The Scars

I was mortified.

Well, they would know...

http://www.btinternet.com/~cateran/edinburgh/aqua.gif

Mark S: Yes I saw them a lot initially as support (Cure, Banshees, Human League, Rezillos etc ), after a while they had enough of a local following to headline medium sized club venues in Edinburgh and always had a good support or two: usual sound of young scotland suspects. Paul Morley was a big fan and they got NME covers on the strength of glowing reviews from him.

I slightly preferred 79-80 earlier shows where they sounded like the Horrorshow single (even on tracks recorded later such as Obsession which was awesome live and the version on author author is merely great) but they never turned in a poor performance.

They would often do covers of Billy Porter or The Psychomodo which were ace too.

Incidentally on that Poster, The Fakes become Scottish rave nutters Ege Bam Yasi and The Freeze had Gordon Sharp of This Mortal Coil fame in them.

Er, I did? I admit that Careless Talk article caught my attention. Someone get LTM to reissue them.

btw: Paul Research's home page is http://www.scarsresearch.com

Clarity is mine. ;-)

For those hoping for a Scars CD reissue, we tried to get the rights off Virgin but they won't let go. If you want a nice CD on loan for an extended period, mail me.

Wow, I can't believe this, a Scars thread. Wait, I can -- momentarily forgot where I was. Anyway... I love to keep up with the MP3s posted as the New Wave Outpost Song of the Week. This week's song is "All About You" by The Scars, and after downloading it just now and listening to it, I realize I really, really like it. From what I've read in this thread, this is actually an example of the band's latter period musically... ? And the early period doesn't exactly match up... ? Am I correct? What would you guys recommend I check out in terms of the band's earlier output? I'm going through a period musically where I'm especially welcoming of "new to me" sounds and this seems like one of those artists who would fulfill that requirement as well as my most basic need of musical comfort food.

Pre hasn't let go of anything, the forthcoming Delta 5 CD will not apparently include their Pre material, but everyone mostly wants the Rough Trade stuff anyway.

As I recall, the first single (Horrorshow / Adult/ery) which came out on Fast was absolutely startlingly fantastic; the subsequent couple of singles and the album (Author! Author!) were a bit less startling and a bit less fantastic.

Just a couple of random things: when I saw a picture of the Scissor Sisters recently,m the way they dressed reminded me very strongly of the piccy of the Scars on '"Author! Author"', all scarved piratical new romantic.

Dan S: what's Bob Last doing now? I was talking with my brother about this very subject a couple of days ago, and I had to admit I didn;t know. Something at the back of my mind said graphic design or TV production or something, but I had to admit I was making that up.

PRE was Charisma and Virgin bought Charisma some years back, apparently in order for Branson to get his hands on all that Genesis material which he always wanted. This has been good news for reggae lovers because it means that the Virgin Front Line reissues can be augmented with the really rather good PRE reggae catalogue (inc. some of Gregory Isaacs's best work). The non-reggae element of the PRE roster appears to have been left to fester: very likely no-one at Virgin cares less. I wonder if I'm right about all that?

http://scotland.ideasfactory.com/dundee/features/feature16.htm

Sandy Blair is a loss to ILM, I wish he was still around.

I'd love to get hold of some Scars tunes again. Also, The Visitors, who I thought were even better than the Scars. And I liked Freeze too.

Any of you dudes computer literate enough to transfer vinyl to MP3? Do the world a big favour and do it! Stick it on Limewire for us post-punk nostalgics, eh?

If there's any justice, a compliation will see the light of day sometime soon.

i see that one little indian have just put out a prats cd retrospective. who's have thought it?

dee - i don't use soulseek but if i remember, i'll yousendit some visitors and freeze.

I'm assuming this Freeze I'm unfamiliar with is different from the Freeez I'm familiar with...?

As for the Scars, I agree Horroshow is an amazingly good track and I'd planned on including it in the 1979 compilation I've been working on. I remember going kinda mental over that about 10 years ago when I first heard it, then being rather disappointed in "Author! Author!" But I too would like to hear that album again.

I uploaded loads of of Scars stuff (released and otherwise) at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/scoorieboy

Enjoy.

or you can wait and see if any legit Fast related compilations may be coming out.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 9 September 2005 19:37 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Did this ever happen?

"Author Author" was reissued on CD with extra tracks a couple of years ago.

Dang, looks like the CD is sold out and Amazon doesn't have anything available. I guess you'll have to watch eBay.

We spent a good deal of time discussing some sort of Fast compilation, but there was a bit of a snag and we couldn't sort it out to everyone's satisfaction.

I still think about it, and if we ever get going with regular vinyl releases, plan on looking into some of the lesser known Fast/Pop Aural acts.

That Scars cd might be one of the more severely compressed remastering jobs I've ever heard. Almost hard to listen to. And it doesn't have the first single, of course. For that you have to get the (also way out of print) Rigour comp mentioned above.

Just heard them for the first time today. SO GOOD!

Got the (not quite) Complete set this week and put it on the 3 changer for the last few days.
Sounds pretty great.
Not heard the other 2 discs yet

Tolchocked a babushka!

The demos are disposable but the live stuff from 1981 is great, it includes 4 or 5 songs that never got a proper release.

Am enjoying this set but am also aware that they may be another piece in the jigsaw of bands that led to U2 and that can't be positive.

Saw someone saying that the sound seemed really flat compared to the original lp.

But am enjoying it so glad i finally got to get a copy.