Toms New Shoes
Tom and Andy J's memories of Tom's New Shoes
"I heard a song last night that could have been the soundtrack to my life"
Tom's New Shoes were a band from Edinburgh in Scotland. They were active from 1989 to the end of 1991.
The band was: Andy Tait (singer), Andy Jeffries (lead guitar), Kev Tucker (drums), Craig Smith (bass) and Jim Paterson (rhythm guitar).
Originally Jim Paterson had been in a band with Gary Lamb. Gary was a talented bass player and singer and he could do a mean impression of one of the singer's of Squeeze (Chris Difford or Glen Tilbrook, I can never remember which). I first met Jim when we worked together at BT in the late 1980's. I only knew Whatever the Weather from Jim's stories, and it was a surprise when Gary became interested in forming another band. Gary had known Andy Jefferies as they both had jobs at the time that involved Social Work and Andy and Gary began playing together and asked Jim to join. I can't remember who the drummer was, Gary was on bass and vocals. I remember a number of names being used, Last Train to Heaven was one I remember. The one gig I saw that they played that I have a tape of somewhere was in early 1989, they were called Dolphin City at that gig.
I remember another gig at Edinburgh's Negotiants, but that's all I can recall doing, as Gary emigrated to Canada around April 1989 and never returned to live in Scotland.
Jim and Andy fairly quickly decided that they wanted to continue and try to form another band. They placed various advertisements to try to find band members.
I can't recall in what order everyone joined, but towards the end of 1989, Kev Tucker, Andy Tait and Craig Smith joined.
The band struggled for a few months to try to get a distinctive sound. Andy, Craig and Jim were all capable of writing strong songs, but I think there musical tastes were quite different.
Andy says - Jim and I had played a couple of gigs with Gary as "Dolphin City" and when he left (Feb 1989) we really wanted to keep the band going. However at that point it was just the 2 of us and we didn't have any of our own material worked out. (Dolphin City's set was a mix of old Whatever the Weather songs, newer ones by Gary and covers). Jim and I both started writing a couple of things each. Jim's first songs were "She's Singing" (which opened our first gig but was dropped quite soon after) and "Caught". Mine were "Forgotten Summer" which made it onto the first demo and various duffers which didn't even make it into the earliest live sets. We were jamming these songs together from early 1989 onwards. Craig joined us that summer, Andy Tait later in the year and finally Kev joined after auditioning many drummers early in 1990.
The song that was able to make the band gel was a song Jim wrote that became one of my favourite Tom's New Shoes Songs - "Just Can't Believe You". The band finally found its style and a number of other songs quickly followed.
The bands first gig was at Negotiants towards the end of 1989. I have a tape of it, but it is pretty rough. Some of the original material was in place and sounding good, but I remember some predictable cover versions - in 1989 did we really need another REM cover?
The band gigged extensively throughout 1989 and 1990 and developed quite a catalogue of good original material.
Andy says - There were 3 songwriters in the band, Jim, Craig and I, but each of us usually pretty much worked on our own songs and would come to a practice with a virtually completed song. It was sometimes a nerve-wracking business to expose your song to the rest of the band in case they thought it was shite! Quite a few songs were dropped from the set in the year and a half we were gigging.
Andy says - With three of us writing, and all of us pretty driven at the time, we produced a lot of stuff and simply ended up with too many songs for the set. Early songs that were ditched included "She's Singing" (Jim's), "Wages of Sin" (music by me, lyrics by Jim), "Too Good to be You" (me and Jim again) and "Girl I Used to Know". Also cover versions of "Be my Baby", "Will You Still Love me Tomorrow", T.Rex's "Dreamy Lady" and Husker Du's "Could you be the One".
This is the one and only Tom's New Shoes video. Jim's twin brother Richard was, at the time, a film and TV technician up at Napier University. I think this was recorded as a kind of exercise for the students, certainly I recognise some of the names from the credits. This is one of Craig's early songs for the band "Fine Art of Persuasion".
This is the band playing at the above mentioned Peppermint Park in Dalkeith in 1991. This is "Just Can't Believe you" and is part of a whole set that was captured on video by a mate of Kev's. Unusually for the times, the sound quality is very good.
The rest of the songs from the video are here
The band recorded a number of demo tapes, and some of the gigs and practice sessions were recorded. Here are downloadable versions of the best of them:
| Just Can't Believe You | Recorded with Dave Gray at the Sound Cafe in Penicuik, April 1990. | Tom says - This is the bands breakthrough song. It contains all that was good about the band. It's catchy and original. |
| Caught | Recorded Live, Peppermint Park Dalkeith, 1991. |
Tom says - I love the lyric on this one. Andy Says - |
| Your Mother | Recorded Live, Peppermint Park Dalkeith, 1991. | Andy says - This was one of the very few songs which was a group effort from the start. Jim just had a couple of the riffs and no lyrics. Andy Tait wrote the lyrics and vocal melody, and I added the intro and middle eight. These were lifted from another incomplete song of mine which was meant to sound like the Only Ones. I also added the progression from F to Fminor in the chorus. |
| Red Letter Day | Recorded Live, Peppermint Park Dalkeith, 1991. | Tom says - The political scene in 1990 and early 1991 were dominated by the Poll tax that (among other things) led to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. The Poll Tax was a hated tax, as it broke one of the most basic principles of taxation, that the level was set, based on ability to pay. It was doubly hated in Scotland as the Thatcher government launched it there a year before everywhere else in the UK. Most of our crowd decided not to pay, in fact I never paid any poll tax until long after it was abolished. The sheer level of non payment meant it was impossible for anyone to be effectively sued for non payment (in fact the councils were still chasing poll tax debt in the late 1990's). Andy's song captures mood of the times. |
| In Your Dreams | Recorded with Dave Gray at the Sound Cafe in Penicuik, October 1990. |
Tom says - A real crowd pleaser, I remember this being played towards the end of the bands set. Andy says - Andy Tait wrote the lyric of verse 2 of "In Your Dreams" (which was basically my song but with help in the lyrics from Jim and Andy). |
| Home is Where the Heart Lies | Recorded with Dave Gray at the Sound Cafe in Penicuik, April 1991. | Tom says - I totally love this song. This was Craig's song. It's a bit bittersweet really, as I can hear the seeds of the bands split here. Grunge had just began to happen and Andy J and Craig wanted to go in a more grunge direction, whilst Kev and Jim wanted a poppier sound. You can hear the beginnings of Andy J and Craig's grunge phase in the guitar sound here. The lyric is great, Craig's songwriting at its best. I believe there is an even grungier version of this song somewhere. |
| Falls Like Rain | Recorded with Dave Gray at the Sound Cafe in Penicuik, April 1991. | Tom says - A late, more reflective Toms New Shoes song. |
| Unfinished Story | Recorded with Dave Gray at the Sound Cafe in Penicuik, April 1991. | |
| Lee Van Cleef | Recorded on a Walkman in rehearsal at Split Level in December 1991. | Tom says - This is just great. I always loved Andy J's guitar playing and this showcases him really well. The band opened their set with this instrumental towards the end of their gigging days. |
| Everybody Needs Something to Worry About | Recorded on a Walkman in rehearsal at Split Level in December 1991. | Tom says - Jim wrote this song, he is at his self deprecating best here. Always a worrier, he put a lot of his worries into a song. I later stole the chords from the chorus for, what I later began to think of, as one of the worst Pooheads songs, "What's a girl like you doing with a guy like that?". I told myself that it was OK to do this, as I was sure that Jim had stolen the chord sequence from somewhere else anyway. |
| While my Guitar Gently Weeps | Recorded on a Walkman in rehearsal at Split Level in December 1991. | Tom says - A rare cover, Andy T sounds like Ian Gillan here. |
There are more songs to follow, one I've fixed some technical issues.
Audio Files Help:
You can just click the relevant link to open the link to the prevent MP3, this will open a "MP3 Player" in your browser and the MP3 should automatically download, you can see the progress of the download by the horizontal bar filling up as the file downloads. When it's downloaded, just click on the little arrow (that's like a play button on a cassette player) to play it.I have a DSL connection, and the files all download so fast, it is almost like a streaming file. If you want to continue browsing the site whilst you listen to the music, you can right click (or control click on a Mac) on the links to the MP3's and choose, "open file in new window", or if your browser supports tabbed browsing, you can select "open link in new tab". You can also download the files by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac), and close "save link as", chose the location on your hard drive you want to save the files, and then select "save". Whatever will they think of next.
Andy J says - We didn't know it, but sadly by that time (Tom says
- when the above three songs were recorded) we had played our last
gig - October 1991 in Aberdeen - can't remember the name of the
pub but it was a good venue, we always got a good crowd there. By
the end of the year "Nevermind" had come out, Craig and I were
wanting to head in a more grungy direction, we formed Chickweed
Mark 1 (me, Craig and Andy Weir) which only played one gig in Feb
1992 before Craig departed for the Joyriders. Ironically Chickweed
Mark 2 (me, Andy and Wee) also played our last gig there in May
1994.
Where are they now?
Andy J is a proud father of three, works in Social
work in Edinburgh and helped create this website After a long
absence, Andy just got back into playing music with a new band
called "The Smallest Bones".
This is The Smallest Bones playing the Village in Leith on October 6th 2007. This song is called "Teardrop". Apologies for the quality, it was pretty dark in the pub that night. Andy's on the far right, still playing his Gibson SG he played with Tom's New Shoes. The rest of what I was able to record of the gig can be found on my Youtube channel.
Andy also helps he out with my own songs. Here is part of a guitar solo for a song called "That's Why I hate the Blues". The finished song will eventually be on www.andrewcrescent.com
Andy Tait lives and works in Hong Kong.
Jim Paterson lives and works in Edinburgh.
Craig Smith had a long and exciting musical career after Tom's New
Shoes, which included forming the Edinburgh Bedroom band The
Pooheads with me in the dog days of Tom's New Shoes in Autumn
1991. He also played with Andy J in Chickweed before joining the
"almost signed kings of Edinburgh grunge" The Joyriders. He is now
the proud father of two, lives in Musselburgh and plays with the
Northern Alliance. Their
website is here.
Kev Tucker was last heard of living in Dalkeith.
A more recent photo. L-R - Craig Smith, Velda Edmunson (bass player of Severin), Andy Weir (Drummer of Chickweed and stand in drummer at the Joyriders reunion gig) and Andy Jeffries. Photo taken at the Smallest Bones gig, October 6 2007.
Contact us
This website was made by Tom Reid and Andy Jeffries. If you want to contact us you can mail us by clicking this link.
