MAP FUNDRAISER - WEDNESDAY 8th May

NORMAL SERVICE
Normal Service's gamut of lyrical themes incorporate a skew-whiffed range of jolly topics that gloriously hint and hark about capitalism, Dadaism, and gaping wounds! Characters from the literary and film worlds of John Fante and David Lynch collide with foreboding tales from the creaky planks below The Hangman's Noose. Memories from a sensory overload of scents are collected to form a song about a magical freewheeling road trip, the words of which are located in amongst a sonic stew of influences that hint at Rough Trade's early years (with sounds akin to those found on the grooves of Young Marble Giants and Scritti< Politti 45s).

Whist utilising the fragile structures of those aforementioned groups, Normal Service have also undergone something of a makeover in recent months, resulting in them marrying their post-punk leanings with a toughened up rhythmical playfulness similar to that of the taut-skronky sound of Holland's The Ex on top of John Peel favourites Bogshed. Inquisitive listening to Normal Service's incongruous approach to songwriting will also reveal a mish-mash of Kraut-inspired grooves camouflaged within a hedgerow of finger-licking folk-rock loveliness thrown in for good measure.

As yet shy in offering up any recordings of their increasingly eclectic sound, the four erstwhile figures from Lung Leg, Ganger, The Keatons, and Spread Eagle wholeheartedly aim to right this wrong in 2024.

AUTOCAMPER

"With enough melancholic charm and a cardigan collection that would make even Stephen Pastel blush, Autocamper are the perfect pop tonic to Manchester’s predictable post-punk machismo.

Like a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines’ call and response motif, vocal duties are shared by Jack Harkins and Niamh Purtill - their wide-eyed reflections on unrequited romances, bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors effortlessly retrofits the jangle pop sounds of the ‘80s without the C86 revisionism; think Sarah Records-era The Wake fused with the shambling, melodic impulse of McCarthy and The Close Lobsters, but with one foot always firmly in the present.

Music for a new generation of the melody hungry and overstimulated, Autocamper make the everyday gorgeous, conjuring images of rain droplets pouring down bus windows on a grey sigh-ridden, pedestrian Sunday, or waiting in line at a service station the morning after the night before, lukewarm pasty in hand." - Hayley Scott

Autocamper's debut cassette single comes out on the 3rd May 2024 on Safe Suburban Home.

JIM MCATEER

Jim McAteer is a singer-songwriter from Glasgow.

Jim's songs have long been cherished on the Scottish music scene and beyond. His well loved album Here Be Dragons and singles The Everything Thing and In Love With Ever Atom brought Jim’s songs to a wider audience in recent years and he is now working on material for a new record.

SCOTTISH FAULT LINES

Scottish Fault Lines is Glasgow singer/songwriter Hugh Haggerty who stupidly decided on a career in music when such a thing doesn’t exist anymore.

Indie/folk is the order of the day, having played Glasgow, Dundee and London (thanks Spare Snare) he’s now here for you.