29 March 2026, The Rumshack
Over the past few years, we’ve been in the very fortunate position of being able to take a gamble on seeing musical acts we know very little about. The gigs tend to be in the many smaller venues that abound in and around Glasgow.
Sunday night at The Rumshack was the latest example of looking for a local night out that might open our ears to some new sounds. The Ghost Funk Orchestra were in town for the very first time. What could they offer?
As previously indicated in earlier blog posts, these nights are as much about watching and listening to the support acts perform as the headliners, and the Ghost Funk Orchestra had Logan’s Close warming up the audience on this occasion.
Logan’s Close describe themselves as an experimental duo who channel the baroque sound of the sixties and seventies and rework it in their own, inimitable style.
Scott Rough and Carl Marah are the heart and soul of the band, writing songs that hark back to those heady days of the sixties. On album credits for their 2022 release Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi, Gavin Lamont was on drums with Stuart Neil on bass and hoping these two were on stage as their combination certainly allowed Messrs. Rough and Marah to shine.
The guitar playing, especially of Carl Marah, is exquisite, however it is the harmonies inherent in all the songs played throughout their set that draw you into the sound of the period they are re-creating.
On this showing alone, Logan’s Close have elevated themselves into the personal list of bands that have to be seen again. Great sounds. Great musicianship. A great opener.
Ghost Funk Orchestra
A first visit to Glasgow and, by all accounts, a first visit by the band members into the world of Buckfast tonic wine. It certainly perked them all up after an arduous journey north in a gale force wind which threatened to tip their van off the road.
For anyone familiar with The Rumshack as a venue, you will be surprised to learn that the eight members of the band, two guitarists, drummer, bass, baritone sax and trumpet along with two female singers all seemed to fit ‘comfortably’ on to a stage that had its own, extremely warm, micro-climate working against the band.
So, who are Ghost Funk Orchestra …… ‘It is the brainchild of composer/multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum. What started as a one-man recording project has now evolved into a powerhouse live band. It’s a sonic kaleidoscope that defies genre specification, but draws heavy influence from the worlds of soul, psych rock, salsa, and beyond.’
And that slice of ‘promotion’ was enough to justify buying the tickets. It wasn’t a ‘promotion’ though that might not meet initial expectations.
The band are genuinely a live powerhouse, combining great funky rhythms with classy vocals and brass playing in particular. The guitars, bass, drums are all standard fare. That’s not a criticism, merely an observation as all these musicians excelled on the night.
What set them apart was the interaction between the brass section and the vocalists. The two vocalists, Romi Hanoch and Camellia Hartman lit up each song they were part of, either as a soloist or as a partnership while Stephen Chen on baritone bass and the trumpet player ( I couldn’t find a name here! ☹ ) put the icing on the cake for a wonderful show that set the heart racing, the toes tapping and hips swaying.
The Lottery is all about chance, or luck or whatever you want to call it. On Sunday night we bought a Lucky Dip ticket to see a band we knew very little of. What we were rewarded with was a fantastic addition to the wealth of Scottish bands ploughing their music across the land and on record in Logan’s Close. In addition, in Ghost Funk Orchestra, we found an energetic group that you could not take your eyes off, that provided a mix of funk and psychedelic music that warmed the heart and a tacit understanding that they would be coming back to play for us at some point in the future.
I hope I can hold them to that!
