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HOWFF TAE HIP HOP David Irving. April 2013. David Irving asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Acts 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication, in part or in whole may be made without written permission, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Acknowledgements: Much of the detail within this text was checked against information contained on the Internet and in numerous periodicals and books on the period. My thanks go to all the people who created those sources. Where I have been able, I have obtained their permission and they are acknowledged at the end. Where I haven’t been able to trace them, my apologies for any inadvertent breaches of copyright which may have occurred. 1 For The Hipple People without whom ......... 2 CONTENTS Foreword 1: Shortbread and Tartan (1950-1959) 2: The First Paradiddley Dum Dum Era (1960-1966) 3: Incredible Psychedelia (1967-1969) 4: Tartan Trews and Braces (1970-1975) 5: Flying Saucers Over Arthur’s Seat (1976-1978) 6: Punk’s Still Not Dead (1979-1981) 7: Splashing In The Dolfinarium (1982-1986) 8: Some Of The Greatest Pop Never Heard (1987-1995) 9: Pioneering The Hauntological Approach (1996-2001) 10: Sending Out The S.O.S. (2002- 2011) Afterthought Acknowledgements Appendix : The Musicians and The Music 3 FOREWORD As Dee Robot of The Valves memorably pointed out, there ain’t no surf in Portobello, which is why, after we had exhausted the delights of Fun City, the Tower Amusements and Arcari’s ice-cream emporium, I and my mates Neil and Donny were at a loose end. The only option left was to go along to the youth club and that was where my life changed and this work came from. Playing in Portobello youth club that June night in 1963 was a motley collection of school boys from Broughton who called themselves The Hipple People. They were the first group that I ever saw playing live and I was hooked. I started following The Hipples around from venue to venue: The Abano, The Top Storey, McGoos. As they grew up, I grew with them. That night, in many ways, shaped my future life. Not only did I start following the Hipples from club to club, I fell in love with the music. Over the subsequent decades I became involved with bands, I worked in clubs, I D.J.d, I reviewed records for magazines, I produced CD’s and ran a label, I collected a formidable amount of recordings in all formats and, above all, I listened and am listening still. In July 2011 Ian Nicol, the Hipple’s drummer, died and it dawned on me that a substantial part of my history was disappearing, mostly unrecorded. I decided to do something about that, hence this book. Let’s make it clear from the beginning: I don’t consider the Edinburgh scene to be unique, nor do I think that it has made a huge contribution to world music. What I do believe, however, is that there has been a succession of excellent bands and musicians who have emerged from the city and a wealth of great music which does not deserve to be forgotten. It has often struck me that when you go looking for the story of contemporary music there is a pecking order: American artists tend to get more coverage than British ones. English groups get more coverage than Scottish ones. Glasgow bands get more coverage than Edinburgh ones. This present volume is by way of a small attempt to correct the last of those issues. Nor is there a distinctive Edinburgh sound. There is a distinct Scottish sound which keeps resurfacing from decade to decade. It is not easy to pin down, but you know it when you hear it. There isn’t a similarly ineffable Edinburgh sound. What there is is a definite Embra accent, usually suppressed, but which pops up from time to time, often with surprising results. I’ve subtitled this work a subjective history of the Edinburgh music scene. Of course, that immediately raises the question of what do I mean by a subjective history of the Edinburgh music scene. Well, for a start, I’m not going to cover Edinburgh music in its totality. Despite many a pleasant night spent in the Usher Hall with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, if I was to get into the classical area it would widen things out too much. Similarly, much as I enjoy jazz I’ve never been directly involved in the Edinburgh jazz scene and couldn’t do justice to it or the delights of the Queen’s Hall. What I am focussing on here is Rock, Pop, Folk, Glam, Punk, New Wave, Electronica, Hip Hop, and those downright weird individuals you couldn’t quite categorise, but who kept the clubs and pubs buzzing. 4 Secondly, when I’m talking about a history there has to be a start and a finish date. I’ve chosen the 50 years between 1960 and 2010, with a wee bit of a backward glance to the 50s, and a gentle drift over the first half of 2011. That is principally because I have lived through those years and have heard all the bands and musicians I am writing about. Thirdly it requires an answer to the question of what constitutes Edinburgh in all this? Bluntly, I’ve decided that, as someone who was born and bred in the City, I am entitled to take the stance that an Edinburgh connection, in this context, means whatever I want it to mean. Sometimes Edinburgh extends as far as Penicuik and Prestonpans, at other times it doesn’t. To give a few further examples: The Waldman Brothers both came from London, but their influence on music in Edinburgh was profound, so they are in. Eastborn, though a son of the City and a powerful figure on the hip hop scene has operated almost exclusively out of Glasgow, so he is out. Sheilagh Hynde is fae Fife, but The Rezillos are definitely from Edinburgh. Big John Duncan and Shirley Manson are from Edinburgh, but Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie were not. By no stretch of the imagination could Pentangle be described as an Edinburgh group, but Bert Jansch was undoubtedly the most important single musician to emerge from the Edinburgh scene. The two are inextricably linked so Pentangle are in. I’d better explain why a ‘subjective’ history as well. All of us have our prejudices, the things we like and dislike, the things we agree with and the things we don’t. Music is particularly prone to prejudice. My own son-in-law, for example, listens exclusively to heavy metal and finds it hard to accept anything else. While my own tastes are a bit wider, if I had a choice I would rather settle down with a bit of electronica or ambient music than Rihanna or Lady Gaga. I hold the belief that your early exposure to music shapes the way you listen to things in the future. In the early 60s a guy called Lenny Toshack and I sweated together on the dance floors of the Top Storey and McGoos, being educated by the resident DJs in the delights of R&B and Soul first hand. Those were the days when R&B meant Rhythm and Blues, and Soul was what it said on the label. Nowadays I spend my time bemoaning the fact that R&B currently means something quite different while Lenny runs vintage Soul nights at the Spider’s Web in Morrison Street. In other words, that early exposure to Soul and R&B led to the development of my musical taste and consequently a subjective approach to what now calls itself R&B. It irritates me when people describe the output of the likes of Chris Brown and Beyoncé as Rhythm and Blues. So, it would be stupid of me to give the impression that I like all the music I am going to talk about here. Even that statement is not straightforward. Take Oi Polloi. I’ve never particularly enjoyed their music and it would be hypocritical of me to claim that I did. However, I believe strongly in what Deek Allen does and have a constant fascination with the way he expresses that through the music his band produces. It would also be hypocritical of me to suppress my beliefs. I firmly believe that the most damaging influence on the music scene, whether in Edinburgh or anywhere else, has been the music business itself. There are countless examples of its toxic influence in the following pages. As Hunter S. Thomson once said, the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.1 I also have a frustration with the endless need of the music media to ‘discover’ new genres. Bands are shoehorned into boxes with silly names and become lumbered with unnecessary baggage which frequently ends up distorting their output. We all know these labels. I’ve even used one already myself (heavy metal). They are there because they make it easier for journalists and critics to write about things and they are not restricted to music. The history of contemporary art is littered with them.

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