The dashboard shows activities of users that you follow. Are you following any users on SoundCloud. If not, that would explain why your dashboard is empty. Can you compare it with your dashboard on the website and report any differences? That would be helpful.
If you prefer not to have the dashboard displayed, you can choose to load the standard homescreen on startup. The option is in Settings -> Media/Content. Switch 'Load dashboard on startup' to 'off' and the standard homescreen (with 'You', 'Search', 'Explore' and 'Archive' options) will be displayed instead of your dashboard. You can also switch to the standard homescreen at any time by choosing 'Show homescreen' from the menu.

When skipping tracks, I occasionally find that there is a brief pause (for about a second) at the beginning of the track, after which playback is resumed. This will be due to buffering. Once the buffer fills, the track plays smoothly from then on. Have you tried leaving the player to see if the playback resumes? Playback should definitely not pause without user intervention.