Kirkcaldy Bands
The Kirkcaldy Bands of the '80s

Because music like ours shouldn't die

Nationwide

Half The Blazing Apostles and half The Ghost Train, then Nationwide V 2.0 became the Ghost Train

 

Nationwide

(L-R Jock Lessels, Scotty, Alan Liddell, Kenny Hutchison)

I'm grateful to Alan Liddell of Nationwide (and later many other bands) for this information about the band and it's pre history:

"Inspired by the Ramones in 1977 I started a punk band called The Noise. We played at the old Station Hotel Pogo-A-Gogo nights a couple of times (where The Skids came along to see us as we were friendly with them) and various local venues.

The Noise line-up was:
Eric Murray (vocals)
Alan Liddell ‘Lids’ (guitar)
George Gillon ‘Pud’ (bass)
Dave Wallace (drums)

Nationwide George Hotel Burntisland 1

After a while, Pud and Dave both left and we brought in John, Kenny and Fents and changed our name to Nationwide. The first Nationwide line-up was:

Eric Murray (vocals)
Alan Liddell ‘Lids’ (guitar)
Iain Fenton ‘Fents’ (guitar)
John Lessels (bass)
Kenny Hutchison (drums)

Nationwide George Hotel Burntisland 2

Eric Murray was next to leave and Murray McFadden joined us on vocals. This line-up played a few local gigs including The Cunzie Neuk in Kinghorn and The George Hotel in Burntisland (pictured on the above two photos). Graham Scott then replaced Murray on vocals and we were a 5 piece for a while with Iain Fenton on 2nd guitar until he left to take up the bass.

This left the Nationwide line-up as:

Graham Scott (vocals)
Alan Liddell ‘Lids’ (guitar)
John Lessels (bass)
Kenny Hutchison (drums)

So in effect, Nationwide comprised of half the future Blazing Apostles and half the future Ghost Train”

Kirkcaldy YMCA Nationwide B&W

(Pictured in Kirkcaldy KMCA. L-R: Scotty, Alan Liddell, Kenny Hutchison, Jock Lessels)

We recorded a couple of demos with Nationwide which I’ve probably still got on cassette in the attic including later Ghost Train song Dusty Bedrooms which I wrote the music for and Graham did the lyrics and a cover of Iggy Pop’s Funtime.

Lids (Nationwide)

(L-R Scotty and Alan Liddell)

After Nationwide split up, Kenny Hutchison took up the guitar and started singing. Kenny linked up with John Anderson on bass and later asked me to join on lead guitar and that was the start of The Blazing Apostles. We did a couple of gigs under the name Funhouse (after the Stooges album).

Kenny (Nationwide)

(Kenny Hutchison)

Graham and John started The Ghost Train about the same time and recruited Mark Nichol and Chas. We all still hung about with each other occasionally and I remember I played guitar on Walk On The Wild side live with the Ghost Train at an Abbottshall gig one night."

Thanks to Alan for uncovering the entire original Nationwide demo, recorded around 1980 we think, which makes this almost 30 years old - wow!

01 Dusty Bedrooms

02 Another Time (Instrumental)

03 Funtime (Iggy Pop)

04 The Unexpected

05 Reprimand

Nationwide Cassette

Download Nationwide demo in one ZIP file (33Mb)

Click here for other Audio formats Ogg and FLAC

 

Nationwide

The above photo from the charities gig held at Balwearie High School on January the 28th 1985 was taken when Nationwide were on their second line up. This line up only gigged as Nationwide once before changing their name to the Ghost Train. This line up was, Scotty (vocals and keyboards), Mark Nicol (Drums), Andrew Sinclair (guitar) and John Lessels (bass). Davie Brown (later of the Ghost Train) remembers someone taking a video recording of this whole gig, it would be amazing to find a copy of that video. I remember being particularly taken with Nationwide that night. I remember Scotty playing keyboards as well as singing.

Apocalypse Now

All the remaining MP3's are from the second line up of the band. Apocalypse Now was the song the band opened with at the Balwearie gig.

From the Bizarre

This was the second song the band played at the Balwearie gig.

Rebeccas room

Wasted Youth cover

Bewildered

Freeze cover

Here is a copy of the version of Walk on the Wild Side with the Ghost Train that Alan mentions above. Thanks to Davie Brown for uncovering this audio.

Walk on the Wild Side