Photo courtesy of the Skids.
By Andy
Clive and Barbara Ford's fervor for the Skids -- their hometown Dunfermline, Scotland, musical heroes who kicked their unique punk tunes into gear in 1977 -- is immensely infectious as the couple chats away and vividly brings those days of yore to life.
You'd think it was 1977 all over again on a recent Saturday afternoon as they enthusiastically reel off stories about their punk, pop and rock history while seated over lunch at Demetris, which is just a quick walk up from the Edmonds, Washington, waterfront.
The Fords, who have been married for 46 years, now reside on the stunning Olympic Peninsula about 49 miles from Seattle and possess a vital piece of their Dunfermline past that's making quite a musical reverberation in the present day.
Enter "Skids 1977," the band's earliest recordings from October of that year that the Fords have released on their own imprint, Awrite Records. The stellar and jarring eight-song demo collection dropped on Oct. 2 on vinyl, compact disc and digital platforms -- and Skids fans and family members are ultra stoked.
"1977 just called. Apparently my dad was making an absolute racket. Turns out it was pretty great," proclaimed Kirsten Adamson in a Facebook post regarding the late Stuart Adamson, who wrote all the songs and lyrics while delivering his distinctive guitaristry as the Skids landed on the Dunfermline sonic map. The Skids first unleashed their tunes in a live setting in August of 1977 at the Belleville Hotel.
The "Skids 1977" original lineup also features vocalist Richard Jobson (Joey Jolson), bassist Bill Simpson (Alex Plode) and drummer Tom Kellichan (Tom Bomb) alongside Adamson (Stevie Cologne), and the release comes at us with the full support of the Skids and the Adamson family.
Barbara and Clive first met as teens in Dunfermline and witnessed heaps of Skids gigs. Clive first latched onto the Skids' stunning sound while observing their first rehearsals, checked out their first gig and stepped into the band's inner circle as its roadie. He remains friends with the Adamson family and the rest of the Skids to this day.
Stuart was Clive's best man on the Fords' wedding day. Before their wedding when some kids noticed Stuart at the church, they chanted, "Skids! Skids! Skids! Skids!" just like the crowd shouted during gigs, Barbara said.
When compiling "Skids 1977" and revisiting that demo, Barbara noted about her reaction to the performance from the players who were in their mid- to late-teens: "You can hear it -- the immediacy and the energy. The passion, the grit, the energy. It's just amazing."
Barbara added with zest as me, Cat and Clive listened intently and smiled: "I love that it was a one-take thing. They went in the studio, they played the songs like they were doing a gig and that was it. It's pure passion and artistry."
From "Test Tube Babies" all the way through to "Don't Want to Go," the listener is literally yanked by the hand into that recording studio and given a proper display of how things went down in Dunfermline in that magical punk year of 1977.
Clive first came into possession of the reel-to-reel master tape demo in 1977, passed it off to Stuart in 1980 -- a year before he formed Big Country -- and then received it back from Stuart in the early 1990s one day in Dunfermline.
"Stuart was moving to Florida and he was emptying his house and having to clear out, and he came down to my work. I worked in a local music store, and he came up to me and said, 'Hey, Clive, you should have this. You'll know what to do with it better than anyone,'" he said.
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Clive and Barbara in front of the Churchkey Pub in Edmonds, WA. (Andy photo) |
The tape has sat with the Fords over the years and discussions about its release occurred in 2006 when Green Day and U2 covered the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming" for charity fundraising following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Twenty years later, "Skids 1977" has finally come back to life and people can get a glimpse into how prolific the young Adamson was in his outlook on life, Clive noted.
"It's a historical piece, it's the first songs of Stuart Adamson that were recorded and played. I think the tape captures the energy of the band really well from that period. Because there's a lot of people who came to the Skids later and go, 'It's not a punk band,' and they definitely have their origins in the punk scene," Clive explained.
"It was definitely from a time when punk wasn't a look or a sound, it was very much more of an attitude of mind. And all those Stuart songs, if you listen to the lyrics, you can see what he's talking about. And I think that that carried on right through to what he was writing about in Big Country. The songs were very much either social commentary or personal commentary put in the position of somebody else," he added. On the Big Country front, the Fords' best friends are guitarist Bruce Watson -- who was also once in the Skids -- and his wife Sandra, who was the best maid at their wedding.
In the Skids realm, Facebook and Instagram pages are ablaze with excitement regarding the demo release. People are reminded about how solid a band they were and still are today as Jobson fronts a new iteration of the group.
Barbara loved those early Skids songs upon hearing the band roll them out of the gate at the exciting gigs. She feels that people need to get their ears on those foundational songs from a band that would have a massive impact on Dunfermline.
"The whole thing about the whole punk scene, and specifically in Dunfermline, it wasn't just about bands, it gave an opportunity for people to have a wider outlook than what was being offered to them at the time. We know so many people that became writers, photographers, as well as being musicians, or even working in the industry. Just opened up a career path," she said.
In his liner notes for the album, Jobson remembers that at gigs, Clive always waited for the violence to commence and he was "always smiling -- loving the experience." He said the Skids were a different sort of band "that didn’t want to behave or look like we were supposed to," finding suits and shoes in junk shops and customizing their own clothes. He described their outfits as "magnificent and ridiculous" and that "We were abused and loathed by those who didn’t understand us but we revelled in our difference."
Barbara noted that she not only had an affinity for the Skids' songs, but the clothes they wore. "I loved everything about them," she said, adding that she could relate to the Skids because they were same age as her.
Jobson continued on about "Skids 1977": "The demos have a ghostly quality but the rage is there, and somehow they still connect. It was a beautiful time in all of our lives, a moment where youth, and anger created friendship, and hope. You can hear the beginning of the band's journey in every song, and maybe the hint of riffs that would in the future, become the sound of the Skids."
Visit Awrite Records for ordering information at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61592983791226
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Part of the TSHIT Skids collection. |
