On a dreich Sunday night in February I summon up the energy to head into town and visit the Old Hairdressers.
It’s been far too long since I’ve visited this slightly ramshackle venue and I’m delighted to find that, aside from an improved beer selection, it is unchanged and every bit as unreconstructed as I remember.
I’ve come out to see Shilpa Ray and her band, hailing from Brooklyn, New York and apparently combining an Indian harmonium with a “big voiced blue rock howler” vocal approach. A listen to her eclectic and varied back catalogue beforehand leaves me no clearer what kind of show to expect.
But first the opening act, Curdle, who are billed on their website as a female four piece from Glasgow playing Trippy Riot Pop. They’re actually a three-piece on the night, with pleasing levels of distortion and enjoyably morbid/gothic songwriting tendencies. Stand out songs are ‘Flies On The Ceiling’ which takes its inspiration from a graphic novel about being stalked by the Devil, and a love song (the name escaped me) addressed from a corpse to their embalmer.
Shilpa Ray takes the stage slightly ahead of schedule and launches into “Bootlickers Of The Patriachy’ from her latest album ‘Portrait Of A Lady’. Her voice has a raw intensity that threatens to strip the walls of what little wallpaper remains. Her band, hirsute and technically excellent, feel at points on the verge of bursting out of the confines of the songs into raw propulsive, blues jams.
She seems to enjoy herself too, teasing the photographer Dale for straying too close to the stage and telling an insistent audience member that “The Ramones can suck it”.
She asks mid-set “Do people in Glasgow cry a lot, is this like the city of crying? I’ve been here three times and everytime I come to Glasgow I cry my eyes out but then it feels really good!”, before launching into a story about a hot summer night in the lower East Side… “EMT, Police and the Fire Department”, an outright banger which threatens to whip the hitherto well-behaved crowd into a frenzy.
Things come to an end soon afterwards, with a lengthy queue forming for the merchandise stand, where Shilpa smiles and sells records, and I drift downstairs for a nightcap before heading home.”
Photos by Dale Harvey
- Shilpa Ray / Curdle - 8 February 2025