David Scott: Five Great Glasgow Gigs
We were delighted to hear from David Scott ahead of the Pearlfishers shows in October and November. David wrote a lovely blog for us back in May and this is another great read about five great Glasgow gigs that made a lasting impression …Over to David…
Photographer: Margaret Scott
The Pearlfishers play shows through October and November 2024. You can see the list and get tickets right here. The Glasgow show on a tour is always a highlight and this time around we return to King Tuts on Saturday November 2nd. We were one of the very first groups to grace the Tuts stage and it always feels like magic can be brought forth in that space. And Glasgow itself is just a special place to share music. Here are five Glasgow shows that I’ve loved for different reasons….
Earl Okin (and Paul McCartney): Glasgow Apollo 1979
My first real, actual, proper gig in Glasgow was Paul McCartney and Wings in 1979 at the Apollo. Not for me credibility-defining sightings of The Clash on their acoustic tour at the Art School, Public Image Ltd or Buzzcocks at the Barrowland. I was simultaneously awestruck by the religious ceremony of seeing McCartney in the flesh and aware that only 9 years removed from the break-up of The Beatles (can you imagine that?) the show was a bit old-timey for a 1979 15-year-old, with covers of rock and roll standards like ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ (yawn). That would not be the case now since humans of all ages fell righteously in love with Paul again. The other difference was the size of venues he played on that tour, essentially large theatres of 3-5k capacity rather than the stadia of today. Apart from the fact a US number 1 single was recorded that night (the live version of ‘Coming Up’) a few other things stood out including, and I’m not kidding, ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ complete with fake snow. There was also a wondrous version of his recent hit ‘Goodnight Tonight’ and, Paul, if you are reading, you should be playing that total banger in every show you ever do.
The other highlight was the support act, a waif in spats and bowler hat called Earl Okin who played gentle jazz tunes on a Spanish guitar and complemented them with mouth trumpet solos. He enjoyed the kind of warm reception you’d expect from a Glasgow crowd drooling to see The Beatles but ploughed on regardless interjecting comments like ‘I’m an international sex symbol you know’ all of which received laughter x zero. But I’ve never forgotten Earl. He was easily as memorable as Paul that night, possessed of one of the most truly beautiful, gentle and musical voices you will ever hear – think Norman Blake or Frank Reader – and some gorgeous songs. He still plays around London, posts hilariously anachronistic notes on Facebook, and you can find his wonderful records online
Amy Allison: Grand Ole Opry 2003-ish
I produced three albums with Amy Allison in the 2000’s. Two of them, No Frills Friend and Everything & Nothing Too came out on Francis MacDonald’s Shoeshine label. Turn Like the World Does an album we made as a duo, came out on my own My Dark Star imprint. And we did lots of shows together, usually just the two of us, two guitars, two vocals, and me standing in awe of her incredible songs and beautiful voice. One show that stands out is Glasgow’s Grand Ole Opry where we opened – this time with a full band line up drawn from the Pearlfishers – for Laura Cantrell. Whatever you hear about the Opry: full western dress, chairs nailed to the floor, whisky at 50p a dram, violence de rigeur it is a most promising space for a show. The room is a good size, with a high ceiling and – if memory serves – a raised seated area at the back so plenty of room for sound to swirl about in a great way. It served Amy’s music well and the sound we captured on ‘No Frills Friend’ of chiming Stratocaster, 12-string electric and stacked harmonies was a perfect foil for her straight-out-of-the-Brill-building songs full of wry but melancholy lyrical humour. An unprepossessing start to the show goes like this: we are told to stand in position, on-stage while the MC introduces us from the DJ booth. He then bawls through a distorted PA. ‘Ladeez an genlemun we’ve goat a great show fur yeez the night here at the Opry. In a wee while we’ve goat the main lassie. For now geez a warm Opry welcome to…to…the lassie that’s supportin’ ur!’ It wasn’t the only show Amy and I did together where some of the environmental signalling was misaligned with her music, but she always cut through it with eccentric charm and amazing songs and vocals. Check out her albums in all the usual spots.
Tim Finn: King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut 1993-ish
In the early 90s it seemed to me that Glasgow was one important locus and springboard for the global success of Crowded House. Music fans in the city certainly felt like early adopters and there were other links not least between some of the business scaffolding that surrounded both the House and Deacon Blue. One early peak was the album Woodface with its multiple international hit singles. I saw them on that tour at the Pavilion Theatre but – great as they were – somebody was missing. Tim Finn, brother of Neil and co-author of the 5 singles taken from the album, having recently joined the touring line-up had abruptly headed for the exit mid tour. The next we heard from him was Before & After, a high stepping solo album for Capitol Records in 1993 full of memorable songs, contributions from confederates like Richard Thompson and Andy White all burnished under a distinct corporate gloss. Nevertheless, with Tim there is always an indefinable wildness and unpredictability in the mix, a sense of a search for the source. This was in full flow during two shows at King Tuts later that year as he (kind of) promoted the album. All corporate gloss was gone. It was under rehearsed to the point I wondered at the time if he had actually met any of the members of the band, some of the vocal performances were borderline wayward, and the set list was hanging by the seat of its pants. But it built and built particularly through songs that offered space for extemporisation memorably the song ‘Parihaka’ wherein he invokes ‘the language of the spirit’, the soulful ‘Persuasion’ and finally the pop punk rush of ‘Six Months in A Leaky Boat’, the Split Enz number one that never was given its original release at the height of the Falkland’s War.
For me – in that single performance – Finn perfectly married the sophisticated to the dumb, the nuanced to the daft. I love his brother Neil too but when they write and perform together on albums like FINN and Everyone Is Here art happens, I think because of that magical Tim Finn grit in the oyster. It is memorably captured in this very special song from their Everyone Is Here album:
Rickie Lee Jones: Theatre Royal 1991-ish
Rickie Lee at the Theatre Royal Glasgow lives in my memory as equally magical and profoundly disappointing. I’m hoping that by writing about it I can reopen its best rooms in my memory palace. The early 1990s was a period where the artist had bonded with Glasgow as a place, Glasgow as people, and I suspect had simultaneously fallen out of love with LA. The Theatre Royal show came on the back of Pop Pop a fantastic 1991 album of jazz and tin pan alley standards. Rickie Lee had recorded other people’s songs before in 1983’s Girl at Her Volcano and would do so many times again in albums like The Devil You Know, Kicks and Pieces of Treasure. But to hear her in that moment, in that grand old theatre performing classics like ‘Second Time Around’, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ and ‘Hi Lili Hi Lo’ with a stripped back band was to understand her own connection to the source of songwriting and to the art of the vocalist. Her performance was extraordinary, inhabiting multiple voices, multiple characters, pulling both nuance and exaggeration out of the material. We got RLJ classics too, many from her 1979 debut: widescreen song movies like ‘On Saturday Afternoons in 1963′,’ Last Chance Texaco’ and my favourite on the night, ‘Weasel and the White Boys Cool’. But something was bugging her. Maybe someone talking, or someone taking photographs, or maybe the Glaswegian habit of pointing out her brilliance with random utterances. Yer brilliant Rickie Lee. Gaun yersel. Geez ‘Rorschachs’ Rickie hen. And she got bugged, and let it show, and got more bugged and let it show even more:
‘If you do that one more time, I’m gonna fuckin’ walk’.
And there it was. Balloon burst. The rest of the show was a tightrope walk and when she didn’t come out for an encore and instead sent the band out to do an apologetic bow it felt like beautiful moments soured. God knows how she copes with mobile phones. I’d be interested to hear from people who were at that show though. Maybe it’s grown arms and legs in my memory when it was actually a joyful communion. But in any case, the songs and the singer and the art are immutable and remain endlessly marvellous.
Alex Chilton: The Cathouse & The Thirteenth Note 1999-ish
I know, right? The Cathouse. I couldn’t believe it either. Duglas Stewart and I were producing a bunch of tracks for Marina Records’ Caroline Now! Brian Wilson tribute album and Duglas had persuaded the great Alex Chilton to come to my tiny studio in East Kilbride to record a version of I Wanna Pick You Up while he was in town for this show. It was quite the scene. Within minutes of arriving Duglas digs me in the ribs and points along to the end of the bar. Sitting there (in the actual Cathouse in actual Glasgow) in a position known to millions of TV viewers across the globe? Big Norm from Cheers. If I’ve dreamed this Duglas will tell us. Alex was there with his regular Memphis band, a three piece of drums, bass and AC on guitar and vocals. For an audience it was total entertainment but for a musician it was a total education. The level of musicality, nuance and sheer swagger alchemised from those base elements was intense, surprising and beautiful. Songs from nowhere suddenly sounded like unearthed treasure; an old Danny Pearson tune called ‘What’s Your Sign Girl?’ was a particular revelation with Alex’s incisive, primal vocal energy adding an edge that elevated this enjoyably daft trifle to another level. There were tunes from the 1963 musical Bye Bye Birdy – a bit of an Alex obsession – and instrumental jazz standards too. Nothing by Big Star. Nothing from Like Flies on Sherbert. Nothing by The Box Tops. Or for that matter anything written by Alex. A year or so later Alex came back to Scotland for some shows. Francis Macdonald and I replaced his Memphis crew on drums and bass respectively. Alex asked me ‘can you read a jazz chart’? to which I replied, oh aye, no worries, aye, jazz chart you say? Halfway through the first show at the 13th Note on the Broomielaw, with Alex verbally sneering at our incompetence for the benefit of the audience I turned to Francis who mouthed ‘I want my mammy’. He loved us really and by the time we got to Cas Rock in Edinburgh we were cooking. At that show an audience member jumped up on stage at the end and pleaded with Alex to play something, anything by Big Star or The Box Tops or indeed anything written by him. Alex listened intently, head cocked, cigarette in hand, thought for a moment and grinned ‘No!’
The Pearlfishers: Making Tapes for Girls (Marina Records)David on the wireless:BBC Radio Scotland: Classic Scottish AlbumsBBC Radio 4: The New New Town…and in print:The Conversation UK: Five Concept AlbumsGlasgow City Music Tours: Making Tapes for David“one of our greatest tunesmiths and stylists” (The Scotsman)“songs that are as good as McCartneys, as amazing as Wilson’s” (The Sunday Times)“melodic sophistication, vocal virtuosity” (Mojo)