Skip to main content

Scars - The List

When twinkly electronic pranksters Lemon Jelly played Edinburgh's Usher
Hall a couple of years ago to promote their just released '64-95'
album, some younger members of the audience might have been puzzled
towards the end of the set by the appearance of a trio of guitar, bass
and drum wielding gentlemen of a certain age who played the more
abrasive parts of album standout, '79 aka The Shouty Track.' Said parts
were in fact sampled from 'Horrorshow', the debut single by Edinburgh's
missing in action post-punk fabulists, Scars, and the gentlemen on
stage replicating it live were three quarters of the original band.

Released on Bob Last's Fast Product label, original home of the Human
League, the Mekons and Gang of Four, 'Horrorshow' and its B-side
'Adult/`Ery' was the perfect introduction to a band who combined brash,
chimingly melodramatic guitars to the poetic swagger of singer Robert
King's lyrical and vocal style. Scars subsequent 1981 album, 'Author!
Author!' should have seen them cross over to major label greatness
following front page music press acclaim, two John Peel sessions and an
appearance on BBC 2's music for grown-ups TV show, 'The Old Grey
Whistle Test'. As it turned out, however, that was the last sighting of
all four Scars together for almost thirty years. Until now, that is, as
one of the great missing links of post-punk join forces for a one-off
festive headline show to show the hordes of latter-day guitar bands how
it's done.

"I was sixteen", guitarist Paul McKie, aka Paul Research remembers of
the band he formed in 1977, "and all the bands in Edinburgh then seemed
quite American influenced. We were determined to do something that was
consciously different from that."

Long hailed as an inspiration by fellow travellers Davy Henderson and
Paul Haig, of Fire Engines and Josef K respectively, with 'Author!
Author!' finally released on CD two years ago and with a session
already lined up for 6 Music's Marc Riley show, the return of Scars to
acknowledge veteran record emporium Avalanche's move to the Grassmarket
looks very much like vindication.

"I aways thought we were under-rated," McKie admits, "and I still don't
hear anybody now sounding like us. But it still feels like payback.
It's not like we're going round high-fiving each other, but we're
quietly satisfied."

Scars, TV 21 and Malcolm Ross play The Picture House, Edinburgh,
December 29th

the List, December 2010

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL