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LINER NOTES FOR DUNFERMLINE 1993 CD

(jump to: 2004 Liner Notes | Credits)

VIRGIN UNIVERSAL
THE SKIDS 'DUNFERMLINE'
A COLLECTION OF THE SKIDS'
FINEST MOMENTS

In the pantheon of great UK punk rock bands, the Skids rate as one of the exceptional few that actually attempted to make something of their music that stood apart and beyond the easy slogans and inept posturing of most of their hard-nosed contemporaries. This album Is a collection of their finest moments.

 

SKIDS

In the pantheon of great UK punk rock bands, the Skids rate as one of the exceptional few that actually attempted to make something of their music that stood apart and beyond the easy slogans and inept posturing of most of their hard-nosed contemporaries.

While their punk credentials were impeccable — a four-piece from Dunfermline that brought out their first 'Wide Open' EP, in 1978, on their own self-financed No Bad label, and whose regular appearances in the prominent punk fanzines and the continued patronage of Radio I DJ John Peel, led to them being snapped up by Virgin Records later that same year — in lead vocalist Richard Jobson they had a frontman who, unusually for the times, was unafraid to flaunt his erudition; his thirst for experience and whatever hidden knowledge he could squeeze out of his often extraordinary surroundings.

Born in 1960, Richard Jobson was 17 when he joined the Skids — straight from school, where he had just passed nine '0' levels. A Personal File from an early Smash Hits lists Jobson's achievements thus: Previous Jobs — none. Previous Bands — none. He claimed his Desert Island disc would be `La Mer' by Debussy; that his Pet Hate was 'cynics; and that the Biggest Mistake I Ever Made was 'talking too much. Much too much.'

But then there were always so many people — the fans, the journalists, the record company fops — there to encourage him. I remember as a young writer myself at the time, being told you could "always rely on Jobson for a quote. He's got an opinion on anything and everything:'

Originally, his punk name was Joey Jolson, though he always claims to have trouble remembering why, mumbling vaguely about something to do with Zorro... Or something. Anyway, he quickly changed it back once he saw how ridiculous it looked in print.

Jobson's main contribution to the Skids was writing lyrics in 'poetic form' (his phrase) and yodelling as convincingly as he could (which was pretty damn convincingly on some songs, though not all songs, as he would later be the first to admit) to the music guitarist Stuart Adamson was then writing; a sort of weird hybrid celtic-punk, all bag-pipe guitars and knitting-needle drums.

Three years older than Jobson, Adamson had worked previously as an environmental health officer and a trainee accountant. His short-lived punk name, strange to relate, was Stevie Cologne, though he was not ashamed to admit that he copped most of the licks to his earliest Skids songs from such pre-punk cult stars as Bill Nelson, and Nils Lofgren.

The rhythm section comprised of 20-year old bassist Bill Simpson (punk name: Alex Plode), and drummer 23-year old Thomas Kellichan, a married long distance lorry driver known locally as 'Tom The Bomb; which of course handily became his punk name.

Early live faves included 'Sweet Suburbia' (destined to become their first Top 75 hit) and 'Of One Skin' (a rare treat not released on any of the original four Skids albums), 'Charles' (from the `Wide Open' EP), the prophetic 'Test-Tube Babies', and not forgetting the daft-but-great `Albert Tatlock'; mostly Stuart's songs in those early days, but already laced with Jobson's more artful pretensions.

Their first album, 'Scared To Dance; released early in 1979, was good enough to have a fevered Sounds scribe describing the Skids as the 'Scottish Clash; and it duly spent nearly three months hinged to the UK album charts, while the single from it 'Into The Valley', also became a Top 10 hit in the UK, prompting their first hilariously over-the-top appearance on Top Of The Pops.

It was a tough act to follow and the second, Bill Nelson-produced Skids album, 'Days In Europa, released later the same year, was initially much misunderstood by the critics. Chiefly because of the 'Olympic Man' sleeve and the gothic script that wreathed the package, which led the more sensitive of the critical swabs to lament the alleged 'Nazi undertones, as Sounds put it somewhat hysterically. (Of course, the accompanying promotional pix of the singer doing his stuff in matching PX/Blitz clothes didn't strengthen the band's case, but plainly the charges were absurd. "I thought it was a fashion statement," lisped Jobson, and he probably did.)

For the fans, however, it was a different story. Thomas Kellichan had been replaced by Rusty Egan, then late of Midge Ure and Glenn Matlock's Rich Kids, and the album, itself another Top 10 cent, came complete with two more bona fide Skids hits in 'Charade' and, easily their most impressive single to date, 'Working For The Yankee Dollar'.

But just as it seemed the cloak of success was beginning to settle comfortably upon their young shoulders, so the seeds of their own destruction were already being sown. Success bred confidence in some, certainly in Richard Jobson and Rusty Egan, who revelled in the London hi-life; nervousness in others, who couldn't wait to get home to Dunfermline, as was usually the case with Stuart Adamson and Gill Simpson.

By the time of the Skids third album, 'The Absolute Game; released in 1980, though on the surface things couldn't have looked rosier, bristling as it was with old Skids gems like 'Circus Games' and 'Woman In Winter', the band was privately teetering on the brink of dissolution. By the end of the year Simpson had left the band, to be replaced by former Slik and Zones bassist Russell Webb, and Egan had also drifted away.'

Adamson was not far behind them. Alienated by what he saw as the increasingly pretentious inclinations of his increasingly famous frontman, Adamson finally threw in the towel, claiming a "total lack of empathy between band members. I felt it was time for change, it's just a pity I had to leave the Skids to do it."

There was one final Skids album, the mostly, it has to be said, joyless 'Joy; released in the summer of 1981, which featured Jobson and Webb on any number of traditional, acoustical Scottish folk instrumentation, and was as far from the traditional Skids sound as the streets of Dunfermline were to the nightclubs of Soho. Despite two admirably jaunty singles, the moody 'Fields' and the unashamedly romantic 'Iona; neither of which was ever more than briefly acquainted with the charts, few of their stunned fans actually bought the album.
Jobson retreated to lick his wounds. He released 'The Ballad Of Etiquette, a 'poetry album; if you will (and even if you wont, come to that) set to a backing of 'flute, saxophones, piano, clarinet and classical guitars.' He gave well-attended poetry readings at Soho's Cabaret Futura, made headlines for his 'live sex' scene in Chris Ward's 1981 play 'Demonstration of Affection; at London's Experimental Arts Theatre, with a then 17-year old Honey Bane... and he contemplated touring as the New Skids, before ditching that for a game of gobblers and instead put his energies into The Armoury Show, the short-lived band he formed, again with Webb, in 1983.

History records that it flopped badly, the old anthem-loving Skids crowd having by then swung firmly in the direction taken by Adamson in Big Country (who were just a refinement of early Skids), and that Richard Jobson went on to become a top paid male model and, latterly, a cut-above-the-duff TV presenter...

Ultimately, the Skids were very young and it's proably fair to say that, in retrospect, their ambitions always were always just a step ahead of their ability to actually fulfil them, and that the gap grew commensurate with their success.

But if you listen carefully, on certain braw, dark, windy nights you can still hear those bag-pipe guitars wail...

Mick Wall February 1993

___________________________________________________


 

LINER NOTES FOR
INTO THE VALLEY - THE BEST OF THE SKIDS CD

(jump to: 1993 Liner Notes | Credits)

Most of the great rock bands have thrived on the creative tension between a flamboyant, gregarious frontman and a quieter, less demonstrative sidekick. Think Freddie Mercury and Brian May, Bono Vox and The Edge, or Morrissey and Johnny Marr. And so it was with The Skids, the fiery Scottish post-punk quartet built around the dynamic axis of charismatic singer Richard Jobson and guitar visionary Stuart Adamson.

The Skids were one of the first groups to take the three-chord fury of punk and fashion it into something grander. They were inspired by the raw energy of The Clash, and Sex Pistols, but they refused to be limited by the orthodoxy of the London scene: their songs were angular and heroic and their choruses were liberally sprinkled with rousing, anthemic hooks; they made music with an arty, inventive streak, and established themselves as one of the pioneering bands of a post-punk wave that also spawned U2, Simple Minds, Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes.

Much of their inner drive came from the inspired and sometimes fractious partnership of Jobson and Adamson. Singer Richard, a former amateur boxer and schoolboy international footballer, was a walking tornado. Raised in a pit village on the outskirts of Dunfermline, he joined the band when he was only 16 and was perfecting his high-kicking dance style in front of the Top Of The Pops cameras just two years later.

Guitarist Stuart, a more thoughtful and introverted character, developed into one of the most talented guitarists of the British new wave. His searing, abrasive style was unique: some of the strings on his guitar would be left unplayed as he picked the melodies out on a single string, thus allowing the 'open' strings to resonate and create a droning, bagpipe-like sound which became The Skids' musical calling card.

Frustrated with the dominance of Tartan hard-rock, and the hero status afforded local-boys-made-good Nazareth, The Skids got together in Dunfermline in 1977. Perhaps realising that his fledgling career as a centre-forward in lower league soccer was unlikely to be aided by a Billy Idol-inspired peroxide hairstyle - a surefire invitation for craggy Scottish defenders to 'get stuck in' - Richard hung up his football boots, briefly re-christened himself Joey Jolson and concentrated on the music. He and Stuart recruited bassist Willie Simpson
and drummer Tom Kellichan to complete the line-up. With The Clash's momentous visit to Edinburgh, on the White Riot tour, having shown Scottish teenagers that there was now a real alternative to the heavy metal enjoyed by their older brothers and sisters, the east of Scotland was suddenly alive with young bands, and The Skids quickly built up a loyal regional following.

With local record shop manager Sandy Muir agreeing to become their manager, the band released a self-funded debut single, 'Charles', on the No Bad label. Written by Stuart, it told the fictional tale of a character who found work in a metal drilling factory and grew so obsessed with his job that he became a part of his machine and was eventually declared obsolete by the factory owner and sold off as scrap. The musical promise of the single attracted early champion John Peel, who invited The Skids to record the first of their five sessions for his Radio 1 show in May 1978. It also created a wave of interest at Virgin Records, who signed the band on an ambitious eight-album deal the same year.

The band's first album, Scared To Dance, was completed after a series of sessions that were beset by internal tension. The problems centred around a row between Stuart and producer David Batchelor, one-time singer with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Angered by the overdubs and other embellishments demanded by Batchelor, Adamson (who wanted a raw, live sound) walked out on the band at the end of 1978. A compromise was eventually reached, however, and the guitarist returned to the fold. With hindsight, Batchelor did a remarkable job, capturing the band's ruggedness and their penchant for invention on a record that sounds as fresh today as it did in March 1979.

In addition to a new version of 'Charles', Scared To Dance - its title inspired by an NME story about pop behind the Iron Curtain - featured the singles 'Sweet Suburbia', 'The Saints Are Coming' and 'Into The-Valley'. The latter, which gave the band a Top Ten hit in February 1979, was a rousing call to arms that was also noteworthy for its celebrated B-side, TV Stars, a
sing-along punk thrash that name-checked Kenny Daiglish, John Peel and the stars of Coronation Street.

It was at this point that I first cauht the band live, seeing them play a barnstorming set that trod a thin line between wild rocking and complete chaos at a Rag Week Ball at Bristol University. “Apart from Mott The Hoople and Gary Glitter, I hadn’t really been into music before The Skids," Richard told me after the show which I covered for NME. "I got into punk because of the image, the glamour and the fancy clothes, but now were really serious about the music."

A second album, in the shops a mere seven months after their debut, reflected the band's growing musicality. Produced by Be-Bop Deluxe singer and guitarist Bill Nelson, Days In Europa had been prefaced by a non-album single, 'Masquerade', and featured the hits ‘Charade’, ‘Working For The Yankee Dollar’ and ‘Animation’. With original drummer Kellichan having left after Scared To Dance, former Rich Kid Rusty Egan filled in behind the drum kit and helped Jobson and Adamson pilot The Skids away from their angular, post-punk roots towards a more polished, danceable sound.

With bassist Simpson also departing after the troubled tour that followed Days In Europa, and Egan leaving to concentrate on his activities as a club DJ, Jobson and Adamson went back to the drawing board before commencing work on a third album. After recruiting former Zone Russell Webb on bass and Mike Baillie on drums, they began working on a new set of songs with producer Mick Glossop.

If Days In Europa had been rushed, then its follow-up, The Absolute Game, released in September 1980, was a poised, considered piece of work from an outfit at the top of their game. Arty and grandiose, it retained the jagged, guitar-driven edges of earlier recordings but also reflected their growing interest in electronic music. Reviewing the album's two key singles, 'Circus Games' and 'Goodbye Civilian', I was impressed: the first, I wrote in NME, was "rich, mature and bristling with hooks", while the second succeeded in giving the Skids sound "a mellower complexion by tempering Jobson's bravado with the swirling, disco rumble of Adamson's synthesiser".

A creative resurgence, The Absolute Game was also a commercial success, giving the band a Top Ten album and seemingly setting them up as an act who would join The Jam, The Police and Blondie among the premier hit-makers of their generation. That they didn't manage to fulfill their potential was down not to any musical shortcomings, but to the difference in outlook between Jobson and Adamson. With Richard becoming more engrossed in a developing London scene, co-hosting the avant-garde Cabaret Futura nightclub and diversifying into poetry and acting, Adamson hotfooted it back to Fife to form a new band, Big Country, leaving Jobson and Webb to make a last Skids album, 1981's Joy. With the singles 'Iona' and 'Fields' typical of a new direction, Joy shifted The Skids away from rock music and back towards a Celtic storytelling heritage. It was memorably described by Webb as "a mixture of hairy-arsed Scottish folk singers and demure classical musicians".

For Adamson, the immediate future was bright. Despite the initial ignominy of being dropped from an Alice Cooper tour after only two gigs, allegedly for being 'too weird', Big Country's epic, wide-screen rock brought them huge hit singles in 'Harvest Home', 'Fields Of Fire' and 'Change', and a No.1 album in 1984's Steeltown. When the band split amicably in 2000, Adamson moved to Nashville, where his interest in American roots music was reflected in the formation of The Raphaels. But the promise of his new band's first CD, Supernaturals, was never realised. In December 2001, the sad news broke of Stuart's death in a hotel room in Hawaii. He was 43.
Following the demise of The Skids, Jobson and Webb also formed a new band, The Armoury Show, with Banshees guitarist John McGeogh. They made an album, Waiting For The Floods, for EMI America, but fragmented in 1989. Jobson, however, went from strength to strength, cutting a niche for himself as a script writer and TV presenter before making his debut as a film director in 2004 with the acclaimed 16 Years Of Alcohol.

But the legacy of The Skids lives on. You can hear it in the music of new groups such as British Sea Power. And it is doubtful whether Franz Ferdinand would be making music as taut and danceable were if not for the lingering influence of Jobson and Adamson. Play 'The Saints Are Coming' next to the latter's 'Take Me Out' and you'll see just what I mean.

The Skids were a product of a specific time and location. Scotland in the late Seventies was not a place for the faint-hearted, and the band's working-class upbringing was reflected in their hard-bitten lyrics and the way that they carried themselves onstage. One of my abiding memories of that 1979 student gig in Bristol was of Jobson jumping into the audience to personally 'sort out' an over-zealous bouncer who was picking on a Skids fan half his size.

'I don't encourage fighting at our gigs, but we're a naturally aggressive band,' he told me later that night 'Dunfermline isn't like London. As is said in Scotland you learn how to look after yourself
has been hard sometimes, but it’s also helped to make The Skids the band we are.

ADRIAN THRILLS (October 2004)

_________________________________________________

 

CREDITS (CONSOLIDATED)

(jump to: 1993 Liner Notes | 2004 Liner Notes)

01. INTO THE VALLEY (3.15) [UK NO.10, 1979]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

02. CHARLES (2.45)
(Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

03. THE SAINTS ARE COMING (2.37) [UK NO. 48, 1978]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1978 Virgin Records Ltd

04. SCARED TO DANCE (3.17)
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

05. SWEET SUBURBIA (2.30) [UK NO.70, 1978]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1978 Virgin Records Ltd

06. OF ONE SKIN (2.28)
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1978 Virgin Records Ltd

07. NIGHT AND DAY (2.35)
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by David Batchelor
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1978 Virgin Records Ltd

08. ANIMATION (4.27) [UK NO.56, 1980]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)

Produced by Bill Nelson
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

09. WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR (3.35) [UK NO.20, 1979]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

10. CHARADE (3.52) [UK NO.31, 1979]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by Bill Nelson
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

11. MASQUERADE (2.45) [UK NO.14, 1979]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by Bill Nelson/John Leckie
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1979 Virgin Records Ltd

12. CIRCUS GAMES (4.10) [UK NO.32, 1980]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson Russell Webb Mike Baillie)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd/EMI 10 Music Ltd/BMG Music Publishing
Ⓟ 1980 Virgin Records Ltd

13. OUT OF TOWN (4.08)
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd
Ⓟ1979 Virgin Records Ltd

14. GOODBYE CIVILIAN (4.15) [UK NO.52, 1980]
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson/Russell Webb/Mike Baillie)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd/EMI 10 Music Ltd/BMG Music Ltd
Ⓟ 1980 Virgin Records Ltd

15. A WOMAN IN WINTER (5.40) [UK NO. 49, 1980]
(Richard Jobson/Russell Webb/Mike Baillie/Stuart Adamson)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd/EMI 10 Music Ltd/BMG Music Publishing Ltd
Ⓟ 1980 Virgin Records Ltd

16. HURRY ON BOYS (3.42)
(Richard Jobson/Stuart Adamson/Russell Webb/Mike Baillie)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd/EMI 10 Music Ltd/BMG Music Publishing Ltd
Ⓟ 1980 Virgin Records Ltd

17. IONA (3.20)
(Russell Webb)
Produced by Russell Webb
Russell Webb
Ⓟ 1981 Virgin Records Ltd

18. FIELDS (4.32)
(Richard Jobson/Russell Webb)
Produced by Mick Glossup
EMI Virgin Music Ltd/Russell Webb
Ⓟ 1981 Virgin Records Ltd

CD pre-mastered by BUNT STAFFORD-CLARK & DAVE BERNEZ Compiled by RONNIE GURR

TRACKS 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 from the LP 'SCARED TO DANCE' TRACKS 6 & 8 released as singles & included on the LP 'FANFARE'

TRACKS 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 from the LP 'ABSOLUTE GAME' TRACKS 9, 10, 11 from the LP 'DAYS IN EUROPA'

Ⓟ THIS COMPILATION VIRGIN RECORDS LTD 1987
© VIRGIN RECORDS LTD 1987

THE SKIDS DISCOGRAPHY

SCARED TO DANCE 1979
DAYS IN EUROPA 1979
THE ABSOLUTE GAME 1980
JOY 1981
FANFARE 1982