – http://www.gaberlunzie.com/

Now, I have heard that some folks doon in Engerland are getting aw worked up aboot somthing called Christmas. It’s aw a wee bit vague tae me, but I do know that it’s getting awfy close to Hogmanay. So I thought I’d get the pairty started nice and early wi some mair Scotch tunes.

And wha better than my childhood Scotch favourite, Alastair McDonald. Noo you might no have heard o’ him, but roond my way, his cheery smile, moustache and giant banjo, made him a firm favourite. So here he is, gi’in it laldy wi’ ‘Rantin Rovin Robin’.

Alastair McDonald – Rantin Rovin Robin

Don’t say I’m not good to you. Altogether now;

“DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND REPENT IF YOU PLEASE!”

Download Judas Priest programme

When I was a wean, I spent most of my time with Famie and George, my Great Aunt and Great Uncle.  Famie (Euphemia) was my Dads Aunt and they lived in Number 17, while we were living in Number 11.  Now, bear in mind, they were in their sixties when they started looking efter me, and they’d never had bairns of their own, so it was a big ask.  But they were really good to me, and it was George who taught me to swim in the salt water pool at Portobello, and who took me to see Disney pictures at the cinema.  The cinema was actually called the George and the
primary school me was quite happy to believe that it was actually his cinema, something he did nothing to refute.

Weirdly, I don’t ever remember George saying anything.  He would sit in the corner when the family was together, and keep quiet.  Famies family reckoned he was a waster who was too lazy to work, but he actually made fiddles in the boxroom of their top floor flat, and played in the Fiddle Orchestra at the Nelson Hall, and at the Ross Bandstand, when the open air Scotch dancing was on.  He was always kind to me, and Famie was my favourite of all my Dads family.  So this one is for
them.

The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra – McFarlane O’ the
Sports

Just a wee deoch an doris, just a wee drop, that’s all.
Just a wee deoch an doris afore ye gang awa.
There’s a wee wifie waitin’ in a wee but an ben.
If you can say, “It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht”,
Then yer a’richt, ye ken.

This one is for proper Scotch folk, cos nae wan else will have a scooby whit the hell it’s aw aboot.

Heuch! – Sir Harry Lauder

Heuch! Nothing says Scotchland like Andy Stewart and an accordian. Essential items fur a guid Scotch nicht, along wi’ beer, whisky, sausage rolls, fighting, tears, recriminations, guilt, black bun and greeting.  And as the rain pees doon, the wind blaws, and the wind is cauld enough to freeze ma bahoochies aff, the Summer solstice, fur the first time, brings Hogmanay tae kind.

Which is pretty much every Hogmanay of the eighties for me.  And a good few o’ the weekends inbetween.  I remember when I was a boy, my first Hogmanay  away fae home wis when my Mum and Dad decided I was old enough to take to Austin House, a social club just roond the corner fae the hoose.  Now I’d seen a few drunk people in my time, and I was aboot 9 year auld at this point, but  nothing prepared me fur a hunnerd o’ them, absolutely blootered and falling o’er themselves and each other.

Aha, thought I. Now I know what I want to do wi’ my life.  I want to be a drunk.   And fair play, I gave it my best shot.  So here’s a wee dose o’ the immortal Andy Stewart, just tae keep ye’s goin’. – Andy Stewart

We didnae care for Christmas in Scotchland.  Most men still worked on Christmas Day, and the only day aff away fae the Trades Fortnight was New Years Day.  So Hogmanay was it, when ah was a wean. Big time.

The hoose would be full.  There would be me my Mum and Dad, my Aunty Betty and Uncle Phil, Aunty Nessie and Uncle Davie, Aunty Evelyn and Uncle Jimmy (nane of whom were related to me), one or both of the McPartlin brothers if they were aff the boats, possibly my real Uncle Bill and his pal Billy Pender, assorted daughters of the fake aunts and uncles, Jackie and Bette Graham, all packed into the front room of a wee tenement flat.

There would be a lot of talking and drinking, as it was the one time o’year that everyone would be thegither.  But come eight o’clock, it was time for the singing to start.  So the record player would get switched oan, and oot would come Glen Daly “Live At The Ashfield Club”.

It would be on repeat until ten to twelve, when the radio was switched oan fur the bells, as everyone sang along to every song. You’d get The Dacent Irish Boy : Scotland The Brave, Sing Us A Song Of Bonnie Scotland, Auld Scots Mither Mine, The Northern Lights Of Aberdeen, I Belong To Glasgow and many more.  My Uncle Phils favourite was ayeways The Dacent Irish Boy, which always went doon a treat with the large number of Catholics in the room.

Come twelve, it was doon the stair o’number 11, alang the road to nymber 17, to first foot Famie and George (my Dads aunt and uncle), then aff tae bed to get ready for the New Years Day crawl, which saw us at Jackie and Bette Grahams in Viewforth, then a visit to Mrs McLuskey at Lochrin (hoping we’d miss the priests visit), roond the corner tae Mrs McPartlin in Thornybauk, then aff tae Aunty Evelyn and Uncle Jimmy in Orwell.  Then hame, knackered.

And everyone had a copy in their hoose.  When we went oot tae Polbeth, West Cothar, Whitburn or as far afield as Carnwath visiting my Dads relatives, there it would be.

So here is the legendary Glen Daly singing my Uncle Phils favourite.

Ahm tekkin time oot fae aw that metal malarkey, to reminisce aboot the good auld days.  See, the Scotch Parly and aw thae BBC Alba bastards would huv ye believe that we’re aw big hair teuchters who wander aboot in kilts greetin aboot the Heilan Clearances and wassailing Rabbie Burns poems.

Weel, that’s just shite.  See, when I was a boy, it was aw Thingymajig, Scotch And Wry and Glen Daly.  Of whom more. later.  See, we never spoke teuchter roond here, we didnae gie a shite aboot the Heilan Clearances,what wi my ancestors being indentured for life in the coalfields, and Rabbie Burns wis a big girls blouse.

So, I’ll be spending some time celebrating the Scotchland I knew, and one that the middle class jessies who run things would like to airbrush fae history, in a cultural cleansing.

And, wha better to kick things aff, than the kings o’comedy, Messrs Francie and Josie!  Hullawrerr!