26/07/2024
With thoughts of long-gone AWer James Blaast, I notice Chrysalis Records are releasing remastered albums The Cutter & The Clan and Once In A Lifetime (Live) as a 2CD set, or just the studio LP as a Barry Grint half-speed master.
I first heard Once In A Lifetime in my first week at university, the first I had heard of Runrig.
Years ago, I worked with the now head of Chrysalis back catalogue on a Furniture CD. And their recent reissues from the Specials, Selecter, Sinead O’Connor, Blue Aeroplanes, etc have been magnificent.
The more I think it through, R*nr*g were either ahead the game, or entirely responsible for the current plethora of Scottish bands, from Manran, Skerryvore, Tidelines to The Chair and Gnoss, bands with one foot in trad and the other in Springsteeny guitar rock. (Wolfstone and Capercaillie are probably responsible for all the rest.)
“‘Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. ‘”
I always think of The Average White Band as the Scottish band. They formed in 1972, a year before this one.
SAHB same year.
I think of SAHB specifically as a Glasgow band, hard as nails – and a full decade or so before the light jazz stylings of Deacon Blue, Hue & Cry and the rest…
Along with fearing Mogwai, Blast had a superstition about people saying the name of The Scottish Band out loud, in the same way that theatrical people cannot bear anyone saying the name of The Scottish Play, especially backstage in a theatre.
Hence, to save his sensitive feelings, we referred to them as The Scottish Band.
Mr. Blast.
Also used to insist that a certain band be referred to as ‘The Yes’.
There were some actual Ts made to commemorate his passing. I have one somewhere.
A Blaast from the past indeed Mr Fenton. God bless him.
I was in Edinburgh from 1984 to 1993. Being English, and not wanting to be lumped, I accepted traditional and local culture without question, and was soon drinking pints of “heavy”, eating pan loaves, having salt and sauce on my smoked sausage supper, and having the boak/ feeling peely-wally. But I had to draw a line at Runrig, a kind of Scots Nationalist “Status Quo” with added self-righteousness and a not insignificant anti-English vibe when playing live. Many Scots have told me that this was not racism or prejudice. I have yet to be convinced of that argument, and still see nationalism as no excuse for being rude about other people, or damning them all. There are other words that describe that kind of behaviour. The RunRig lead singer is very right-on, and it might have been their fans rather than the band, but it was this sort of thing that did for Sham 69, and I never warmed to the Scottish band or their enthusiasts. The mullets didn’t help, either.
“eating pan loaves”
Very much Edinburgh, if I may say so: in Glasgow we prefer plain bread, not pan – and well-fired morning rolls! And “smoked” sausage – what’s wrong with a regular battered sausage, with salt and vinegar?
Edinburgh – cuh!
At what point in Scottish history did someone take a bread roll and think “well this is nice, but what if we burnt it to absolute f**k?” – and lo the well fired roll was born…..
I never got the “well- fired rolls with a potato scone and brown sauce” thing, though see it may be good for vegetarians, and for double-carbing a hangover away. Give me square sausage any day.
The only food I’ve seen my BIL – a younger Big Yin look-and-sound-alike, despite living in France since the age of two – not finish is the deep-fried Scotch egg. He took one huge mouthful, and turned a funny colour.
“Their lead singer” means, I guess, Donnie Munro, their later incumbent being a Canadian from Nova Scotia, who, coincidentally, is now dead. Munro ended the first run of the band, by leaving to pursue a career in politics. He sought to become a Labour candidate in the then safe seat of `Western Isles. He came second and so that was that. Ironically, Pete Wishart, who played keyboards alongside him, left as he became what now has been the longest currently-serving Scottish National Party MP, and the second longest–serving of all time after Alex Salmond.
Your jibe around them being a Scottish Status Quo is a little odd. How so? And, if the audiences they had, in Scotland, at that time seemed a little agin the English, that says maybe more about how Westminster had been and still is dealing with the country that lent England their King when they didn’t have one handy. Shock horror, little love for England at a gig by a band that played decisively Caledonian and Gaelic based music.
Expecting Scottish, Welsh and NornIron-ish musicians/sportspersons/etc. not to take the occasional knock at England and it’s complacent exceptionalism is a bit ridiculous and could be interpreted as that exceptionalism in action.
“How dare you knock us. We are Enger-land!”
“Scottish Status Quo” is a gag – as when Gryphon were described as “a medieval Slade”. Though I did think The Scottish Band were rather forced, and not a patch on SAHB or Beggar’s Opera, or later, Love and Money, or Mogwai. Back then, as a leftie out of London anarcho squat and co-op culture, I did not recognise the stereotypes of England, or appreciate being thought pro Thatcher by someone who defined me by my accent or birthplace. As said, that sounds like prejudice to me. Never a pretty sight.
Whose prejudice?
I saw the ‘Rig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in about 1989 and they didn’t demand freedom from England then, they just happily took the ten quid each ticket money and played us some tunes.
Plus there were 1,600 of us and only six of them.
All mouth, no tartan trews, as I suspected.
The Once In A Lifetime live album is coming out on half-speed mastered vinyl in the new year.
Actual Scottish person here!
Runrig are shite. Always have been, always will be. I always suspected that the fact that they are Gaelic speakers is what kept them going; there’s always been a scam in Scotland that Gaelic culture deserves support from the authorities and because they did that with electric guitars, they had the double whammy of being “Gaelic” but “modern” and therefore, “worthy of cash.”
But sadly the “shite” part overwhelmed the other two.
As another “actual Scottish person”, I can only agree with this assessment.
I think that’s a bit unfair. I’m Scottish and I don’t like them either, but do think they deserve some credit for becoming successful starting from the Highlands and I think they did that by touring and touring rather than obtaining a grant from the Highlands and Islands council. They were going a long time before they got into the charts and were never fashionable.
Maybe…but they’re still shite, for a’ that…
To be fair, I never said they weren’t shite.
I’m a quarter Scottish, and Mrs F is a half. I rather like the live album Once In A Lifetime, but it was the first thing of theirs I’d heard, and I saw them live around the time.
The studio albums all seem rather anaemic by comparison, until they – honestly – went a bit indie-dance on Mara. But that was nearly 30 years ago, and everything I’ve heard since has been fairly shite.
I can remember a certain pressure to “like” Scottish bands if you were a Scot. It was worse in Glasgow in the 1980s – I was an outcast in my own town cos I didn’t like Deacon Blue, Hue and Cry, et al…the fact that I was a huge SAHB fan didn’t seem to count for much in that decade.
I remember that time too. I was listening to The Sisters of Mercy at the time, who – although they were certainly very peely-wally – didn’t really qualify.
I remember that Q ran a “10 Earnest Scottish Bands in Vests” in the Q Charts section that rounded them all up: Deacon Blue, Runrig, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, the Big Dish etc. It was a very earnest time.
“10 Earnest Scottish Bands in Vests” – excellent!
As if to emphasise how wrong I am, I recently bought a Deacon Blue record. An early, so better, one.
My uni housemate’s older brother had it, and I’ve had a tape of his record for the last 36 years.
Well, I like ‘em. Some of that may be a longing, derived from being a 2nd gen teuchter living in exile. Many in the central belt have traditionally looked down on their highland and island forbears, which may explain the opinions offered by m’learned friends. Or they are possibly Irish settlers.
Can’t speak for anyone else, of course – but I think Runrig are shite, and I’m quarter Islay and quarter Ayrshire…and also living in exile…
Having said that, I think there might be something in your “teuchter in exile” theory. I’m sure some far-flung Scottish settlers would like the idea of Runrig better than the reality (ochone, ochone…)🙂
@fitterstoke :Pursuing that theory, where to you stand on Niteworks, Mànran, Dàimh, Eabhal and the like? Or even homegrown Glasgow Gaels, Dlù?
Having knowingly heard precisely none of these bands, I don’t stand anywhere on them – I certainly wouldn’t “look down on” them.
But then again, it’s your theory – so where do you stand on them? Do you have an idealised, Romantic view of them, as a “2nd gen teuchter living in exile”?
Probably. I’m a fiend for most stuff in Gaelic with bagpipes, even down the more orthodox end of the spectrum. Heck, I’m the sort of sad git who scours I-player for music programmes on BBC Alba. And watches them. (And, even allowing for my stance, they don’t half feature some old shite amongst the diamonds. That weather woman turned singer, Joy Dunlop. Ghastly.)
I thought Joy Dunlop was a Mòd medallist…
That’s true, but she reads the weather too. Shrill and twee singer.
In the same way as Carol Kirkwood is a weather woman more than a best selling author.
I don’t know – if it’s not prog bands, it’s weather women…what next, eh, readers?
I’m 100% teuchter, although east coast rather than west coast, which may come into it.
@hawkfall : that makes you a Viking, surely?
I actually looked into my family tree by downloading PDFs of birth, death and marriage certificates from the very good Scotland’s People web site. You can get back to the 18th century fairly easily. 17th century possible, but more difficult, as it’s mostly church marriage records.
Anyhow, let’s just say I don’t think I need to send off my saliva for DNA mapping. I reckon it would just come back with one big circle around Inverness. Also, the same surnames kept coming up so frequently I started counting my fingers and toes.
Inverness scarcely counts as East Coast, other than geographically and such minor detail. Capital of the Highlands. East Coast to me is all the nutters around Peterheid.
Until this summer, the only bits of the East coast I’d been to were North Berwick, Stonehaven, Aberdeen, Nairn and Inverness.
Despite what many of the NC500 guides say, the bit from ‘Ness to John O’Groats is lovely. On a sunny day it reminded me of the Almalfi coast. Edwyn Collins settled in his family stead of Helmsdale, I can see why.
I meant that my family tree was mostly around Inverness. I’m from Caithness.
You’ll know what “getting off at Georgemas” means, then?
Yup, although I usually stayed on to Thurso. And then sometimes on to Wick. I was younger then, mind.
I’ve been a fan since 1988 when Chris Purdie and his sister introduced me to them.
I in turn introduced my Dad to them.
My collection is just about complete, to the point I did a review of the farewell gig some time ago for this very place.
We saw them live, too. More than once- Portsmouth Guildhall, Albert Hall amongst others. And not a bad night among them. They weren’t really a band to have drift-ins who would stand at the bar and be wankers talking through the set. Everyone who was there was there for the band, and liked them, which made for a really good night out. There was also none of the arch-wankery of “yeah IO enjoyed the first twp albums but they never really kicked on from that”.
Earnest they may have been. Bordering on naff, indeed. But I never walked out of a concert thinking they were just going through the motions.