GLASGOW
STUART KIDD (The Wellgreen)
ALASDAIR ROBERTS
Teenage Fanclub (Did I Say). ‘A band that definitely changed my approach to music. It made me realise that melody is the key to greatness! I kind of taught myself to sing harmonies through both The Beatles and Teenage Fanclub. On top of this they are all a really friendly, down to earth bunch of guys who just love making music. Truly inspiring!’
Adam McNaughtan (Oor Hamlet). ‘Glasgow school teacher and songwriter condenses Shakespeare’s play into three and a half minutes.’
Music and Movement (Little Doggies). ‘I played with Finlay at the very beginning of Music and Movement and loved every minute of it. He’s a great songwriter with really great ideas. After I left, I saw them playing at the 13th Note one night and it remains one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. It was like watching The Velvet Underground at their peak.’ Donovan (Wear Your Love Like Heaven). ‘I’m pretty sure Donovan grew up in Maryhill so in my book that qualifies him! He’s done it all, meditated with The Maharishi, got pissed with Dylan, got stoned with The Beatles and remains one of the great underrated songwriters of all time. Thanks to him, John Lennon learned to fingerpick. I rest my case. I love Donovan. A LOT.’ 62 | ONDER INVLOED MAGAZINE
Matt McGinn (Willie Macnamara). ‘He’s a prolific Glasgow songwriter and folksinger with a song about an altercation in the east end of the city. It’s a parody of the well-known song The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow from the Scottish Borders.’ Alex Campbell (The Fair Flower of Northumberland). ‘Legendary Glasgow singer whom, it’s fair to say, was renowned as a hard-living raconteur, sings a traditional ballad which I sing myself, which I learned from my father Alan - and which Alan in turn no doubt learned from Alex!’ DUGLAS T. STEWART (BMX Bandits)
BMX Bandits (The Sailor’s Song, E102, Doorways). Belle & Sebastian (The State I Am In, Step Into My Office Baby, Fox In The Snow). The Pastels (Comin’ Through, Check My Heart, Nothing to Be Done)
BIFF SMITH (A New International / The Starlets)
The Blue Nile (Easter Parade). ‘A haunting, impressionistic dream of a city, captured in slow-motion sepia. Sparse and evocative, using space as imagery, silence as song, Easter Parade is poetic and musical minimalism. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and like nothing else I have ever heard.’ Orange Juice. (In A Nutshell). ‘Orange Juice would be many people’s vote for greatest Scottish band ever. They have an ambling, informal quality, at times just barely hanging together, but always in a manner most elegant and stylish. A fascinating meeting of opposites, they are sophisticated yet goofy, a harmonious yet discordant black and white influenced eclecticism; Disco and Soul meets jangly Velvets Post-punk to make a sound which was very new but always joyfully melodic, still exciting and inspiring today, Orange Juice have so much love and joy in their music that I defy anyone with two good ears not to listen to this with a smile. In A Nutshell begins as tender and vulnerable, becoming bitter kiss-off, before transcending worldly concerns in a burst of tuneful euphoria and gently mocking humour