Five stars
As the historicisation of Scotland’s pop back pages runs on apace, Blair Young and Carla J. Easton’s study of the women too often written out of that history is a vital and necessary labour of love. From the 1960s pop adventures of Edinburgh sisters The McKinleys, Since Yesterday talks to post punk sheroes across the decades before pointing the way to the future in a mix of history lesson, personal essay and manifesto.
Drawing from her own experience as driving force of Teen Canteen, Easton’s narration unearths a hidden history of sisters doing it for themselves in a misogynistic music industry. Post punk auteurs such as The Ettes, Sophisticated Boom Boom, Sunset Gun and The Twinsets tell their stories, paving the way for 1990s home grown mould-breakers such as Hello Skinny, Lung Leg, Pink Kross and Sally Skull, with the likes of The Hedrons picking up the baton. And lets not forget Strawberry Switchblade’s bona fide pop stardom, as the only Scottish girl band to make the top 30, whatever TV chef Delia Smith might have thought.
Grassroots DIY culture is much to the fore, from Pat Crook’s Vesuvius record label to latter day collectives such as AMPLIFI, Hen Hoose and PopGirlz Scotland in a vital call to arms for riot grrrls everywhere.
The List, August 2024
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