New book brings together stories from the music scene in Glasgow and Scotland 1983-1995

A new book brings together over 100 first person interviews with the musicians, record labels, venues, promoters and journalists central to the landscape across this 12 year period of change.

Grant McPhee is a filmmaker and music writer from Scotland. His feature length documentary Big Gold Dream was adapted into book form as Hungry Beat with co-writer Douglas MacIntyre. His documentary Teenage Superstars about the Glasgow independent music scene between 1982 and 1992, focusing on the bands that emerged from in and around the city at this point  He has now turned his attention to a remarkable overview of music in Scotland, with first hand accounts of the rise of many of the most prolific bands from the 80s and 80s, including Cocteau Twins, The Soup Dragons, Shop Assistants, The Vaselines, Teenage Fanclub, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Orchids, The Trashcan Sinatras, Jesse Garon, Finitribe and Primal Scream, as well as labels including Creation Records, 53rd & 3rd Records and Narodnik Records.

The book was launched with events at Stereo, Glasgow and the Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh with Q&As with Katy Lironi from The Fizzbombs, Duglas T. Stewart of BMX Bandits, Andrew Tully of Rote Kapelle / Jesse Garon, Margarita Vazquez Ponte and Shop Assistants’ David Keegan.

There was also time for new music with live performance Greenock band The Cords, whose debut single Bo’s New Haircut/Rather Not Stay features Carla J Easton on keys and was recorded with Simon Liddell (Frightened Rabbit, Poster Paints) and Jonny Scott (CHVRCHES).

Postcards from Scotland is the story of the radicals, misfits and experimentalists who helped make independent music in Scotland what it is today. You can order your copy here.

Grant sets the scene for the book: “Scotland, 1983. The key musicians of the country’s first wave of post-punk had either split up or taken the big gold road south to major label success in London. Scotland was left with an independent void, but the seeds sown in Fast Product and Postcard Records would grow into a new era of rebellion, and punk was reborn in the shape of a new style of independent music. And independent music in Scotland now meant no compromise.”

Grant explains: “While music is central to this book, its heart is a demonstration of the power of altruism, collective action and a celebration of the outsider.  The independent Scottish music scene of the 1980s and 1990s has wonderfully inspiring stories of genuine radicals fighting to offer like-minded misfits an opportunity at musical self expression, often with hugely successful results.”