Let's talk about The Skids

have some of this thread too!

In praise of "TV Stars" by the skids!

ALBERT TATLOCK!

Yeah, "TV Stars". B-side wunnit?

Just been watching "WFTYD" on Youtube. I just realised that

a) It has one of the greatest intro's ever, and
b) it had one of the greatest promo's ever.

Just hilarous stuff from A to Z.

Oddly, the promo video has an entirely different version to the single released!

I could have sworn I started a thread about them but it doesn't come up. Scott Seward had a fair amount of love for the 1st album, iirc.

i had the best-of a few years back and was left relatively unimpressed, but "scared to dance," man, that is a pretty badass little song right there

Great, great band. I love Jobson's oblique, obscure lyrics, and uncompromisingly Scots delivery.

I cannot contain myself from letting out a robust "AHOY!" everytime I hear "Into the Valley." Great stuff.

I hope I never hear the U2/Green Day cover of "The Saints are Coming".

The original sounds like the end of the world. I remember it being played at ear-bleeding volume to finally drive out patrons at Edinburgh's late-opening drinker of last resort "Sneaky Pete's".

Anyone got the lowdown on "Joy"? I believe it was the post-Adamson folk(ish) album, and was roundly panned at the time.

Has posterity been kind to it? It's the one that intrigues me most, tbh.

At one point in my teens I had just about everything they released all apart from 'Joy' for some reason. Never heard it, but reading the wikipedia entry makes me think it might have sounded similar to something like Love In Anger by Richard Jobson's next band, the Armoury Show.

Thanks Nick. I'd never heard the Armoury Show, but listened to "kyrie" as well. I wonder if that mid-eighties stadium-sound will ever be disinterred?

Jobson really had a Jaz Coleman-sized beef with the Yewsay, didn't he?

AHA! here's the other thread, I started it in th sandbox. There is talk of the merits of Joy and Youtube linx!!!

http://ilx.wh3rd.net:8090/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=142&threadid=474

I wonder if that mid-eighties stadium-sound will ever be disinterred?

Eeek, I bloomin' hope not!

Actually, I think I was miles off - did you find Iona on U-Tube? Trying to think who it reminds me of. Ultravox?

x-post!

It kind of anticipates that mid-eighties folk thing - The Proclaimers, Runrig (probably - I haven't heard them really)

Looks like Jobbo made the surfer's mistake of hitting the wave too early.

Just got the Armoury Show 2cd reissue. Not Jobson's greatest work but lots of good bits.

Pity that "Joy" has never had a proper reissue. Pair it with "Strength Through Joy" while we're at it.

I've always had a soft spot for his spoken word albums, pretentious as they may be.

God dammit, I love The Absolute Game so much!

AHOY! AHOY!

Len see a sky

God dammit, I love The Absolute Game so much!

Been a long time since i listened but some great deep cuts on it - Happy To Be With You, Children Saw The Shame

Love the Kraftwerky synths on Goodbye Civilian, but I'm not mad keen on what they were up to on Woman In Winter, that song feels very much like the template of a hundred boring Big Country album cuts to come.

Yeah, 'A Woman In Winter' does point the way to what Adamson would go on to do with Big Country, but I like the track a hell of a lot more than anything Big Country did post-The Crossing. I just love the way The Absolute Game sounds... and that opening of both 'Circus Games' and 'Out Of Town'... man!

AHOY! AHOY!

― Alex in NYC, Friday, January 3, 2014 10:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Len see a sky

― Mark G, Friday, January 3, 2014 10:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cornflakes in the sky! Masquerade! Masquerade!

http://shop.captainoi.com/shopexd.asp?id=321

Six disc box set out, includes albums never reissued on CD before apparently. I only know the 1st 2 albums though.

The Absolute Game still rules. There's an artiness to The Skids which completely vanished from Adamson's music by the time he'd moved onto Big Country.

hmmm.... pretty inexpensive, too.

aye, no bad.

The box is a great example of how to do physical reissues these days. Very complete, I think it's missing one or two 12" versions. I was surprised how different the mixes of "Days In Europa" are, though I prefer Nelson's version. Also note that "Joy" is not as bad as it's rep but still not that good in general

This thread has actually reminded me that I haven't listened to Days In Europa for a while..
'Animation' in particular is all-time for me.

Picked up “Joy” for a buck recently and finally gave it a spin … yeesh, that’s some Nazi-ass shit. Can’t believe they weren’t more roundly castigated for it; I guess the fact the music isn’t likely to inspire anyone meant people weren’t inspired to call it out too hard either.

i know, "blood and soil"! could be trump's new theme song. i'm guessing people just thought it was more 80s post-punk war shit. everyone was dressed like a stormtrooper back then.

i don't know if they had a big skin/NF/RAC following.

I very much doubt it.

The front cover of Days in Europa had been bad enough. Jobson had apparently found some artwork from the 1936 Olympics at a flea market in West Berlin and decided to use it for the record sleeve. He still gets quite rankled in interviews if questioned about the Skids' use of Nazi aesthetics, arguing that nobody queried Joy Division and New Order for doing the same thing (which isn't true).

To be fair, Jobson has said pretty consistently that he's a big fan of Brecht, Beuys, St. Pauli et al, but even so.

Thread prompted me to listen to some of "Joy", which I'd never heard before, and ffs it is utterly shite.

I really enjoy it, by-and-large. Not as much as I used to. Excellent singles.

There's also the use of the SS font in their logo on some of their sleeves..

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71jrzX1tQvL._UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

Pretty sure they weren't actual nazis though, just a case of poor judgement

Oops dodgy image link, that was supposed to be Scared To Dance

Joy is interesting but also quite bad I think. Bit of a waste of Viginia Astley's talents really, everything is such a dirge

Just in its patient structure and instrumentation I consider Iona a spiritual musical sibling of Gabriel's Biko

Oh I can totally hear the Biko comparison, but it lacks the emotional heft and mostly just sounds a bit daft? To me anyway - glad you enjoy it though!

Have been enjoying this one though off the Absolute Game bonus disc, some nice ambient guitar stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGyoPr_SAIw

stuart adamson is the common denominator here

once he left it was p much all over and everyone knew it -- and that's p much why joy's various bad associations didn't get a bigger kicking, everyone grasped it didn't really matter any more (and it didn't)

p much p much p much

Oh I can totally hear the Biko comparison, but it lacks the emotional heft and mostly just sounds a bit daft? To me anyway - glad you enjoy it though!

It's far more "Mull of Kintrye" than "Biko". It also reminds me of "Anthem" by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band but Jobbers is not remotely in Alex Harvey's league.

... that'll be the Alex Harvey who covered "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"!

just rembered what russell Webb got up to in the 90s...

The Ring, Lost Edit

After PiL, Webb formed his own band called The Ring, which toured Europe opening for Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads in promotion of his second solo album Casual Gods in 1988, but no commercial success followed. Webb retired from performing to design board games. Following a discussion with Richard Branson at the latter's knighthood party, Branson agreed to take Webb's first board game (4 years in the making) entitled Lost to Necker Island for play testing with his family and children. The play testing was a success, but no game was released. Instead it became the initial inspiration for JJ Abrams' hit TV show Lost, for which Webb was never credited.

I hear Mull of Kintyre too, but Biko more-so - that one even has synth bagpipes. I'm aware the songs are otherwise completely different; Biko takes its rhythm-from-the-ground-up from Brazilian and (presumably) South African music and well, Iona doesn't.

The only CD release Joy's ever had is in the unceremonious 2015 box set The Virgin Years (the only years more like), which for a once-major band feels significant. The only time I remember seeing the album (or rather those two singles again) come up positively in the last ten years was something Bob Stanley wrote in the Guardian about 1981 pop.

Despite the lack of Adamson (except on one track) imo the album feels like a pointer to Big Country, just in its symbolistic channelling of Scottish folk music through glacial spacious Big Music etc et al. Ofc I may have this all wrong.