The Sound of (Not-So) Young Scotland

Amazingly, my solo CD, "The Pseudobulbar Effect" has sold out of all physical copies, so here's my latest cultural blog about what I've listened to and read over the last couple of months -:

MUSIC:

I should have reviewed the double album soundtrack that accompanied David Keenan’s magisterial account of outsider music, “Volcanic Tongue,” last time around, but for ages I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it, as I feared it would contain the sort of industrial power electronics that made Nurse with Wound sound like The Dooleys. Guess what? It doesn’t and it is as brilliant as it obscure. Containing 20 “Tips of the Tongue,” which were the pick of the crop contained in each weekly email from the titular record shop, this is an eclectic compilation album celebrating a whole raft of contemporary DIY music from around the world, often released in tiny runs on homemade CD-Rs or cassette, and also sought to shine a light on forgotten artists from the past, who had often released their music as a ‘private press’ LP. This collection has been put together from releases that run the gamut from outsider synth burbles to psych-folk to damaged rock’n’roll, with tracks recorded between 1968 and 2013, making it a celebration of a vibrant and wilfully esoteric underground avant-garde that lives up to the description of it as being “A Time​-​Travelling Evangelist​’​s Guide to Late 20th Century Underground music.” If you know, you know and if you haven’t got it, you really should.

On a totally different track, the doyen of football journalists Brian Glanville died in May, and his obituary told me his son, Mark Glanville, an Oxford educated former Millwall boot boy, was an opera singer, whose stand out project, with the pianist Alexander Knapp, “A Yiddish Winterreise” is described as “A Holocaust Survivor’s Inner Journey Told Through Yiddish Song.” Before anyone gets on their high horse and calls me a Zionist apologist or sympathiser, educate yourselves as to the stance of Orthodox Jews towards the behaviour of the state of Israel. This is not a defence of the indefensible; it is a slow, solemn paean to the victims of pogroms and holocaust since the middle ages. It’s very heavy going, with no pause for breath, though the English text reveals lyrics that sometimes celebrate love, marriage and the beauty of nature. I don’t know how many times I’ll listen to it, but I’m certainly glad I have it in my possession. Similarly, Isolated Community’s latest set of field recordings “Movement in the Half Light” is an intense and impressive collection of found sounds from the wilds of the Northumbrian countryside. Rachael and Richard Dunn have put together another aurally challenging and visually stunning package that transcends simple electronica and ambient noise, to make a loving tribute to the eerie beauty that lies on our doorstep. Give or take 40 miles anyway.

Back to Glasgow (do I have anywhere as much music from any other city? I sincerely doubt it, though New York may come close) and Lavinia Blackwall’s fantastic sophomore solo release, “The Making,” has been well worth the half decade wait since her debut, “Muggington Lane End.” A sprightly, life affirming collection of self-penned Baroque Folky semi-psychedelic anthems, it shows her to be in fine form and backed, as ever, by the cream of Glasgow’s folk pop intelligentsia; husband Marco Rea and Stilton alumni Jim McGoldrick and Seb Johnsen. A rich tapestry of folk, rock, and psych-power pop, the album showcases Blackwall’s unparalleled vocal prowess and evocative songwriting, further cementing her reputation as one of the most distinctive around. The cover is beautifully nostalgic as well.

The supremely talented Jill Lorean released a split 7”, “The Book,” with S. Antigone, of whom I know nothing, other than her track “Sweethearthood (An Ode to Laurie Bird)” is a sumptuous slice of dream pop, not too far away from several C86 acts we could, but won’t, mention. AI tells me S Antigone “likely refers to the musical project or band featuring Simone on guitar/vocals and Georgia on clarinet. They are described as playing together for the first time, with their music characterized by the interaction and sometimes jarring contrast between the two instruments. Simone's vocals range from muttered musings to "evil song" yelling.” Fair enough! Meanwhile, Jill has delivered another blistering, high octane pop punk number that adds to her ever growing canon of brilliant work. This band should be massive. I can say the same about Dragged Up, whose CD single “Blake’s Tape” *and the superb accompanying “Clachan Dubh”) is a menacing beast of a song, showing how ferocious they can be. Live, I’ve seen this band and know how powerful they can be, so it is great to have a physical release that showcases them when they’re off the leash. Love it.

Digging through the bargain bins the other week, I found a copy of Beverley Martyn’s 2014 solo album “The Phoenix and The Turtle.” It’s more acoustic blues than folk, but worth getting for her solo take on the original version of “When The Levee Breaks.” There’s a few other interesting cuts on there as well and certainly represents a quid well spent.

As well as collecting recorded music, I’ve also ventured out to a few gigs of late. Chronologically, the first one was Ramleh at The Lubber Fiend, which was back on May 31^st. They were supported by Louse, who were a little too fast and growly for my tastes, but the audience seemed to love them. The singer looked like PC Hipsta gone to seed and when he took his t-shirt off revealed a set of capacious man boobs. Half the members of Louse were also in the other support, The Shits, who are truly one of the worst ordeals I’ve ever been put through. A dull Ruts tribute act with a gormless singer who spent half the set spitting at the audience. Truly terrible, but at least Ramleh were good. Without the US-based Phillip Best, they have morphed into a kind of psychedelic, slow motion hypnotic Dinosaur Jr style outfit, with nods to Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead and Swervedriver. This is what I came to hear, and I didn’t mind missing the last bus home after the gig ran late. 

There’s no chance of missing the last bus after a Shunyata Improvisation Group gig; not when it starts at the Cullercoats Watch House at 7pm anyway. On the second Sunday in June, I was free to walk through my beloved Tynemouth for the first time in 3 years. A good shift in the gym, a quick visit to TCC to see how the Academy were getting on and then a stroll up and down Front Street, then along the sea path to Cullercoats. Oh how I’ve missed the place. I’m sad I can’t go back there permanently, but you make choices in life. Sometimes they are for the better and sometimes they just don’t work out. I don’t regret leaving when and why I did for one moment, but I am glad I can return without repercussions. I even overcame my fear of solo dining, having a splendid curry in Bilash. The mixed kebab was an excellent starter, but the superb Lamb Bhuna was even better. Thanks to Dan Storey for the recommendation.

And so to the Watch House. Last time I’d seen Shunyata here, the wind from the sea was so strong you’d have thought an orchestra of comb and tissue players were outside, such are the decrepit window frames. This time, it was still and only the inane burbling of a pair of entitled middle class bores passing by was of minor irritation. Instead, we could focus on the joyous work of the latest, three-piece iteration of SIG. They are as beguiling as ever, but the addition of vocals by Katie Oswell, like a kind of Buddhist Diamanda Galas meets the whistles and bird song of Percy Edwards, makes it an even more profound experience to immerse yourself in. John Garner has been so busy with his Shakuhachi studies of late that it was a joy to hear him on the violin for so much of tonight. A wonderful, reflective event that had a shamefully low attendance of about 15 souls, but it makes me long for their next performance on September 7 at The Healing Café. The menu looks promising as well.

I’m starting to become a little depressed by the pitiful turnout at some independent gigs. My pal Richyy organised an early evening double header at The Little Buildings the other week. Despite the number of people who claimed on Facebook that they were interested, or even going, the attendance was a paltry dozen or so, for two excellent female singer songwriters. First up was California native but York resident Isadora Darling who has a soulful voice that could charm the birds from the trees. A set of self-penned ballads of love and loss that were perhaps a little too Jools Holland for my tastes, but the woman has talent, and can she sing? Wow! Watch out for her name and see how many people pretend they came to see her once she goes global. More to my taste was So-Anne-So, a zany French chanteuse who was almost a Gallic female Ivor Cutler. Weird and whacky narratives delivered on her Casio keyboard, with Bontempi flourishes, that included a delicious, madcap version of “Ever Fallen in Love.” She is brilliant. I’m seeing her again whenever I can and will buy all her product, once there is some. A true one-off. Thanks to Richyy for putting this on and no thanks to those of you who couldn’t be bothered to show your faces.

I know Andy Wood of TQ has been suffering the same problems with the gigs he puts on at The Globe, which is why I was relieved there was a decent turn out for my mate and one-time musical collaborator Chris Bartholomew the other week. Bartholomew, as he styles himself, has just released his new album, “Subterranea,” a wonderful, expansive collection of electronic composition with additional trumpet and vocals that is even better than his last universally praised release, “Moorbound.” Supported by Lauren Sarah Hayes, who was like a cross between Laurie Anderson and a crashing computer game, but in a good way, Bartholomew live did the album justice. Augmented by peripatetic cello player Mark Carroll and the angelic vocals of Peony’s Will Rees, for 35 minutes we were transported with Chris on a musical journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth. I can’t recommend “Subterranea” highly enough.

Finally, we’ll end this section where we started it and seem to have spent most of the piece, Glasgow. For the first time in 11 years, since Ben’s 19^th birthday in point of fact, the wondrous sound of The Pastels rolled into town. Two years ago I saw The Vaselines and Jon Langford play a Sunday matinee in The Cumberland that was the hottest gig I’d ever been to. This one was of an equally high temperature, but with added humidity, making it probably the steamiest event I’ve ever been to, and I couldn’t watch the support act as the place was so airless I felt faint. However, we returned for The Pastels and they were fucking brilliant. Quite a lot from “Sow Summits,” which is still contemporary in their eyes I suppose, a brooding, motorik-powered “Baby Honey” and a triumphant set closer of “Different Drum” made this a memorable family day out with the bairn and the ex-wife. Stephen, as ever, was charm personified, so I even popped into Monorail when up in Glasgow last Wednesday to say another thank you, which he graciously accepted. I just wish I’d got my copy of “Suck On,” recently obtained from GW Lang, autographed. And what a compilation that is; two versions of “Baby Honey” no less. Honestly, I only buy good records these days, even if they were released 40 years ago.

 BOOKS:

Without question, the book I’ve enjoyed most since I last culturally blogged is Michael Keenaghan’s latest collection of violent slices of probably true crime in North and East London, “Cocaine Eyes.” Bent coppers, petty thieves, drug dealers, drug users and all manner of life tales of those on the seamiest fringes of the greatest cosmopolitan city in the world, just trying to get by whatever it takes, or they have to take from someone else. The brilliance of Keenaghan’s writing is that he makes every single one of his characters, their stories and the world they live in 100% credible. Each of these pieces could be a film and it always amazes me that none of Michael’s books have yet been optioned for a cinema project. He is undoubtedly the poet laureate of North London and the finest English realistic crime writer on earth. He deserves to be a millionaire.

Probably the toughest book I’ve read since last time, not in terms of complexity of plot of vocabulary but just the sheer difficulty of getting into it, was the recently deceased Dag Solstad’s “Professor Andersen’s Night.” It’s like a Norwegian version of “La Chute” by Camus in many ways, though written in the third person. A reserved, divorced, prosperous middle aged professor of literature, the titular Andersen, is about to have a Christmas Eve meal by himself in his large apartment in the fashionable part of Oslo. Looking out of his window, he sees a man strangle a woman to death in the flat opposite. Instead of calling the Police, Andersen looks on dumbfounded and, inert and introspective, spends the rest of the novel questioning his own moral cowardice in not confronting the situation head on. While in a perpetual fug of moral quandry, he lives his life as normal. He goes to friends’ houses for Festive dinners, flies to Trondheim for a brief skiing holiday at a colleague’s house, then somehow encounters the murderer in a Sushi Bar on New Year’s Eve. At every point he wants to call the Police to report the crime but never does. The murderer goes away to the Far East on business, the Professor returns to work for the next semester, and the victim is unnamed and apparently unreported, so consequently unmourned. A sad and irritating book that is completely out of place with these times but caused much debate when published in the late 70s.

In contrast to the two months it took me to wade through “Professor Andersen’s Night,” I read my Father’s Day present from Ben, “To Hell With Poverty” by Jon King, on the day itself. I was sad not to be able to catch Gang of Four on their farewell tour but devoured King’s account of the rise and demise of the archetypal Leeds-based Rough Trade post-punk agitprop outfit. In minute detail, it tells of their friendship from schooldays, devotion to cricket (Paul Downton was a classmate!), love of music, revolutionary politics and the world they inhabited. Sad to say, but in every band there is one member the rest hate; the fact this was the late Andy Gill should be of no surprise to anyone who followed the band from the brilliance of “Entertainment” in 1979 to the rancid rubbish that was the Gill-dominated “Hard,” before the band initially disintegrated in 1983. On the way, bassist Dave Allen disappears after a drug-induced breakdown and faithful drummer Hugo Burnham is sacked by Gill who reckoned using programmed percussion was the way forward. King is as honest as he is exhaustive in his explanation of events and one can only imagine another volume is forthcoming, telling of the various reformations and reincarnations, with and without original members, leading up to the final incarnation after Gill’s death from COVID, who have just thrown in the towel. The Gang of Four are one of the most important groups in my life and this book does justice to their wonderful legacy. Until 1984 that is.

I bought “Professor Andersen’s Night” after reading Dag Solstad’s obituary in The Guardian. On the same basis, I got hold of “The Man with the Chocolate Egg” by John Noone after reading his obituary in the same paper. Noone was once a highly promising fiction writer, with this his debut novel picking up the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967, who turned away from literary fiction after his second book failed to sell. I have to say, I may well hunt down his other novel, “The Night of Accomplishment,” as the brief, terse, nerve shredding story of a deranged military deserter who kills himself by detonating a hand grenade on a London bus, when such an event seemed a preposterous invention, is a compelling read. I thoroughly enjoyed Noone’s ability to create a world of crazed illogical thinking that seems perfectly rational from the perspective of the main character. I’m delighted to have come across John Noone, though sad that his death was the reason I did so. RIP.

I managed to finally get rid of “Professor Andersen’s Night” by swapping it for John Braine’s “Stay With Me Till Moring” at the Jesmond Vale book swap point. Braine, one of the original angry young men in the mid-50s, with “Room At The Top,” had become one of the complacent middle aged men like contemporaries Amos and Osborne by the time this book was published. This novel is the story of an upper middle-class pair of nouveau riche Tories in the posh bit of North Yorkshire getting bored with the conventions of bourgeois society and jumping into bed with a pair of completely unsuitable bits on the side. The married couple reconcile while the lovers are discarded without a second thought. It’s titillation for those who admired Cecil Parkinson and Jonathan Aitken’s personal lives. I didn’t enjoy it much.

Irvine Welsh has only written one truly terrible book, “The Sex Lives of the Siamese Twins,” though “The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs” isn’t great either. His latest, “Men in Love” isn’t as bad as either of those two, but it is a country mile away from being one of his best. Picking up on the usual Leith Crew after Renton’s betrayal at the end of “Trainspotting,” getting the voices of Sick Boy, Spud, Begbie and Renton back in your head is as comfy as popping your feet into a pair of old slippers that have been warming on the hearth. Relaxing and reassuring but, because we know how life pans out for them from “Porno,” “Dead Man’s Trousers” and several other of Welsh’s books, there’s no sense of tension or a real narrative force to the book. Instead, it reads like a load of well-written vignettes, some of them truly laugh-out-loud episodes, that reinforces the facts that Begbie is a psycho, Sick Boy a bad bastard, Spud an affable loser and Renton a tortured underachiever. Other than that, there’s no real point to this collection of unlucky in love tales. However, I did enjoy catching up with some old mates I guess.

I’d seen huge amounts of praise on-line for Café Royal Books, who specialise in amateur photographers, with a strong focus on social history and reportage. As a result, I got myself a copy of “Punk Rock, New Wave; Newcastle and Middlesbrough, 1977/1978” by Brian Gibson. I have to say I was a little underwhelmed, not by the photographs, which are a fascinating documentary of exactly what the title says it is about, even if I wasn’t at any of the gigs and only recognise a handful of those featured, and even then by sight and not name. It’s the fact it’s only an A5 fanzine, printed on bog standard paper, rather than a glossy, coffee table memento of a long gone era. Sadly, there’s no contextualising introduction or commentary, so it’s basically Brian Gibson’s photo album of what he did 47 years ago. This could have been so much better and that is a comment directed to the publishers, not the artist.

Some Caley Talking

I've been on my travels again, to East Kilbride v Inverness Caledonian Thistle -:

All you, I or anyone else knows about East Kilbride is that it is the home town of James and William Reid. Back in 1984 and probably until after the release of “Sidewalking” in 1988, I would have crawled over broken glass to visit the spiritual home of the Jesus and Mary Chain, to see where they came from and draw in the vibes. Then, other than a cover version of Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song” that I’d have played at my funeral, they went all to shit after they got decent amps and almost learned how to play guitar, and I forgot all about them. Of course, the reformation tour to play “Psychocandy” was a highlight of my life, especially dragging a semi-comatose Ben out of his student pit to see them at Leeds O2, but even the offer of a freebie for a freezing cold Sunday night at The Boiler Shop couldn’t move me from my fireside last December. However, watch the video for “Never Understand” or the OGWT performance of “In A Hole” and you’ll know just why they meant so much to so many of us, for such a brief period of time about 40 years ago.

To be honest, East Kilbride only entered my consciousness again after their football team navigated the labyrinth of the Scottish non-league pyramid by firstly winning the Lowland League, for the second year in a row, overcoming the Highland League winners, this time Brora Rangers (now that would have been some trip) for the second year in a row in a two-legged play-off and, having lost to Stranraer in 2024, overcame the 42^nd club (les lanternes rouge de la Ligue écossaise de football professionnel) Bonnyrigg Rose, home of a slope so profound they had points deducted because of it and consequently came last, in yet another two-legged play-off to join the storied ranks of SPFL D2. It meant I needed another trip away.

Having consulted the fixtures, it became clear that while I could easily do East Kilbride on a Saturday day trip, the lack of midweek opportunities to get to Peterhead or Stranraer in the League Cup group stages in July, meant a Tuesday night stopover to see Kilby, as they are affectionately known, was the best plan. Ironically, a week after seeing ICT stroll past Elgin City 2-0, I was again able to see them, as well as their support of four and twenty virgins come down from Inverness. There was also the rumour on-line that the home side ran out to “Just Like Honey,” but that sadly wasn’t the case. Strangely, there was no music played before the game, at half time or at the end. I mean as the Reid brothers never had a good word to say about their upbringing, I’m not surprised.

Unlike every other trip I’ve made to Scotland in 2025, the journey up went like clockwork. Up after a lie-in, to the station in plenty of time and three trains (changing at Waverley and Glasgow Central, after a trip on the scenic Shotts line) all doing their jobs correctly, not to mention a 3 minute walk from East Kilbride station to my hotel, in the EK Conservation area, The Village, on the evocatively named Main Street, meant I was booked in by 5. Good digs as well. Complimentary Tunnocks wafers are always a bonus. Even the shower’s temperature control worked. I headed off down past the usual array of Victorian sandstone shops now transformed into takeaways, tanning salons and Vape emporia, to walk down the side of a couple of very busy A Roads in the direction of Calderglen Country Park, where the evocatively named Ross Financial Services K Park Stadium is located. After you’ve left the concrete and traffic behind on the 40-minute ramble, it’s a really pleasant stroll down a bucolic lane that reminded me of the route into Jesmond Dene from Matthew Bank, other than the presence of a passing coachload of pustular Teuchters singing about how Inverness are “the greatest team the world has even seen.”

East Kilbride Cricket Club were having a net opposite the football, but I didn’t join them or inspect the adjacent rugby field, choosing instead to enter the ground for a remarkably nice filter coffee and a disappointingly beige Scotch pie. I bought a programme, which I couldn’t read as I had my lenses in, then took a seat in the functional, numberless 3 row stand of hard plastic benches down one side of the pitch, which seemed to be at least half full of malodorous, badly attired English groundhoppers. This is why we didn’t hear a peep from the home stand all night I suppose. Instead, the only other populated part of the ground, a covered open terrace, played hosted to the away fans who kept up their singing all game long, despite going a goal down after 15 minutes, when a back post corner was touched home by that old warhorse Trialist. How many clubs has he had in the last 50 years eh? It could have been 2-0 seconds later, when a loose back pass from kick off was seized on by a Kilby forward, whose audacious lob came back off the inside of the post. We had a real game on here.

The ground may have been dull, and not particularly loveable, but this was one of the best games I’ve seen in an age. The home keeper Morrison made about 4 blinding saves but was powerless to stop a great equaliser on 25 minutes when McKay stooped to head home a perfect cross. The game swung from end to end but stayed level until half time. Goodness knows what was said in the changers, but Inverness scored 5 in 15 minutes after the break, so I really did get to see Super Caley Go Ballistic, even if Kilby Weren’t Atrocious. 48 minutes, 1-2, as Allan slid home from a tight angle. 51 minutes, 1-3, with the goal of the game. Longstaff (no, not him. Or his brother) swept home a glorious curling first time finish from the right edge of the box. 54 minutes, 1-4 when McLeod toe poked it between the keeper’s legs from close range. 57 minutes, 1-5 as Longstaff again (ibid) beat the keeper to a hopeful punt forward and teased a sky high chip in off the back post. 61 minutes, 1-6 when Stewart fired a free kick past a statuesque home defence. It could have been worse but for Morrison making an athletic double save to tip a stinging volley just over the bar. After this, an orgy of substitutions took the sting out of the game and only a few were left on the home benches to make a desultory cheer when Robertson’s late free kick nestled in the bottom corner. 8 goals; not bad for an over 60s £10 entry.

At full time, I waved off the four and twenty virgins going back to Inverness, walked down the side of some quieter main roads, negotiated several large roundabouts, passed on the pizzas, kebabs and curry on offer and settled down with a complimentary lemon and ginger infusion to watch the extra time of England v Italy, then slept soundly in the incredibly comfortable bed. Next morning, another warm shower, a disappointing breakfast and a slightly delayed Glasgow to Carlisle train that I’ll be properly compensated for. I got off at Manors not Central and it must be the ropiest station on the whole network, hit the gym, watched Percy Main eviscerate Heaton Stan A and got home to begin planning those visits to Peterhead and Stranraer, as well as a revisit to Queen’s Park at Lesser Hampden.

 

 

 

Inane Prattling

My visit to insolent Inverness versus Elgin City...

I’ve got to say from the get-go that Inverness is a beautiful city, one that was a pleasure to visit for the reason of ticking off my 38^th current Scotch league ground. However, the legendary late 70s teenage punkers The Prats, who were actually from Edinburgh, were completely correct when they said of the place, “scenery is quite good. All the people they are rude,” as I’ve not come across such surly attitudes by staff in the hospitality sector since I was last in Slovakia. From the ten minutes it took me to catch the attention of the bloke on reception at my (very comfortable) guest house before I could check in, to the selective blindness and gruff insolence of the staff at each of the four pubs I visited, bar the last one and he was from Birmingham, I was subject to a haughty contempt that I probably deserved, just for being me.

Anyway, my first groundhopping adventure of 2025/2026 wouldn’t be complete without an element of farce courtesy of LNER, who still haven’t refunded me for the disaster that was my trip to Dingwall at the end of last season. “A faulty level crossing at Morpeth” meant my train arrived in Waverley the usual 20 minutes late, meaning I missed my 11.40 connection to Perth and subsequently Inverness and had to hang around, in the First Class lounge with a complimentary coffee and muffin for company, until the 1.30 service departed. It meant I arrived in Inverness at 5 and not half 3 as intended. No matter, it wasn’t the breathless race to the ground that Ross County v Livingston had been. On the plus side, I amazingly found my guest house without any hassle, suggesting my map reading is getting better. Well, it couldn’t get worse I suppose. After 10 minutes of invisibility at the entrance, I had an attempt at a freezing / scalding shower then, slightly refreshed, walked in the direction of the ground, though not in the nude in case you were wondering. Unlike the historic city centre, the Caledonian Stadium is a flat pack new build, reached by way of several industrial estates that border the River Ness and is snug beside the A82 on its way north to Wick and other such isolated places. It took me about 40 minutes to get there, keeping the water on my right at all times, so as to avoid getting lost. Surprisingly, there weren’t any midges around.

Other than The Prats, Inverness is probably only mentioned memorably in song as part of “The Ball of Kirriemuir,” so brilliantly updated by Aidan Moffat a few years ago. The four and twenty virgins in that song may well have been deflowered at the social event so memorably commemorated by that ballad, but I’d suggest it would be good for the similar number of teenage ultras and snare drums that make up the Inverness Casual Force, behind whom I was sat, if they get a chance to play Kirriemuir Thistle in the cup this year, with a post-match swally in the local Women’s Institute… You hear what I’m saying?

Being serious, Caledonian Stadium is not one you could fall in love with. Situated on the not so bonny banks of Loch Ness,  it only has 3 sides, two of which are identikit flat pack stands, with one shut and the other a third full of about 200 hardy zealots from Elgin. I was in the main stand, which was comfortable enough, sold moderate Steak pies and warm Pepsi Max for an exorbitant price and looks like a scale model of Chelsea’s East Stand, with a menacing cantilever structure overhanging most of the pitch. The crowd was 1,296, including holidaying Americans and Germans, out for a bit of local culture and colour and the vast majority were more than happy with the 2-0 win for the home side, that could have been 6 or 7, were it not for profligate finishing and desperate defending, though Elgin hit the post with a long range screamer and missed a simple 1 on 1 late on. The two goals came just after the half hour from McKay and Longstaff (no, not that one and no, not his brother either). The first was an astute tap-in after a goalmouth scramble and the second a well timed effort after an impressive move down the left. Inverness are no great shakes (their centre backs were terrible), but Elgin looked more than a division below the hosts.

Come full time, the ICF packed up their flags, put their sweetie wrappers in the bin and filed out in an orderly fashion. I caught a single decker football special back to the City Centre, having already completed 15k steps in the day, then drank Tennents in a few pubs. One of whom had a bladdered folk singer on, who kept forgetting the words to “All Along the Watchtower,” to the extent that 2 riders were approaching for 3 verses in a row. Come the witching hour, I drank up and soon fell soundly asleep in my single bed after watching a BBC News Special about those clowns whose chainsaws left a sizeable Sycamore Gap.

Next morning, I had breakfast at Tescos, courtesy of a couple of pretzels and a big bottle of water, then caught the train at Inverness’s incredibly chaotic station and snoozed to Waverley, changed, got the 75% empty LNER to Newcastle, ran slap bang into former MP Ian Mearns at Monument, then got the bus home, arriving the same time as if I’d been to work. Next week, it’s Inverness again, only this time they’re away to newcomers East Kilbride. Once the cricket season is over and Percy Main’s autumn schedule is confirmed, we’ll cast our minds towards Stranraer, Peterhead and Queen’s Park again, now they are at Little Hampden. The fun never stops round here, I’m telling you.

Freak Zine

TQ75b landed on my doormat this week. It includes an incredibly generous review of Scratch & Reflect Ensemble's performance at Dunston Staithes, as well as this article I wrote about my experiences of fanzine culture over the past 35 or so years...

I think I first heard the term fanzine in early summer 1977. To be accurate, I actually read the word in Sounds, which was my weekly of choice back then, rather than it coming out of someone’s mouth. No doubt it was used in relation to some DIY publication that had sprung from the burgeoning punk scene, where samizdat periodicals such as the epochal Sniffin’ Glue acted as the printed lantern bearers for this allegedly revolutionary musical movement. Of course, in retrospect, almost all of the bands who released music this side of the Atlantic in the cultural stunde null, characterised by safety pins and spitting, apart from the still vibrant Wire and admirable Buzzcocks, were bombastic tub-thumping pub rock pretenders like The Damned and The Clash who (Mick Jones’s contributions apart), I have always given a wide berth to. The less said about, for instance, The Cortinas, Chelsea, The Cockney Rejects, The Models and a thousand similar lame Oi! Oi! Oi! macho meatheads the better, despite Sounds (in particular the demotic Garry Bushell) venerating them.

While John Peel remained the sole source for radio exposure off all kinds of new music, regardless of validity, seeing scholarly written debate about bands I was unfamiliar with, was possible by browsing the stock of either in Virgin Records, which had recently opened in Eldon Square, or Listen Ear on Ridley Place (it became Volume in 1981), both of which had racks of dog-eared independent inkies you could read the covers off and nobody much minded that you didn’t buy them. In fact, living off pocket money and a paper lad’s wages, they were simply unaffordable if you wanted to buy records as well. Digesting the likes of the prohibitively expensive Creem, Rolling Stone, Trouser Press and Village Voice, exposed me to incredibly articulate pieces, not only about punk and afterwards but much good stuff that had gone before, by such journalistic Gods as Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau. Hence, I became aware that musical criticism diverged markedly between writers in the US and the UK. Admittedly Zig Zag was a thoughtful read, but most of the A5 English fanzines featured amateur doctoring of photos of the likes of Mary Whitehouse, Elizabeth Windsor, Hughie Green and Des O’Connor, with safety pins superimposed through their heads, alongside gig reviews based on how much cider the correspondent had imbibed and crass exhortations to buy Sham 69 or Lurkers 7” singles. This era left me cold.

Of far more interest to me was the music and the attendant cultural scene that began to appear from 1978 onwards, involving the likes of Gang of Four, The Mekons, The Raincoats, Delta 5, The Au Pairs, Clock DVA, Scritti Politti, This Heat, Cabaret Voltaire and a dozen other acts who took, as I discovered, their inspiration more from Can, Neu and Kraftwerk than Kursaal Flyers or Ducks Deluxe. These acts also had an ideological basis to their practice, often based on Marxism, Situationism and Dadaism, rather than scattergun nihilism or boorish hedonism. As you can imagine, this was right up my street, and these sounds still float my boat to this day. I changed from Sounds to NME, which I stuck with until I turned 30, and voraciously consumed dozens of indie magazines, mentioned in the small ads section in the back pages of NME. In a sense, buying words and music in this fashion was like drinking Real Ale; among the glorious successes, there were some fairly unpalatable disasters, but at least when you bought small press publications, you were sticking it to the man and staying away from the mainstream.

I first contributed gig and record reviews to various, long-forgotten fanzines in late 1979 and continued to do so until I got to university in 1983, when my horizons broadened, deadlines tightened, and briefs lengthened as the chance to write columns about politics, sport and books in a more nuanced publication were offered to me. I’m not name-dropping, but my first editor at Leeds Student was Jay Rayner, current Guardian and Observer food hack and son of Clare, the infamous agony aunt. He gave me free rein to explore complex, indeed arcane ideological concepts in live reviews of the likes of The Fall, Misty in Roots and Don Cherry.  

After graduation and back on Tyneside, I continued writing about music and books for regional monthly magazines such as Paint It Red, Boiling Point and The Crack, until the late 90s when printed publications stopped being a regular feature on the Tyneside scene, after the internet and the subsequent ubiquity of social media urinated on William Caxton’s grave, in becoming the accepted mode of spreading (mis)information. Admittedly, the latter publication is still going, though I’ve not read it in years, nor have I sought to contribute to it or narc.

However, from the late 80s until the present day, I found a whole new zine scene that took my standard of writing and volume of contributions, to a whole new level. It was only tangentially related to music in the sense that probably the first football fanzine in Britain was the general Scottish one, The Absolute Game (named after a Skids song), while south of the border, and still producing a monthly issue to this day, When Saturday Comes, its title taken from a track by The Undertones, sought to cover not just English football, but the whole global game. Like music zines, these were irreverent, independent, authentic voices, from the terraces rather than the mosh pit admittedly, but dogmatic, independent and uncompromising in their honesty. I bought the debut issue of Newcastle United’s The Mag on the way to an opening day 2-2 draw with Spurs in August 1988 then, inspired by both concept and content, wrote for every issue from 2-178 until it closed down a decade ago. Similarly, when travelling to away games, I hunted down opposition fanzines and later contributed articles to most of them about my experiences of away travel or players who had moved between clubs. I must have written for nigh on 100 different periodicals; some still exist, others only produced a couple of issues. I even edited my own Newcastle United fanzine, The Popular Side, for 15 issues. We were resolutely old school; A5, no adverts, no colour, no website, no merchandise and only £1 an issue, with anyone welcome to contribute. I loved doing it but selling it outside a freezing pub on a January evening in a gale isn’t the best way to prepare for a game. That, and having to write half the copy myself, was a reason to wind it down. Energy can only get you so far. What any editor needs is a good, strong stock of reliable supporting players.

I still write for a couple of fanzines (View from the Allotment End for North Ferriby and Mudhutter for Wigan Athletic), but the internet has largely destroyed the football fanzine movement. Indeed, many club don’t even publish a programme. Percy Main Amateurs do and I’m the editor. Like the Windmill Theatre, we will never close. I’ve written a book about the club; Village Voice. Anyone who fancies a free copy, just drop me a line.

While I’ve always regretted the fact that fanzines never caught on with my real sporting love, cricket, my other style of writing, namely short fiction and poetry, has been well catered for over the years by the litzine movement. I’ve got a magazine called Iconlatre, published in West Hartlepool back in 1965 or thereabouts, which includes a couple of Charles Bukowski poems. Now what are the chances of that? You may remember a few years ago that TQ came with a free literary zine, glove, which I edited. Sadly, after 10 issues I wound the publication down as I was struggling for a high enough quality of contribution and anywhere to sell it, other than online. From my experience, both football and free verse independent publications have only a short shelf life, unless you are part of an enthusiastic cohort producing the magazine. It isn’t all gloom though; publications such as Spinners and Tangled Lines, both from Kent, and Falkirk’s Razur Cuts act as conduits for modern, experimental writing in the genres of both prose and poetry. I am delighted to regularly feature in all 3.

So, what about TQ? Being candid, I love this magazine, and the arrival of each new issue makes my heart swell with joy when it lands on the doormat. The simple truth is this: other than The Wire, TQ is the only publication catering for those of us who wish to familiarise ourselves with the experimental, non-commercial and often improvised, underground music scene. Whether this consists of the pastoral, found sounds, ambient electronica, drone, grinding feedback or disturbing power electronics, a combination of all of these genres and sub-genres or none of them, matters little. What unites us all is purity of expression, honest of purpose and artistic integrity, whether in sound, word, artwork or deeds. Unlike The Wire, which is scholarly to the point of academe and informative verging on the encyclopaedic, TQ is resolutely amateur, totally enthusiastic, highly supportive of all artists, and always ready to embrace the new. New writers. New sounds. New venues. All of these are welcome in TQ.

I believe I’ve known Andy for about 4 years now and every conversation I’d had with him has taught me something fresh and vibrant, allowing me to come away an improved human being. His publication does that as well. TQ is the living embodiment of the fanzine ideal; 60s idealism meets 70s radicalism with contemporary enthusiasm for the experimental. Long may it continue.

Anyone who is interested swapping zines or anecdotes, get in touch via iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk