Marcel Duchamp once said: "Everybody hates it nowadays but forty years from now everyone will love it." Or something like that. I think. Anyway, this could be said for a good few of the bands that came about back in the dark ages.* Particularly for some outfits like Josef K, Fire Engines, Scars, The Vaselines, Shop Assistants, who appear to be more famous now than they ever were in their -shortlived- heyday. It's really quite amazing how some bands / people /events are revered nowadays. I imagine it's mostly down to nostalgia for a good few folks but often, this adulation, is from kids who might well be young enough to be any original fan's grandchildren. Just take a browse through Tumblr. There you'll find; besides the prodigious amount of pornography that fills up a lot of space, lots of photos or scans of diverse documents either relating to C81 or C86 and the bands that were featured on those two tapes as well as lots of bands like the ones mentioned above. A major setback, however, as with most posts on Tumblr, is that a lot of photos and documents are endlessly reblogged with neither any information attached to them nor any credits nor source details. Luckily though; for anyone really interested in this period in rock/pop/punk/post-rock/twee's back pages; and particularly for those who want to know more about all the great Scottish bands from back then, there are people like Simon Goddard, Simon Reynolds, Richard King, and Sam Knee. All of them have either written about Postcard Records, Josef K, Orange Juice, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Pastels, et al or documented the various scenes, labels, etc. Sam Knee's book, A Scene In Between, is particularly good for lots of original and unseen photos.
Anyhow, another couple of very interesting books are to be published in early 2015. The first one is Neil Taylor's 'C86 & All That: Indie 1983-86 A History' and Paul Groovy's 'Happening Right Then' which will feature, as well as some text, original photos taken by the author himself.
I'll let Paul Groovy fill you in on the details of his must have, forthcoming book:
"The Kickstarter campaign for "Happening Right Then!" starts next week, with the finished book being published Spring 2015.
It will be a hardback book with 150+ pages of my photos, with comments/recollections by many of the bands/people featured, along with a foreword by Alan Mcgee
It starts with The Pastels from the Spontaneous Happening at The Venue, Glasgow in May 83,and ends with The Pastels at The Room At The Top in Dec 85. Inbetween there will be photos of TV Personalities, Shop Assistants, The Times, Direct Hits, Nikki Sudden, Jasmine Minks(their 1st gig),Primal Scream (their 1st gig!),and a whole lot more.
Publication will tie in with Neil Taylors "C86 & All That" book (one of my pics is being used as the cover, and some more are to be included inside),and the launch for that book will take place at the original Living Room at the Adams Arms. An exhibition of my photos will also be part of the launch for Neil's book."
Anyone who wants to help fund Paul's book can do so at Kickstarter. I'll post a link to his page as soon as it's up.
Many thanks to Paul for providing me with a copy of the Stephen Pastel photo to illustrate this post.
Image: courtesy of & ©Paul Groovy
Paul Groovy @ Twitter
*Margaret Thatcher's era - 1979-1990
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