That was the motto now - we need a cover for the book - and Gordon Gurvan has taken Hilary's drawings and the other covers to make wine out of water - take a bow and thank you!
I like the tartan as we touched many colourful strands of music, the alternative music scene could be loud as well as quiet, it was just dependent on who the drummer was, lead guitarist, singer etc, but more often who had control of the mixing desk.
Many venues with a good mixing desk allowed some novice friend of the band to do the mixing. I remember a lot of soundchecks where I tried unwittingly to encourage the pal on the desk to turn down the mike'd up drums and bass or you'd never hear the vocals.....more likely I'd never get an interview!
Need to add in all the dots for Goldrush in Perth and that hotel out on the road north, as well as Inverness and the famous ice rink gig and interview after the Echo & the Bunnymen gig in #16. St Andrews, Lesmahagow, Anstruther, Galashiels and all those other fantastic musical outsposts we celebrated. I went to a lot of interesting watering holes watching bands and a small selection of the venues we were lucky enough to see these bands in will never be complete without top billing to the Tayside Bar in Dundee although for me, La Sorbonne and Night Moves were my NB.
Whether it was a three line review of a tape or a full blown front cover picture and interview with legends like Malcolm Ross in #23, we spoke to a plenty of people and listened to brilliant bands and wrote ridiculously badly and frequently incoherently, incorrectly or just wrong.
We never censored, we could'nae spell it, so the odd bad review of a gig or whatever, or in my case slagging off the production on Knife, sorry Roddy, or even suggesing Madonna was an "accomplished Ballet Dancer and singer from New York", sorry Scotland, we know the truth will never get in the way of a good story, or even a bad one, and time heals everything, so its time to open those old wounds!
I'm wondering why I cant get "I'll be the happiest citizen of all" out of my Happy Family head....
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