Glasgow Sessions

About Glasgow Sessions

🎙️ The Glasgow Sessions celebrates the authentic heart of Glasgow's live music and poetry scene through raw performances, real venues, and true stories. Join host Richard Lee as he ventures into beloved local spots across the city, capturing original spoken word and live music from passionate performers 🎤🎵. Each episode features exclusive recordings of poets, musicians, and artists sharing their craft in intimate venue settings, alongside candid interviews that reveal the stories behind the art 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✨. Whether you're drawn to powerful spoken word performances, traditional Scottish music, or contemporary original compositions, this podcast brings you backstage access to the city's most genuine cultural experiences 🎸📝. Through immersive storytelling and authentic conversations, Richard creates a comprehensive record of Glasgow's thriving grassroots scene—capturing not just the performances, but the people and places that make them possible 🎧💫. Discover the voices, hear the stories, and immerse yourself in Glasgow's creative spirit—one session at a time 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🎶.

Publisher

glasgowsessions

Category

arts · music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Sept 2025

Latest episode

27 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

34 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Sept 2026

   Episode #32 - ALL OR NOTHING movie screening + live acts @Muchuills

   Glasgow Sessions Bank Holiday Weekend Takeover, Part 2: 'All Or Nothing' screening at McChuill'sFor night two of our Bank Holiday Weekend takeover, we went to McChuill's in Glasgow for the screening of Jay-Lee CCTV's film, 'All Or Nothing.' The room was packed with artists, poets, musicians and friends who came out to support one of Glasgow's own, and they showed what the city's independent scene is all about.Support the people in the room:Jay-Lee CCTV: download his album on BandcampThe Burn with Ally Robertson: go check it outMacalah Brown's GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/4e8903ebdDonald Jenkins: his new album "A Pint Half F*cked" is out around 1st November on Bandcamp at https://donaldjenkins.bandcamp.comBatter In open mic night: The Record Factory, Partick, on the first Wednesday of every month. The next one is Wednesday 7th October.Thanks to Jay-Lee, McChuill's, Mackenzie Scottish Rap, Cat Cochrane, Ambar Dhesi Music and Events, Donald Jenkins, Shifty Beef Rhymes, Michelah Desnai, Rebecca Radical, Ally Robertson, and Jam Harvie.CONTENT WARNINGS for themes of homelessness, addiction and suicide.Please note this episode also has explicit language in it.Glasgow Sessions is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Follow, subscribe and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.Follow us on Instagram to keep up with the Glasgow scene.

2. 

   27 Sept 2026

   Episode #31 - Rewired Culture Presents @ The Poetry Club

   The Glasgow Sessions Bank Holiday Weekend Takeover begins at The Poetry Club, SWG3, with Rewired Culture Presents - a night bringing independent artists, different sounds and Glasgow’s music community together in one room 🎙️🔥Richard Lee is there to capture the live performances and the atmosphere as Rewired Culture puts the spotlight on artists making music across the Scottish scene.Featuring performances from Rave Makes Glasgow, Owen Ess, The Next Gimmick, Dariusz Sicario, Barz Fury, Tribal John, Savona Music, Paprika Lee, G Spartan and The Real Genesis, this episode takes you into the first night of the takeover. Expect a mix of voices and styles, the energy of a live crowd, and a celebration of the people creating opportunities for independent music 🎶🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿It’s about more than a line-up: it’s about artists sharing a stage in one continuous chain, audiences discovering new music, and a community showing up for its own.Please note this episode has explicit content in it.Next up in the Bank Holiday Weekend Takeover: ALL OR NOTHING: THE SCREENING with JAy-Lee CCTV 🎬Follow Glasgow Sessions on Podbean, Spotify, Amazon Music or Apple Podcasts so you don’t miss the next episode.

3. 

   26 Sept 2026

   Episode #30 - Donald Jenkins

   In this episode of Glasgow Sessions, Richard Lee welcomes Newcastle-based poet, rapper, educator, community artist, activist and long-time promoter Don Jenkins for a candid, generous and often hilarious conversation about creativity, community, regional identity and the courage to keep making work at any age.Born in Glasgow but raised in Newcastle, Don reflects on the character, history and cultural energy of the North East. He talks about the legacy of coal mining, shipbuilding and working-class communities, and how those histories still shape the region’s music, poetry and politics. At the centre of that discussion is language: Don makes a passionate case for artists retaining their own accents in their writing and performance, rather than copying American rap cadences or defaulting to a generic London sound. For him, a Geordie, Glaswegian, Scouse or Mancunian voice is not a limitation—it carries its own rhythm, humour, emotional weight and possibilities for rhyme.Richard and Don explore the world of spoken-word performance and poetry slams, including Don’s experience of winning the Great Geet Muckle Slam in 2018 and subsequently becoming its host. He explains the intensity of having only three minutes to perform a poem in front of a live audience and judges, the nerves of forgetting lines or freezing on stage, and the strange unpredictability of competitive poetry. Don also considers the difference between writing for the page and writing for performance, describing how form, rhythm, rhyme, metre and audience response all shape the work in different ways. He discusses National Poetry Writing Month, his practice of writing a poem every day in April, and his belief that writing poetry, rap, journalism and criticism all feed into one another and make him a more versatile writer.The episode also hears Don speak openly about becoming a rapper in his forties. He describes himself as a late bloomer, but sees age as a source of perspective rather than a barrier. Having written raps as a teenager, experimented with jungle MCing and spent years supporting other artists through events and promotion, Don eventually realised that he had work of his own to make. He talks about learning rap technique later in life—the breath control, cadence, musicality and songwriting discipline involved—and about accepting the awkwardness of being a beginner again. The conversation is ultimately an encouraging one for anyone who feels they have missed their chance: Don’s view is that if you have something to say and the commitment to develop your craft, there is no age at which creativity is closed to you.A particularly moving part of the interview focuses on Stories of the Stones, Don’s community-led poetry project about people buried in St John’s and Westgate Hill cemeteries in Newcastle’s West End. Inspired by years of walking his dog through the cemetery and wondering about the names on the gravestones, Don began researching local lives, listening to residents and turning their memories into poems. He discusses forgotten family histories, working-class lives, local characters, acts of quiet heroism and the importance of documenting people whose stories may never otherwise enter official history.Don performs a powerful poem about alcoholism, family breakdown, anger, sobriety and reconciliation. Based on the account of a local man’s relationship with his father, it follows the emotional aftermath of addiction while allowing space for the difficult, imperfect possibility of change. Don also shares extraordinary historical connections uncovered through the project, from a local story around the origins of kippers to an unexpected Newcastle link involving the Bond family motto “The World Is Not Enough,” Sir Thomas Bond and the mythology around James Bond. He also discusses the forthcoming continuation of the project, More Stories of the Stones.Richard and Don also delve into Don’s work as a community poet, youth worker and educator. Don talks

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

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