LEITH BAND AGNES
bingeing all weekend, working all hours, finding time for band practice ... burning the candle at both ends...
Sunday nights in Buster Brown’s are even busier than Saturdays, always rammed with hairdressers who get the Monday off. You might see Graeme Sounness or Ally McCoist at the bar, corralled by minders, Sol-sipping sycophants hanging on their every word, or local heroes like Mickey Weir, Gary MacKay, and Jimmy Sandison getting loaded with mates they’d been at school with. Gary was at Tynecastle High, two years below me. His Hearts teammate, John Robertson, married a Shandon girl last year, Tracey, in my sister’s year. Her big brother, Stuart, was in my patrol at Scouts. Edinburgh can be a village.
An office temp, I’m much further down the singleton food chain, and whether or not any of Scotland’s finest professional footballers were present last night, my hazy recollections are hampered by a remorseless headache. I’m trying to remember the name of a gorgeous redhead I was dancing with, although dancing is a generous description of shambolic movements fuelled by double-figure Red Stripes, OVD Rum and Crabbie’s Green Ginger chasers, and spliffs behind the DJ unit. The phone number she scrawled onto my Marlboro packet referred to a hair salon - in Dunfermline? - but it’s long been smudged into hieroglyphics.
Less than six hours after my last drink, my gaze returns to the forms. British Airways is being privatised, the Thatcher government’s latest initiative to eviscerate a public service by offering cash incentives to hundreds of thousands of budding capitalists across the UK. Along with the selling off of council houses and siphoning the profits from North Sea oil into the London Stock Exchange rather than investing it into a fund for the future, her ideology is transforming the face of Britain, smashing its industrial heartland to rubble with a clinical efficiency Herman Goering could only have dreamt about. We temporary clerks are but cogs in this relentless erosion of the public sector, having been hired by the Royal Bank of Scotland for several months of grindingly soul-destroying processing of share applications. The task at hand is simple enough for primates to have made a fist of it after basic training. We write out to the customers informing them how much of their requested share application they are being allocated. The names and addresses have to be handwritten, the details transposed from computer printouts. As well as having to cope with a splitting headache and intermittent spells of nausea, I am wrestling with the post-alcoholic quivers that means much of my address writing resembles the squiggles on a cardiograph. Pacing along the desks doing spot checks, Veronica has insisted I print particular addresses again, neatly, on three occasions.
The one favourable aspect of this work is it’s reasonably well remunerated. Because I was a Napier student up until I graduated in the summer I’m on a low tax threshold. This is offset by the boredom and the long hours. Clocking-off time can be anytime between six and nine. This particular evening the senior bank supervisor eventually tells us to down pens at five past nine.
I jog up to the Calder Road and get a 22, jumping off at the Foot of the Walk, the journey lasting long enough to smoke two tabs. Pacing through the deserted Kirkgate, I cast a wary eye on a posse of youths who tear past me on bikes. Heading under the Linksview towerblock I sprint on towards Queen Charlotte Street to the derelict warehouse currently serving as band rehearsal space.
Climbing the rickety staircase, a glorious cacophony swirls from various rooms. Somewhere in the bowels of this dilapidated building I pick out the Fini Tribe, the insistent song they play all the time, chimes and a jerking bassline. John Peel loves them. They did a session for him two years back, but since then they’ve ditched guitars, got a hold of a sampler, and they’re coming out with stuff that would ram the floor at Buster’s if the DJs could see beyond American House imports.
Upstairs, the guys are already involved in an ear-shredding jam and I nod to each of them. Tom, face contorted, blowing into his clarinet, a snake charmer surrounded by writhing cobras. Kenny, his fingers slapping then sliding along the fretboard, the Hibs harp badge on his bass jerking in time with the rhythm. Jack forsaking his trademark beaters for the sticks necessary to maintain a pulverising beat. I pace over to my Orange amp and plug in the guitar I left at Tom’s Leith Walk flat the previous weekend, a Fender Strat emblazoned with LEITH BAND AGNES. This is our band’s pseudonym – our actual name is Little Big Dig. But one of our songs was released on a compilation album earlier this year, Wide Open, under that nom-de-plume. The term ‘song’ is also a stretch as it was an improvised piece recorded in one take, entitled ‘Dr. Buck Ruxton,’ its subject a 1930s serial killer, one of the first cases to be solved by forensic evidence. It was also gloriously crooned by Tom’s mother.
An office temp, I’m much further down the singleton food chain, and whether or not any of Scotland’s finest professional footballers were present last night, my hazy recollections are hampered by a remorseless headache. I’m trying to remember the name of a gorgeous redhead I was dancing with, although dancing is a generous description of shambolic movements fuelled by double-figure Red Stripes, OVD Rum and Crabbie’s Green Ginger chasers, and spliffs behind the DJ unit. The phone number she scrawled onto my Marlboro packet referred to a hair salon - in Dunfermline? - but it’s long been smudged into hieroglyphics.
Less than six hours after my last drink, my gaze returns to the forms. British Airways is being privatised, the Thatcher government’s latest initiative to eviscerate a public service by offering cash incentives to hundreds of thousands of budding capitalists across the UK. Along with the selling off of council houses and siphoning the profits from North Sea oil into the London Stock Exchange rather than investing it into a fund for the future, her ideology is transforming the face of Britain, smashing its industrial heartland to rubble with a clinical efficiency Herman Goering could only have dreamt about. We temporary clerks are but cogs in this relentless erosion of the public sector, having been hired by the Royal Bank of Scotland for several months of grindingly soul-destroying processing of share applications. The task at hand is simple enough for primates to have made a fist of it after basic training. We write out to the customers informing them how much of their requested share application they are being allocated. The names and addresses have to be handwritten, the details transposed from computer printouts. As well as having to cope with a splitting headache and intermittent spells of nausea, I am wrestling with the post-alcoholic quivers that means much of my address writing resembles the squiggles on a cardiograph. Pacing along the desks doing spot checks, Veronica has insisted I print particular addresses again, neatly, on three occasions.
The one favourable aspect of this work is it’s reasonably well remunerated. Because I was a Napier student up until I graduated in the summer I’m on a low tax threshold. This is offset by the boredom and the long hours. Clocking-off time can be anytime between six and nine. This particular evening the senior bank supervisor eventually tells us to down pens at five past nine.
I jog up to the Calder Road and get a 22, jumping off at the Foot of the Walk, the journey lasting long enough to smoke two tabs. Pacing through the deserted Kirkgate, I cast a wary eye on a posse of youths who tear past me on bikes. Heading under the Linksview towerblock I sprint on towards Queen Charlotte Street to the derelict warehouse currently serving as band rehearsal space.
Climbing the rickety staircase, a glorious cacophony swirls from various rooms. Somewhere in the bowels of this dilapidated building I pick out the Fini Tribe, the insistent song they play all the time, chimes and a jerking bassline. John Peel loves them. They did a session for him two years back, but since then they’ve ditched guitars, got a hold of a sampler, and they’re coming out with stuff that would ram the floor at Buster’s if the DJs could see beyond American House imports.
Upstairs, the guys are already involved in an ear-shredding jam and I nod to each of them. Tom, face contorted, blowing into his clarinet, a snake charmer surrounded by writhing cobras. Kenny, his fingers slapping then sliding along the fretboard, the Hibs harp badge on his bass jerking in time with the rhythm. Jack forsaking his trademark beaters for the sticks necessary to maintain a pulverising beat. I pace over to my Orange amp and plug in the guitar I left at Tom’s Leith Walk flat the previous weekend, a Fender Strat emblazoned with LEITH BAND AGNES. This is our band’s pseudonym – our actual name is Little Big Dig. But one of our songs was released on a compilation album earlier this year, Wide Open, under that nom-de-plume. The term ‘song’ is also a stretch as it was an improvised piece recorded in one take, entitled ‘Dr. Buck Ruxton,’ its subject a 1930s serial killer, one of the first cases to be solved by forensic evidence. It was also gloriously crooned by Tom’s mother.
Also awaiting me are purple tins of Tennent’s Super lager. Flipping one open the first mouthfuls are treacherous, and it’s touch and go whether my stomach will accept this latest assault or forcibly reject it. Thankfully it’s the former, and after several slugs a pleasant numbness pervades. This sense of relaxation translates into a vigorous lead line that I instantly launch into over Kenny’s riff once I’ve sussed his root notes are Bb, E, and A. I nudge the volume higher still. I might have spent the weekend dancing ineptly to Detroit House, but Little Big Dig produce far more visceral post-rock, punk-tinged, with frequent lunges into the aural escapism of Can. Because we could only book the room from nine until 12 and it’s already after 10, we have little time for socialising. We just get on with forging these dense but arresting melodies, our current focus a gig pencilled in for The Jailhouse behind Waverley Station. To get away from work for the soundcheck I’ve already notified Veronica of an imaginary dental appointment.
The piece finds its natural conclusion, my final crashing chord fading into reverb. Tom strides over to his tape recorder, hits the ‘stop’ button. I stumble as I bend down to fiddle with my effects pedals. Easing the ‘overdrive’ down a notch, I play a few chords with a less abrasive setting. Kenny immediately launches into a lugubrious bassline with a quirky, jazzy undertone. I set off on some jagged lead improvisation, not a million miles away from something Bruce Gilbert might’ve done on Wire’s 154 album. Tom adds a plaintive keyboard refrain while Jack kicks into a shuffling rhythm using his beaters.
As Tom begins picking out a wonderful melody, he catches my eye, nods to the tape recorder. Pausing on an E minor bar-chord I pace over to the tape recorder, then press ‘play/record.’ From its dulcet overture, this next jam builds into an even more powerful, menacing piece. At one point Tom is stabbing at the keyboard while I’m plucking strings way up the fretboard, then pressing my guitar into the amp to submerge any lingering melody beneath a squall of feedback. The bass thunders relentlessly, Kenny frequently playing chords before Jack switches to sticks and begins thrashing the cymbals within an inch of their lives. At synchronised intervals, the sonic wall dips into a gorgeous key change. In my semi-drunken state, it puts me in mind of a chink of sunlight during a storm. This persists for a few bars then the music gradually gains momentum once again, clawing towards awesome new heights. Combined with the alcohol flowing through me, this feels as if we are creating an epic moment destined to take its place in the annals of rock history alongside ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ only with the hippyish self-indulgence subverted by a streetwise vibe. Like a sizeable portion of twentysomething rock musicians devoted to their art, I harbour delusions that what we are doing will eventually lead to my escape from the mundane crap that currently approximates my profession. I remain adamant any serious record producer hearing our music will see pound signs. After all the twee, plaid-shirted, jangly-guitar pop polluting the post-punk scene, like American Christian summer campfire singalongs, our epic mood-pieces will inject long overdue shades of twisted darkness.
Eventually, the track winds down until Jack concludes everything with swirling crashes on the cymbals that remind me of storm clouds receding. As he adjusts the position of his kit, his beam reflects what we are all thinking: that extended jam was, as Tom always describes theses events, ‘a happening.’ Nothing needs articulated. Each of us played an equal and integral role in creating this fantastic piece of music, a cocktail of Can, The Fall, Wire, The Residents that managed to snatch elements of those bands and then sound nothing like any of them.
Tom will take the cassette home and analyse it over the next few days, suggesting a more formalised structure for the ragged loose ends – not to jam a square into a circle by imposing a straightjacket template of verse, chorus, break, and so on on – simple to haul it back from being a one-off improvisation into something more concrete we can roughly imitate in future, at that point refining the key changes, fine-tuning the solos. Most importantly, he’ll impose his idiosyncratic lyrics. Tom’s prose is far removed from the quasi-political sloganeering that inspired my own songwriting in the days of 4 Minute Warning. They’re closer to poetry than anything I could muster. I’ve always been drawn to The Fall singer Mark E Smith’s ability to apply what seem like random snatches from a stream of consciousness to paint abstract but potent images. One that immediately springs to mind after watching The Fall’s Perverted By Language video in the small hours of this morning: “Winston Churchill had a speech imp-p-p-pediment, and look what he did, he razed half of London, and the Dutch are weeping, lusted after French paintings.” My own attempts to follow suit merely come across as second-rate impersonations of the Mancunian wordmith, so I’m content to leave the lyrics in Tom’s more than capable hands.
He shares Smith’s effortless ability to conjure mental pictures, only from an angle unique to Scotland rather than Salford. Tom’s quirky observations arrest attention rather than meandering as an unnoticed accompaniment to the music. An example from one of our earlier songs: “How’s that for a middle-shed, a carving knife, in the head?” Or my own favourite, from a sombre but magnificent piece containing the guitar solo I’m proudest of: ‘Big Fire at the Stampworks.’ Surreally, this references a custody battle involving Hitler and Mussolini, only to climax as a paean to Dudley D Watkins, genius illustrator of The Broons, celebrating how his mesmerising cartoons depict a timeless working class Scottish culture, and have the power to uplift moods and make hangovers more bearable: “Comfort me, comfort me, Dud-dud-Dudley D.”
The titles themselves are often an education. One we may well conclude the practice with tonight: ‘Paleoweltschmerz.’ I’d never heard of this before Tom sprung it on us, but it’s the theory that the reason for the dinosaur extinction wasn’t the fallout from an ancient meteor strike so devastating it disrupted the earth’s climate. It was boredom.
Tom sparks a roll-up, enough left for a couple of game draws, drops it to the floor, grinds it out. I spot a rough set-list he has been jotting down in preparation for our next gig, later this month at The Jailhouse. I intend inventing a dental emergency to enable me to escape work early for the soundcheck. The core of the set will be new songs, although I muse a couple have survived from the ill-fated Arran session under the ever-wishful heading ‘encores.’
In October 1985 we embarked on the ferry from Ardrossan, laden with overnight bags and musical equipment. Quaffing Guinness while standing at the prow, giggling as the ship ploughed through the towering swell, any notion of seasickness was countered by excitement at what lay ahead. We were en route to an isolated cottage owned by a guy Tom knew from Ayr, Malcolm. He ran a studio from that splendidly rural setting. We intended laying down eight or nine songs using his analogue equipment – Malcolm specialised in recording musicians on a large reel-to-reel tape recorder in his compact studio. We planned releasing our debut album in cassette format, and using 2-inch reel-to-reel tapes for the demos, which could then be copied to 0.15 inch cassettes, channeling the original audio signal intact, would result in a high fidelity quality recordings; not only vastly superior to making cassette-to-cassette copies, but apparently the equal of vinyl reproduction. Jack had already completed the fastiduous artwork to be replicated for the handouts to accompany each numbered cassette. Once we had the pristene, penultimate version, our backing singer, Donna, would add her harmonies, the cake’s glorious icing.
All was progressing swimmingly. After a few beers in a hotel bar in Brodrick, Malcolm appeared, squeezing us into his car to drive us to his residence. We got straight down to playing and managed to get five tracks down: excellent progress towards achieving our master copy within the limited timescale. To celebrate, we headed back to the two caravans set in a muddy field for guest accommodation, then got stuck into the carryout we bought while awaiting our lift earlier. Having asked Malcolm about Arran’s nightlife, he provided directions to the smattering of local bars. Enflamed with a combination of strong lager and cider, we trudged to the closest. A few rounds later we decided to garecrash the 21st party in full flow in the adjoining function room.
Staggering into the gloomy interior, the disco lights strafing scores of well-oiled revellers who barely noticed our entrance, a trip to the small bar went unchallenged. Our satisfaction was compounded when the house lights suddenly flickered on to reveal a long table set out for the birthday girl’s celebratory buffet. Having been existing on a meagre diet of liquid refreshments and Uncle Ben’s Rice, the four us were soon ladeling improbable piles of food onto paper plates. Weaving my way to the end of the platter, I targeted the table we’d commandeered and concentrated on transporting my booty across the dancefloor. A bearded bloke stepped before me, stocky, intimidating, wearing a Scotland rugby jersey, demanding my identity like some Eastern German border guard. I decided my gut reaction about reciprocating his rude question was inadvisable. Instead, I mumbled something about former schoolfriends of the name on the large poster I could make out behind him, replete with the customary photograph montage of 21 years encapsulated by cute toddler bunches and embarrassing teenage fashions. Morag.
After castigating my improbable share of the banquet by suggesting a trough would have been more apt, he was interupted by a friend and dragged aside. Although we proceeded to devour our free supper, continuing with numerous beers, even making it onto the dancefloor several times to become four rusty cogs in the otherwise streamlined wheels of ceilidh manouevres, his remark smarted. Whenever I caught sight of facial hair and a chunky navy-blue top I would glare, stoking my resentment with every pint.
Departing, I kissed the birthday girl goodnight with more relish than was strictly appropriate, then the four of us weaved into the darkness. Rugby guy mustered a posse in the doorway to escort us from the premises. Robbed of reason by alcohol, friction can so easily escalate into nonsensical skirmishes. I’ve seen this happen on Lothian Road on many occasions. Tonight, thankfully, raised voices faded into the wind whipping in from the Firth of Clyde.
Back in our digs, conversation turned to a snippet of information Malcolm had offered with a mischevious glint when first handing over the caravan keys: this field marked the location of an extensive 11th-century Viking burial ground. With the wind buffeting foliage and whistling through telephone lines, this ominous fact suddenly gained prominence. Although we’d decided to split into two twos for crashing out, Kenny and Jack in one caravan, Tom and myself in the other, Tom now insisted he was going to crash on the floor beside the others. My intoxication outweighing the notion of Nordic ghosts, I opted for Plan A. So I grasped a ringpull containing three cans and stomped over to the second caravan alone. The whole vehicle spinning alarmingly, I discovered one flat cushion. Lying back almost horizontally was transforming my berth into a waltzer. Recalling Malcom had stuffed pillows into his studio speakers for sound dampening, an urge came over me to grab hold of one.
The front door was unlocked in case any of us needed access to the toilet. Making my way inside, I crept into the studio, this location rocking just as badly as the caravan. I groped for a light switch, and after moments of unsuccessful pawing, continued inside, fumbling my way around the stygian depths. Gradually my eyes grew more accustomed to my surroundings. There was the nearest speaker, looming a matter of inches away. I stretched towards it, but as I did so my shins met an unseen obstruction. Instead of investigating this, I ploughed on. Thus, my legs impacted the cable leading directly to the massive reel-to-reel recorder.
The moment when this wire reached maximum tautness triggered an almighty crash. In the darkness, and my befuddled state, it felt as if I’d bumbled into a booby trap. I could only gawk at the indistinct hulk of the recording apparatus now face-down on the floor. Heaving it up, I plonked it back into an approximation of its original position, although it was now balancing on a spaghetti-like cluster of wires. But like that Laurel and Hardy scene when Stan emerges from the wreckage of the fishing boat his carelessness has just destroyed, grinning after discovering his horn intact, I secured my pillow and careened out.
In the morning, my slumber was rudely interupted when Tom poked his head inside to inform me Kenny had already left for the next ferry. Why? Because he was desperate to make it to Tannadice for Hibs away that afternoon. Why, when we still had four tracks to record? His answer was curt and knowing. Somehow Malcolm’s recorder, the one which set him back a four-figure sum, had tumbled onto the studio floor during the night, one of the delicate spindles holding the reels snapping. In terms of its ability to record demo tapes, this apparatus was now about as much use as a fucking toaster.
Our ferry journey back to the mainland took place under a denser cloud than the foreboding grey skies rolling in from Ireland. My only saving grace was that I managed to persuade Dad to drive 80 miles across central Scotland to collect us. My inadvertent sabotage of our album had scuppered what had been an attempt to make up for the earlier recording debacle, at the BBC Maida Vale studios three years previously.
At the time we were such a ‘going places’ band we had a manager, Alex. Alex had played in a group, Family Von Trapp, with Muriel Gray, co-presenter on The Tube. They were all former Glasgow Art College students we got to know when they shared our first practice room in Niddry Street. Muriel was hosting Richard Skinner’s BBC Radio 1 show while he was on holiday and had been given free rein to book a couple of up-and-coming Scottish bands. Armed with guitars, keyboards, and bulky carryout bags, we boarded the night bus to London from Waverley Bridge, convinced this marked the first leg of our journey into fame.
Our BBC engineer was to be none other than Dale Griffin, former drummer of Mott the Hoople, most famous for the glam rock anthem ‘All the Young Dudes,’ written for them by David Bowie. They previously rejected his offering of ‘Suffragette City,’ perhaps a portent of what was to come in terms of Griffin’s overbearing attitude towards us on the day. The night before, we stayed in the North London suburban residence of the actor Graham Crowden, a a regular collaborator with the film director Lyndsey Anderson, a leading light of the 1960s New Wave of British Cinema. Graham’s son, Harry, lived in Edinburgh; he was a mate and long-time fan of each of my bands. Not sleeping much as I tossed and turned in an unfamiliar spare bed, butterflies swarming inside my guts, Graham poured me a generous gin and tonic in the morning to accompany my toast and settle my nerves. En route to the studios in West Kilburn, we stopped off to purchase our staple poison: Merrydown Cider. ABV 8.2%. Litre bottles.
We were in awe of being added to Griffin’s CV, an impressive roster that included Pulp’s first professional recording session in 1981, The Smiths’ John Peel sessions, broadcast before the band had released any records – these would resurface on their ‘Hatful of Hollow’ compilation, and a session by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. (He would go on to engineer a session by Nirvana that would form part of their album Incesticide). But the demon drink, topping up from the amount consumed during the long jaunt down the M1, not only quashed any apprehension, it emboldened us to the point Griffin’s assistant, as affable as his boss was tetchy, kept explaining the rough edges and bum notes we insisted on re-recording would all get smoothed over in the final mix. Each time he assuaged us in his calming Southern tones, Griffin would shake his head and mutter under his breath.
Griffin grew increasingly agitated at the amount of cider and red wine we were ploughing through. Finally sick of us bellowing suggestions at him in our slurred Scottish brogues, the straw that broke the camel’s back was a beaker of red wine decanting over the carpet tiles, splattering the bank of equipment responsible for mixing everyone from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin, Bowie to Hendrix, not to mention every John Peel session since 1967. Heading back out of London later, we were consumed with the notion we could have performed our four songs so much better and had fucked up a golden opportunity.
The other unknown Scottish band Muriel booked for a session came from her hometown. Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. I’m sure they performed their four tracks with consumate professionalism and were impeccably behaved during the mixing. They went on to release an album, Rattlesnakes, which sold over 100,000 copies in Britain, reaching number 13 in the charts. I firmly believed the material we eventually got round to recording over on Arran would have gone towards a debut equally as notable. But we shot ourselves in the foot yet again. Or at least, I did.
When I gulp from my purple tin the what ifs are superseded by what next. Currently, the doob Jack is handing to me.
*
It is ten to one when I pad into the house, ears ringing, eyesight blurred, burping lager. As usual, Mum has left my tea in the microwave. I heat it and gorge it so voraciously I burn my tongue. When I collapse on my bed, the gruelling practice has resulted in tinnitus that now makes me think of the last sound a hapless racing pigeon would hear before being shredded by a jet engine. No matter how fatigued I feel, the noise renders sleep impossible. So I heave myself up, slink through to Dad’s drinks cabinet, select a half-pint glass and fill it with sherry. Skulking back to my bedroom, I squeeze my headphones on, plug in, select Scared to Dance, The Skids’ masterful debut album, then drop the needle onto track four, ‘Dossier (Of Fallibility).’ Like the majority of Richard Jobson’s lyrics, the subject matter seems wonderfully obtuse, but so much more complimentary to Stuart Adamson’s uniquely exploring guitar lines than shouty punk-by-numbers. With I switch off the bedroom light, the glow from the HiFi’s display synchronizes perfectly with the eerie, minor pentatonic scales, while my swimming vision adds to the hypnotic effect.
Next thing I know the tumbler is on its side in a dark stain. The album is clicking against the stylus and the headphone cable is wrapped alarmingly around my neck. Sparrows are chirping in the back green. My body is leaden with fatigue. The thought of cereal turns my stomach.
I lift the glass, drain the remaining sips. Just before I collapse on my bed for what I accept will be less than 75 minutes of sleep, I notice a note on the bedside cabinet. In Mum’s fastidious writing it announces: 11.45. Tom phoned. ‘Masterpiece lost forever. You left the pause button on. Idiot!’
The piece finds its natural conclusion, my final crashing chord fading into reverb. Tom strides over to his tape recorder, hits the ‘stop’ button. I stumble as I bend down to fiddle with my effects pedals. Easing the ‘overdrive’ down a notch, I play a few chords with a less abrasive setting. Kenny immediately launches into a lugubrious bassline with a quirky, jazzy undertone. I set off on some jagged lead improvisation, not a million miles away from something Bruce Gilbert might’ve done on Wire’s 154 album. Tom adds a plaintive keyboard refrain while Jack kicks into a shuffling rhythm using his beaters.
As Tom begins picking out a wonderful melody, he catches my eye, nods to the tape recorder. Pausing on an E minor bar-chord I pace over to the tape recorder, then press ‘play/record.’ From its dulcet overture, this next jam builds into an even more powerful, menacing piece. At one point Tom is stabbing at the keyboard while I’m plucking strings way up the fretboard, then pressing my guitar into the amp to submerge any lingering melody beneath a squall of feedback. The bass thunders relentlessly, Kenny frequently playing chords before Jack switches to sticks and begins thrashing the cymbals within an inch of their lives. At synchronised intervals, the sonic wall dips into a gorgeous key change. In my semi-drunken state, it puts me in mind of a chink of sunlight during a storm. This persists for a few bars then the music gradually gains momentum once again, clawing towards awesome new heights. Combined with the alcohol flowing through me, this feels as if we are creating an epic moment destined to take its place in the annals of rock history alongside ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ only with the hippyish self-indulgence subverted by a streetwise vibe. Like a sizeable portion of twentysomething rock musicians devoted to their art, I harbour delusions that what we are doing will eventually lead to my escape from the mundane crap that currently approximates my profession. I remain adamant any serious record producer hearing our music will see pound signs. After all the twee, plaid-shirted, jangly-guitar pop polluting the post-punk scene, like American Christian summer campfire singalongs, our epic mood-pieces will inject long overdue shades of twisted darkness.
Eventually, the track winds down until Jack concludes everything with swirling crashes on the cymbals that remind me of storm clouds receding. As he adjusts the position of his kit, his beam reflects what we are all thinking: that extended jam was, as Tom always describes theses events, ‘a happening.’ Nothing needs articulated. Each of us played an equal and integral role in creating this fantastic piece of music, a cocktail of Can, The Fall, Wire, The Residents that managed to snatch elements of those bands and then sound nothing like any of them.
Tom will take the cassette home and analyse it over the next few days, suggesting a more formalised structure for the ragged loose ends – not to jam a square into a circle by imposing a straightjacket template of verse, chorus, break, and so on on – simple to haul it back from being a one-off improvisation into something more concrete we can roughly imitate in future, at that point refining the key changes, fine-tuning the solos. Most importantly, he’ll impose his idiosyncratic lyrics. Tom’s prose is far removed from the quasi-political sloganeering that inspired my own songwriting in the days of 4 Minute Warning. They’re closer to poetry than anything I could muster. I’ve always been drawn to The Fall singer Mark E Smith’s ability to apply what seem like random snatches from a stream of consciousness to paint abstract but potent images. One that immediately springs to mind after watching The Fall’s Perverted By Language video in the small hours of this morning: “Winston Churchill had a speech imp-p-p-pediment, and look what he did, he razed half of London, and the Dutch are weeping, lusted after French paintings.” My own attempts to follow suit merely come across as second-rate impersonations of the Mancunian wordmith, so I’m content to leave the lyrics in Tom’s more than capable hands.
He shares Smith’s effortless ability to conjure mental pictures, only from an angle unique to Scotland rather than Salford. Tom’s quirky observations arrest attention rather than meandering as an unnoticed accompaniment to the music. An example from one of our earlier songs: “How’s that for a middle-shed, a carving knife, in the head?” Or my own favourite, from a sombre but magnificent piece containing the guitar solo I’m proudest of: ‘Big Fire at the Stampworks.’ Surreally, this references a custody battle involving Hitler and Mussolini, only to climax as a paean to Dudley D Watkins, genius illustrator of The Broons, celebrating how his mesmerising cartoons depict a timeless working class Scottish culture, and have the power to uplift moods and make hangovers more bearable: “Comfort me, comfort me, Dud-dud-Dudley D.”
The titles themselves are often an education. One we may well conclude the practice with tonight: ‘Paleoweltschmerz.’ I’d never heard of this before Tom sprung it on us, but it’s the theory that the reason for the dinosaur extinction wasn’t the fallout from an ancient meteor strike so devastating it disrupted the earth’s climate. It was boredom.
Tom sparks a roll-up, enough left for a couple of game draws, drops it to the floor, grinds it out. I spot a rough set-list he has been jotting down in preparation for our next gig, later this month at The Jailhouse. I intend inventing a dental emergency to enable me to escape work early for the soundcheck. The core of the set will be new songs, although I muse a couple have survived from the ill-fated Arran session under the ever-wishful heading ‘encores.’
In October 1985 we embarked on the ferry from Ardrossan, laden with overnight bags and musical equipment. Quaffing Guinness while standing at the prow, giggling as the ship ploughed through the towering swell, any notion of seasickness was countered by excitement at what lay ahead. We were en route to an isolated cottage owned by a guy Tom knew from Ayr, Malcolm. He ran a studio from that splendidly rural setting. We intended laying down eight or nine songs using his analogue equipment – Malcolm specialised in recording musicians on a large reel-to-reel tape recorder in his compact studio. We planned releasing our debut album in cassette format, and using 2-inch reel-to-reel tapes for the demos, which could then be copied to 0.15 inch cassettes, channeling the original audio signal intact, would result in a high fidelity quality recordings; not only vastly superior to making cassette-to-cassette copies, but apparently the equal of vinyl reproduction. Jack had already completed the fastiduous artwork to be replicated for the handouts to accompany each numbered cassette. Once we had the pristene, penultimate version, our backing singer, Donna, would add her harmonies, the cake’s glorious icing.
All was progressing swimmingly. After a few beers in a hotel bar in Brodrick, Malcolm appeared, squeezing us into his car to drive us to his residence. We got straight down to playing and managed to get five tracks down: excellent progress towards achieving our master copy within the limited timescale. To celebrate, we headed back to the two caravans set in a muddy field for guest accommodation, then got stuck into the carryout we bought while awaiting our lift earlier. Having asked Malcolm about Arran’s nightlife, he provided directions to the smattering of local bars. Enflamed with a combination of strong lager and cider, we trudged to the closest. A few rounds later we decided to garecrash the 21st party in full flow in the adjoining function room.
Staggering into the gloomy interior, the disco lights strafing scores of well-oiled revellers who barely noticed our entrance, a trip to the small bar went unchallenged. Our satisfaction was compounded when the house lights suddenly flickered on to reveal a long table set out for the birthday girl’s celebratory buffet. Having been existing on a meagre diet of liquid refreshments and Uncle Ben’s Rice, the four us were soon ladeling improbable piles of food onto paper plates. Weaving my way to the end of the platter, I targeted the table we’d commandeered and concentrated on transporting my booty across the dancefloor. A bearded bloke stepped before me, stocky, intimidating, wearing a Scotland rugby jersey, demanding my identity like some Eastern German border guard. I decided my gut reaction about reciprocating his rude question was inadvisable. Instead, I mumbled something about former schoolfriends of the name on the large poster I could make out behind him, replete with the customary photograph montage of 21 years encapsulated by cute toddler bunches and embarrassing teenage fashions. Morag.
After castigating my improbable share of the banquet by suggesting a trough would have been more apt, he was interupted by a friend and dragged aside. Although we proceeded to devour our free supper, continuing with numerous beers, even making it onto the dancefloor several times to become four rusty cogs in the otherwise streamlined wheels of ceilidh manouevres, his remark smarted. Whenever I caught sight of facial hair and a chunky navy-blue top I would glare, stoking my resentment with every pint.
Departing, I kissed the birthday girl goodnight with more relish than was strictly appropriate, then the four of us weaved into the darkness. Rugby guy mustered a posse in the doorway to escort us from the premises. Robbed of reason by alcohol, friction can so easily escalate into nonsensical skirmishes. I’ve seen this happen on Lothian Road on many occasions. Tonight, thankfully, raised voices faded into the wind whipping in from the Firth of Clyde.
Back in our digs, conversation turned to a snippet of information Malcolm had offered with a mischevious glint when first handing over the caravan keys: this field marked the location of an extensive 11th-century Viking burial ground. With the wind buffeting foliage and whistling through telephone lines, this ominous fact suddenly gained prominence. Although we’d decided to split into two twos for crashing out, Kenny and Jack in one caravan, Tom and myself in the other, Tom now insisted he was going to crash on the floor beside the others. My intoxication outweighing the notion of Nordic ghosts, I opted for Plan A. So I grasped a ringpull containing three cans and stomped over to the second caravan alone. The whole vehicle spinning alarmingly, I discovered one flat cushion. Lying back almost horizontally was transforming my berth into a waltzer. Recalling Malcom had stuffed pillows into his studio speakers for sound dampening, an urge came over me to grab hold of one.
The front door was unlocked in case any of us needed access to the toilet. Making my way inside, I crept into the studio, this location rocking just as badly as the caravan. I groped for a light switch, and after moments of unsuccessful pawing, continued inside, fumbling my way around the stygian depths. Gradually my eyes grew more accustomed to my surroundings. There was the nearest speaker, looming a matter of inches away. I stretched towards it, but as I did so my shins met an unseen obstruction. Instead of investigating this, I ploughed on. Thus, my legs impacted the cable leading directly to the massive reel-to-reel recorder.
The moment when this wire reached maximum tautness triggered an almighty crash. In the darkness, and my befuddled state, it felt as if I’d bumbled into a booby trap. I could only gawk at the indistinct hulk of the recording apparatus now face-down on the floor. Heaving it up, I plonked it back into an approximation of its original position, although it was now balancing on a spaghetti-like cluster of wires. But like that Laurel and Hardy scene when Stan emerges from the wreckage of the fishing boat his carelessness has just destroyed, grinning after discovering his horn intact, I secured my pillow and careened out.
In the morning, my slumber was rudely interupted when Tom poked his head inside to inform me Kenny had already left for the next ferry. Why? Because he was desperate to make it to Tannadice for Hibs away that afternoon. Why, when we still had four tracks to record? His answer was curt and knowing. Somehow Malcolm’s recorder, the one which set him back a four-figure sum, had tumbled onto the studio floor during the night, one of the delicate spindles holding the reels snapping. In terms of its ability to record demo tapes, this apparatus was now about as much use as a fucking toaster.
Our ferry journey back to the mainland took place under a denser cloud than the foreboding grey skies rolling in from Ireland. My only saving grace was that I managed to persuade Dad to drive 80 miles across central Scotland to collect us. My inadvertent sabotage of our album had scuppered what had been an attempt to make up for the earlier recording debacle, at the BBC Maida Vale studios three years previously.
At the time we were such a ‘going places’ band we had a manager, Alex. Alex had played in a group, Family Von Trapp, with Muriel Gray, co-presenter on The Tube. They were all former Glasgow Art College students we got to know when they shared our first practice room in Niddry Street. Muriel was hosting Richard Skinner’s BBC Radio 1 show while he was on holiday and had been given free rein to book a couple of up-and-coming Scottish bands. Armed with guitars, keyboards, and bulky carryout bags, we boarded the night bus to London from Waverley Bridge, convinced this marked the first leg of our journey into fame.
Our BBC engineer was to be none other than Dale Griffin, former drummer of Mott the Hoople, most famous for the glam rock anthem ‘All the Young Dudes,’ written for them by David Bowie. They previously rejected his offering of ‘Suffragette City,’ perhaps a portent of what was to come in terms of Griffin’s overbearing attitude towards us on the day. The night before, we stayed in the North London suburban residence of the actor Graham Crowden, a a regular collaborator with the film director Lyndsey Anderson, a leading light of the 1960s New Wave of British Cinema. Graham’s son, Harry, lived in Edinburgh; he was a mate and long-time fan of each of my bands. Not sleeping much as I tossed and turned in an unfamiliar spare bed, butterflies swarming inside my guts, Graham poured me a generous gin and tonic in the morning to accompany my toast and settle my nerves. En route to the studios in West Kilburn, we stopped off to purchase our staple poison: Merrydown Cider. ABV 8.2%. Litre bottles.
We were in awe of being added to Griffin’s CV, an impressive roster that included Pulp’s first professional recording session in 1981, The Smiths’ John Peel sessions, broadcast before the band had released any records – these would resurface on their ‘Hatful of Hollow’ compilation, and a session by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. (He would go on to engineer a session by Nirvana that would form part of their album Incesticide). But the demon drink, topping up from the amount consumed during the long jaunt down the M1, not only quashed any apprehension, it emboldened us to the point Griffin’s assistant, as affable as his boss was tetchy, kept explaining the rough edges and bum notes we insisted on re-recording would all get smoothed over in the final mix. Each time he assuaged us in his calming Southern tones, Griffin would shake his head and mutter under his breath.
Griffin grew increasingly agitated at the amount of cider and red wine we were ploughing through. Finally sick of us bellowing suggestions at him in our slurred Scottish brogues, the straw that broke the camel’s back was a beaker of red wine decanting over the carpet tiles, splattering the bank of equipment responsible for mixing everyone from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin, Bowie to Hendrix, not to mention every John Peel session since 1967. Heading back out of London later, we were consumed with the notion we could have performed our four songs so much better and had fucked up a golden opportunity.
The other unknown Scottish band Muriel booked for a session came from her hometown. Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. I’m sure they performed their four tracks with consumate professionalism and were impeccably behaved during the mixing. They went on to release an album, Rattlesnakes, which sold over 100,000 copies in Britain, reaching number 13 in the charts. I firmly believed the material we eventually got round to recording over on Arran would have gone towards a debut equally as notable. But we shot ourselves in the foot yet again. Or at least, I did.
When I gulp from my purple tin the what ifs are superseded by what next. Currently, the doob Jack is handing to me.
*
It is ten to one when I pad into the house, ears ringing, eyesight blurred, burping lager. As usual, Mum has left my tea in the microwave. I heat it and gorge it so voraciously I burn my tongue. When I collapse on my bed, the gruelling practice has resulted in tinnitus that now makes me think of the last sound a hapless racing pigeon would hear before being shredded by a jet engine. No matter how fatigued I feel, the noise renders sleep impossible. So I heave myself up, slink through to Dad’s drinks cabinet, select a half-pint glass and fill it with sherry. Skulking back to my bedroom, I squeeze my headphones on, plug in, select Scared to Dance, The Skids’ masterful debut album, then drop the needle onto track four, ‘Dossier (Of Fallibility).’ Like the majority of Richard Jobson’s lyrics, the subject matter seems wonderfully obtuse, but so much more complimentary to Stuart Adamson’s uniquely exploring guitar lines than shouty punk-by-numbers. With I switch off the bedroom light, the glow from the HiFi’s display synchronizes perfectly with the eerie, minor pentatonic scales, while my swimming vision adds to the hypnotic effect.
Next thing I know the tumbler is on its side in a dark stain. The album is clicking against the stylus and the headphone cable is wrapped alarmingly around my neck. Sparrows are chirping in the back green. My body is leaden with fatigue. The thought of cereal turns my stomach.
I lift the glass, drain the remaining sips. Just before I collapse on my bed for what I accept will be less than 75 minutes of sleep, I notice a note on the bedside cabinet. In Mum’s fastidious writing it announces: 11.45. Tom phoned. ‘Masterpiece lost forever. You left the pause button on. Idiot!’
