LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW 20th June 2025
A summery collection of smile-inducing obscure cover versions from a breezy jangly Scottish pop group. The cover album is hardly a new idea and runs the risk of unfavourable comparisons with the originals unless completely reinvented. The Secret Goldfish avoid that trap by crate-digging for songs so high-frequency in their obscurity that the most you might do is think “that sounds a bit like…..”. There’s the odd exception, like ‘Big Sur’, a Mike Love song from The Beach Boys, then I was thrown by “Hey Mister”, a Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham cover that they play in the style of The Velvet Underground’s 1969 laid back period, right down to the Lou Reed sounding bass. Later, in a Port Sulphur cover, they quote from The Velvets’ ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.
Other covers are not only obscure but from niche bands, like Vic Goddard (Subway Sect), The Shop Assistants, Orange Juice, Davy Henderson of The Fire Engines. The summery feel is ditched when the album hits rushing rock feedback with “This Arsehole’s Been Burned Too Many Times” by Nectarine No. 9. It’s a big poppy fuzz-feel of a song – a bit Jesus & Mary Chain but it’s not long before we are back to gentle ballads, gentle guitar-led lazy love songs and the odd chirpy Orange Juice piece.
Having released a few albums in the 1990s, The Secret Goldfish laid low for a couple of decades and the quartet got back together in the Noughties. Champions of cult bands, the label Last Night From Glasgow, have indulged the band’s previous penchant for covers with an album of nothing but and it makes for a chilled album. Recorded in fits and spurts over a decade, it works thematically because of the consistent feel of the set and the involvement of some of the songwriters – James Kirk, Davy Henderson and Vic Goddard.
You don’t have to be a fan of 1980’s Glaswegian pop, though it will add another layer, it’s enough to enjoy a dozen relaxed songs as the sun shines and savour the handmade quality of the singing and playing.