Scottish albums road trip

Last month I had a lovely family holiday in Scotland with Mrs Garbanzo & the 2 Garbanzo Juniors. Oh, and Nova the dog.

Nova at the top of The Knock, Perthshire

We decided (well, let’s be honest I decided) that we would only listen to albums by Scottish artists in the car.

A few weeks before going, I posted a first draft of my list on Twitter or whatever that nobhead Musk is calling it now.

Preparing some playlists of favourite Scottish bands for family holiday to #Scotland next month.
Any good ones missing from here? pic.twitter.com/7xqwITFOGg
— Chorizo Garbanzo (@ChorizoGarbanzo) July 10, 2023

I was very surprised to get more than 400 replies to that list. Those mostly fell into these 7 categories:

people helpfully suggesting bands that weren’t on the list because I had forgotten about them (e.g. The Shop Assistants, Sons & Daughters) or because I hadn’t actually realised they were Scottish (e.g. This Mortal Coil)
people helpfully suggesting bands that I’d already thought of but not decided not to include on the list because I just don’t happen to like them very much (e.g. Simple Minds, Primal Scream, Del Amitri, Sensational Alex Harvey Band)
people who hadn’t read my list properly saying “OMG I can’t believe you haven’t included…” & then suggesting a band that were already on the list
people who hadn’t read my Tweet properly suggesting new upcoming bands who haven’t made an album yet
people trying to outdo each by naming more and more obscure bands
actual bands putting themselves forward for inclusion (hi there This Poison!)
people slating off my list saying it was terrible, but not deigning themselves to suggest any bands that would improve it

Armed now with the helpful suggestions, I made a list of 120 albums. I limited the list to only 1 or 2 albums by nearly all the artists. But a few exceptions to that rule were permitted.

The Proclaimers and Mike Scott / The Waterboys are already well-established Garbanzo family favourites so they both had loads of albums in the list. Same for Cocteau Twins because they are one of Mrs Garbanzo’s favourite bands of all time.

The list was sorted in alphabetical order by album title and numbered accordingly. Then we used a random number generator to decide which album to listen to next.

Each family member (but not the dog) was given 2 “joker” cards which could be brought into play at any time in the holiday. Playing a joker would mean that the random number part was skipped and they could just choose any album from the list.

Good advice on the window of Stirling Boys Club

Big thanks to the elder of my 2 sons (Chorizo Junior The Elder) who very kindly wrote down all the albums we listened to in a notebook. He also noted down any particular favourite songs which I’ve put in a Spotify playlist at the bottom of the page.

We ended up having to impose an informal rationing of “favourite songs” to prevent every song on certain albums from being included (e.g. Blue Bell Knoll, This Is The Sea)

There were no Teenage Fanclub albums included on the list because Chorizo Junior The Elder and I are going to see them in Manchester soon and we have recently completed a separate project where we have listened to all their albums in order of release (another blog post incoming on that soon!)

Main conclusion to be drawn from this experiment:

The 2 boys definitely don’t share their parents’ enthusiasm for Cocteau Twins but they absolutely love the surreal songs and poetry of Ivor Cutler. And none of my family are anywhere near as keen on jangly 80s indie-pop as I am.

Here’s a list of the albums in the order we listened to them:

Dreamland – Aztec Camera
Let’s Get Out Of This Country – Camera Obscura
Heavy Elevator – Hamish Hawk
Day Of The Lone Wolf – Astrid Williamson
Black Bay – Silver Moth
Any Other City – Life Without Buildings
Charm – Spare Snare

Heavy Heavy – Young Fathers (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Elder)
Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys
The Glasgow School – Orange Juice (Joker card played by me)
Treasure – Cocteau Twins
The Bones Of What You Believe – Chvrches (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Younger)
Foxheads Stalk This Land – Close Lobsters
Run Around The Sun – Sacred Paws

Born Innocent – The Proclaimers
Dear Catastrophe Waitress – Belle & Sebastian
A Flat Man – Ivor Cutler
Will Anything Happen – The Shop Assistants
All Souls Hill – The Waterboys
Bring ‘Em All In – Mike Scott
Young Forever – Aberfeldy (played because we were driving through Aberfeldy)

The Wringer – Martha Ffion
Still Burning – Mike Scott (Joker card played by Mrs Garbanzo)
Home Again – Edwyn Collins
This Is The Sea – The Waterboys (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Elder)
In My Mind There’s A Room – Mull Historical Society
Angel Numbers – Hamish Hawk
Four Calendar Cafe – Cocteau Twins

Magazine – This Poison!
One Head Two Arms Two Legs – Dawn Of The Replicants
The Greatest Hits – Texas
Blue Bell Knoll – Cocteau Twins (Joker card played by Mrs Garbanzo)
Pinky Blue – Altered Images
Gorgeous George – Edwyn Collins
The Crossing – Big Country

Notes & Rhymes – The Proclaimers
The Private Memories & Confessions Of – The Just Joans (Joker card played by me)
A Guide For The Daylight Hours – Ballboy
Lyceum – The Orchids
This Is The Story – The Proclaimers
The Making Of You – Snowgoose
Dandruff – Ivor Cutler (Joker card played by Chorizo Junior The Younger)

A handful of other albums we also listened to that I forgot to include in the pictures above:

Sunshine On Leith – The Proclaimers
An A To Z Of – Spare Snare (tracklist selected by my podcast co-host Kicker Of Elves)
Lagoon Blues – The Bathers
Jump – Paul Vickers & The Leg
Mrs Garbanzo’s Spotify playlist of Calvin Harris “bangers”