Kirkcaldy Alternative Bands of the 1980's
Links:
Check out Michael Laing's page, on the Kirkcaldy Bands that were around when we were too busy being young and watching Blake's Seven: gothman63.users.btopenworld.com/
Visit the web site of Mark Nicol of the Ghost Train's record company: www.lithiumrecords.co.uk
e-mail: tom@pooheads.com
This site was launched on the 'net back in May 2000. It's not been updated since but (as of April 2001) I'm finally getting round to it. However, thanks for all the mails from those of you have been in touch over the past months, it's nice to know you are all still out there somewhere......
New info on the Ghost Train added in July 2001.
Coming in the next few weeks I hope to add some more material written by members of the bands themselves and some new MP3's.
Keep in touch.....
Some memories and an Introduction
Whenever asked to name the favourite time of my life, I have to go back to my late teens in Kirkcaldy. I had just moved to a flat in town, seemed to have loads of new friends, and (most importantly) was involved in loads and loads of music.
For those of you outside of Scotland (there must be some) Kirkcaldy is a little town in the South of Fife - it's that bit that all you Americans think is France when you look out over the water from Edinburgh.
Is it my imagination, or was there really loads and loads of good bands around at this time? We went to see most of them, even the heavy metal bands from Glenrothes (why is it that the heavy metal bands always seemed to come from Glenrothes). The best bit is that we were best friends with most of them. Went to the same parties, drank in the same pubs, borrowed the same equipment, went to each others gigs (even pretended to enjoy most of them) and sometimes borrowed each other's girlfriends.
This site started off life as just a site for the Surgical Wars. However, on listening to the Surgical Wars tapes again, I uncovered a whole load of other material.
I thought how strange it would be for all these bands we used to go and see at this time to now reach a potential audience of the whole world. Getting a gig outside of Kirkcaldy was always a bit of a challenge in these days!
So this is the final resting place of the Kirkcaldy alternative bands of the 1980's and it's dedicated to everyone from these days.
It mainly represents the collected tapes, vinyl, photos, album covers and memories of Tom and Ian. We will, over the course of the next few weeks, concentrate on finishing the MP3's and, more importantly, sling some memories and stories together of these days.
As I have no idea where most of the people involved are now, this material has been reproduced here without the permissions of the various people involved. I took the view that, as even the newest recordings are over ten years now, no one would mind the material being used (I don't suppose anyone is going to sell any more records now are they?) However, if anyone seriously objects to their performances being used, we will take their views into account.
On a more positive side, it's be good if any of the various bands involved wanted to contribute any material, to improve the quality of some of our recordings. You could also change some of the things I may have got wrong, or add song titles where I just have "track - 1" etc. In any event, if you just want to say "hi" or let me know what you thought of the site, please get in touch.
If you have stumbled over this site and have no idea where Kirkcaldy is (this is the wonderweb after all!) give's a mail and let me know what you thought. Which band would you most like to reform?
It's fair to say that the sound quality of the MP3's is variable! Some of the Ghost Train and Twist material is extremely good quality. However, quite lot of the MP3's were originally recorded at various gigs in Kirkcaldy my me on my mono Marantz tape deck (originally purchased in 1981 to record Blakes Seven). These are not bad when they are copied to electronic files from first generation tapes. Unfortunately, some of the first generation recordings were lost or borrowed and not given back about fifteen years ago, so there are some that are from second (or even third) generation copies. So there may be a bit of hiss and loss of treble on some of the MP3's. Please do adjust your computers, I found that by mucking around with the mixer software of my sound card I was able to make quite a difference.
It goes without saying that we would love to get hold of more material for the site. If you contact us on the e-mail address below, I can easily make MP3 files from originals and scan in any photos or memorabilia that I can get hold of. Almost unbelievably we had to leave the Gimmx out as we have absolutely no material, there must be some out there. Top of out hit list is the tape of "Who Cares?" at the Abbotshall that was loaned to Cameron Campbell (on this site with All Days Fade) in 1990, come on Cameron, it is the only tape after all! Also I am only aware of one band photo of the Surgical Wars, which was taken by Angela of my college course (organiser of the 1986 charity gigs - of which more about will appear on the Surgical Wars page.
For all those who take everything literally, there are of course bands that just nudge into the 1990's here. Some of the bands represented are also from as far away as Methil and Edinburgh! However most of the bands here centred around Kirkcaldy and are from the 1980's.
