California dreaming - a tale of two cities with Neutrals' Allan McNaughton

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Concept albums are traditionally the preserve of 1970s prog rockers singing of knights and dragons – certainly not a punk rock-inspired tale set between Scotland and California.

That is however what ex-pat Allan McNaughton has come up when writing his latest release for San Francisco band Neutrals. Though he protests his innocence.

“I didn’t realise I was doing it,” he says. “We recorded 18 songs, and realised there were lyrical threads through different songs, and these songs need to go together, as it’s really a story – even if it wasn’t intended that way.”

12 of those tunes became ‘Kebab Disco’ – even the title a nod to the nightlife in any Scottish town.

“It’s not autobiographical, but it draws on personal experiences – a snapshot of my life in the early 1990s.

“A big part of my Saturday night was getting a fake ID and going to the Art School on a Saturday night – that was the place where you’d see people you knew, hear good music.”

The album starts with ‘I Could Do That’ – detailing “the wistfulness of the character wishing he’d gone to art school, or paradoxically thinking he was better than theperson who did go.”

Meanwhile, ‘24 Pictures’ depicts “Kelvingrove Park on the first day of a hot Scottish summer – taps aff, dogging school or leaving work early, shirtsleeves, eating 99s off the van.” Nostalgic indeed.

McNaughton’s tale then continues on side 2 (it is aptly a very retro vinyl release) – where the singer has moved to the USA to record ‘Hate The Summer Of Love’ with like-minded new bandmates. “It’s no secret San Francisco is losing a lot of its charm, as the small businesses and dive bars make way to corporate chains.”

The Lanarkshire-born frontman’s previous Californian band Giant Haystacks recorded two well-received albums, but Scottish music fans may know him better from that Art School period, where he played with Glue – whose members included Stef Sinclair who would end up in post rock trio El Hombre Trajeado, as well as artist Sandy Carson, who would follow a similar route in moving to the US, before a transatlantic collaborative project with electronic combo Iglomat.