How to Cure Blue Dot Fever

Over the past few months many in the music industry have been struck down with what is being called ‘blue dot fever’. The name for this disease comes from the way Ticketmaster show unsold seats on their site but this problem of lack of ticket sales is not confined to seated concerts. In Scotland alone this summer we’ve had cancelled festivals, and other major events offering heavily discounted tickets for standing concerts. 

This week Brandi Carlile was the latest artist to come down with blue dot fever. She’s cancelled and rescheduled her entire European tour, with every venue in the UK being downgraded to venues that are less than half the size of the original ones booked. She’s used the ‘personal circumstances’ reason for the changes, which may be true but is suitably timed to save face and cover her losses. As a fan it’s irritating to have to rebook, especially as I’d carefully chosen the best seat for the lowest price in the previous venue. Other fans had booked flights and hotels for these shows leaving many much more out of pocket than me. 

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Album Review: Allison Russell – In the Hour of Chaos 

On her recent appearance on the lovely ‘Playing Along with Norah Jones’ podcast Allison Russell described her favourite part of making music as ‘the collaboration’, calling her fellow musicians on this new album ‘In the Hour of Chaos’ a ‘rainbow coalition’. 

Allison begins her third solo album by singing an ode to the ‘Rainbow’, offering herself a reminder to keep hold of her childhood innocence, knowing as an adult that’s ‘it’s not easy to keep all seven colours in your mind’. The song sets the tone for an album that understands the pain of the world, and seeks solace through connection and celebration. 

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Live Review: Alela Diane @ Days Off Festival, Paris 5/7/26

I hadn’t planned on going to Paris last weekend. I had seen a while back that Alela Diane and Kevin Morby were playing Paris one day after the other during my summer holiday but a trip to Paris in summer was surely going to be too hot and too expensive. 

And yet as the time drew nearer I felt like it would be more wrong not to go, especially considering these were two of my favourites who’d both released brilliant new albums this year and neither artist were playing Scotland on this tour schedule. The heat looked to be dipping a little back under thirty degrees on the weather forecast (in the end it was stifling) and I got some extra money for work I did in June. So off I went. 

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Album Review: Violet Grohl – Be Sweet to Me

I’m just going to start by saying that nepo babies are fine with me if they meet two criteria: they have to be talented and their parents have to be cool. I have no problem with Rosanne Cash, for example and I don’t think many other music fans do either. The thing that people hate about nepo babies is the same thing that draws us to them. We want to know if they have whatever their parents had. We want to know if they’d make it without their last name. 

Of all the nepo babies making waves right now the one I am instinctively drawn to is twenty year old Violet Grohl. She looks cool, with her soft goth aesthetic and attempt to bring back skinny eyebrows. Her influences are perfect – including The Breeders, PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley and Soundgarden. She’s who you’d want your kid to be, or your kids to listen to. 

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Live Album Review: The Highwomen – Live at The Gorge 2023 

This past weekend The Highwomen reunited at The Gorge for the first time since they last played that same venue in 2023. Honestly I’ve spent the last hour or so just watching the videos of the performances and I’ve felt a mixture of deep, deep FOMO, unabashed joy and just a sense of hope and optimism which only this group of women seem to create when they’re together. 

2019, when the Highwomen united to release their only album, feels like a century ago. They hoped to change the Nashville sound, to show that women were the beating heart of country music and deserved more respect. 

In the end their initial hopes and dreams for this project didn’t exactly come true. They did well but didn’t hit the country music airwaves and dominate the charts. While some progress has been made they unfortunately didn’t start a rainbow revolution that brought diversity to the genre.

In fact Maren actually dealt with some horrific trolling from country music fans after standing up for transgender rights, causing her to distance herself from the country music mainstream altogether. Brandi’s star skyrocketed after working with Joni and Elton but she released music that veered more towards epic stadium rock. Amanda’s last couple of albums went more rock and roll too. Natalie Hemby released a second solo album but mainly focused on writing songs for other artists. A word too for Yola who featured on the debut but seems to have distanced herself from Nashville and the genre too since that time. You wondered if The Highwomen would ever come back together again as a group. 

But listening to this new live album of their 2023 show reminded me of what the Highwomen did achieve. They sang songs for people who needed them, who craved them, who wanted country music to be something else. They created something beautiful – a crowded table of their own making. 

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Album Review: Alela Diane – Who’s Keeping Time?

In a world of online influencers selling false versions of themselves for profit, it seems absurd that musicians are now expected to produce content and compete for attention on the same platforms. And yet here we are. 

Portland based indie folk songwriter Alela Diane has been someone whose social media feels more like a natural reflection of her life, very low-key DIY, with a wry smile that suggests she’s playing the game without taking it too seriously. She’s filmed videos in her stunning Victorian home, featured her pets and children, partnered with eco-fashion brand Christy Dawn, wearing them in her social media content and on stage, while always keeping the focus on the most important element: the music. 

This new album was recorded in her own home studio, and she has recently made a deliberate choice to engage with her local music community again after many years focused on motherhood. Although it must be said that even if her attention was elsewhere she’s never really been away from music releasing Cusp, Looking Glass and It’s Always Christmas Somewhere with the Hackles in the ten years since this blog began in 2017.  Her new album ‘Who’s Keeping Time?’ is full of beautiful, warmly rich sounding songs which she will be touring far and wide in the upcoming year, another sign of her renewed ambition. 

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Album Review: Michaela Anne – These Are the Days

The cover image of Michaela Anne’s new album ‘These Are the Days’ is a powerful statement about how being an artist and a mother is not only possible, it is natural and normal. It’s wild this kind of image still feels radical in 2026, and yet it is. The music industry is still a tough place for women, let alone mothers, and we just have to be thankful to artists like Michaela Anne willing to share the both the beauty and challenges of their lives through their music.

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Live Review: Kaitlin Butts & Meels @ Oran Mor, Glasgow 19/05/26

People are always complaining about the cost of concert tickets but last night Glasgow was treated to a line up with viral country star Kaitlin Butts and one of the most promising new artists of the year in Meels for less than £25 including fees. Here was an affordable, dare I say even underpriced show in this current market, featuring two stellar acts on the rise who were a total joy to spend the evening with. You could have bought merch and still end up having spent less than one ticket to see most artists on an arena or stadium tour. Supporting women in music is easy and cheap if you’re willing to seek out the underrated and up and coming artists. 

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Album Review: Ashley McBryde – Wild

Since breaking out with her Girl Going Nowhere album Ashley McBryde has cultivated a distinct sound for herself, noticeably different than other women in mainstream country music. Despite still being on a major Nashville label, she has refused to follow trends, instead sticking with a formula of albums filled with passionate heartland rock alongside more emotive, acoustic country ballads. Her only real deviation from that path has been her collaborative Lindeville, which presented a more humorous and playful kind of country music.   

While previous album ‘The Devil I Know’ was stacked with drinking songs, I hadn’t actually realised that alcohol had become such a problem for Ashley until hearing this new album. Maybe that tells you something about country music – I just thought all the drinking songs were just lyrical tropes of the genre and not personal revelations about how she’d basically become the ‘Blackout Betty’ she sang about. 

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