THE SECRET GOLDFISH Empty Holster

Katy Lironi - vocals

Douglas MacIntyre - guitars

Steven McSeveney - bass

Paul Turnbull - drums

The Secret Goldfish release their 4th album in their 30 year ‘career’ as a joint release on the Creeping Bent/Last Night From Glasgow labels. Empty Holster has been in process since 1996 when vocalist Katy Lironi started collating songs by her favourite songwriters Vic Godard, Davy Henderson and James Kirk (the idea for Empty Holster was a covers album of their songs). The tracks have been recorded extremely sporadically over the past decades and were finally finished off at Green Door studio and mastered by Samuel Joseph Smith.

The Secret Goldfish has been part of the Creeping Bent roster for the 30 years of the label’s existence, so it’s fitting the Goldfish will be one of the last releases on the label as Creeping Bent will cease operations at the end of 2025.

Katy has sung live with Vic, Davy and James several times, Empty Holster features two songs from each songwriter - Vic Godard (Holiday Hymn and a duet with Katy on Stop That Girl); Davy Henderson (This Arsehole’s Been Burned Too Many Times and 22 Blue); James Kirk (Get On Board and Moscow). James also collaborated with Goldfish guitarist Douglas MacIntyre on a new song, a duet with Katy called Louche Life.

Empty Holster also features covers of songs by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, Port Sulphur, The Beach Boys, and a long-lost Goldfish collaboration with Adventures in Stereo’s Jim Beattie, Elevator, which was missing for 15 years, presumed lost.

Musical guests appearing on Empty Holster include Mick Slaven (Jazzateers), Campbell Owens (Aztec Camera), James Kirk (Orange Juice), Vic Godard (Subway Sect), Francis Macdonald (Teenage Fanclub), and Katy and Douglas’s daughter Amelia Lironi (QUAD90).

Katy Lironi has recently had a memoir published, Matilda in the Middle, a book that discusses the centrifugal force of music from childhood in East Kilbride through being part of the Edinburgh C86 scene as vocalist in The Fizzbombs. The book moves on to explore family life and the incredibly positive influence that her daughter Matilda has had on her life. Matilda has Down’s syndrome and a love of music that impacts every aspect of her young life.