Foreword by Ally Brown

Tourists love Edinburgh's heritage, but music fans don't. There's Idlewild, Josef K, The Fire Engines, The Rezillos, The Waterboys, the Incredible String Band. It's not much. We can mibbe claim Boards of Canada, but probably not Arab Strap. Glasgow seems to get away with it; Glasgow's musical reputation is routinely garnished with bands who formed elsewhere; it's like a black hole (in more ways than one) sucking up all of Scotland's small town bands for miles around and claiming them as its own. I've even seen a few Edinburgh bands be limply dragged into Glasgow's vortex, and it's not just because Glasgow is Scotland's biggest city. Glasgow is our most Scottish city too: it's violent and friendly, working class and trendy, poor and unhealthy and alcoholic and witty and fun-loving. Edinburgh is English and posh and full of bankers. Edinburghers drink tea and wear suits and read books; Weegies drink Tennents and wear kilts and fight and fuck.

So, if Glasgow is so rock'n'roll, how come it birthed Orange Juice, Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura? And of those six Edinburgh bands above, at least four of them grew from punk roots. That doesn't match the stereotypes at all. Do both cities' best bands strive to disprove the lazy assumptions heaped on them by history and geography? Edinburgh's underground music scene rocks like a bastard. I've got the tinnitus to prove it, and now you've the incriminating photos that prove it too, pictures that tell a thousand-and-three words each. I cannot hope to compete without waffling, but I will say one thing about my own reaction to the pictures in this book.

You can tell good live music photography by how evocative it is. One image, one permanent impression of a long-forgotten fleeting moment, can convey so much that you feel like you know the band already. The whole thing: the music, the politics, the themes, the history, the drive, the dreams; it's all there. Some of Markus Thorsen's photos in this book are inspirational. I'm writing this in silence, but looking at The Hidden Masters' bassist on his knees, face obscured by a scraggly mop of blonde hair, wrestling the fuck out of his Gibson, my overwhelming reaction is: god, I love music. Isn't it wonderful? That there is the greatest moment of that man's life, his surrender to the glory of music at its fullest; and he gets to recreate that indulgence every time he plays. Look at the Hitcher singer, doubled over as if in pain; and in the next photo he's sprung back up, triumphant, to bellow it all out. What would he do without music? He'd be crippled. I don't think these guys actually care about being part of a city's heritage or scene. They just want to squeeze each moment on-stage for all that it's got.

Edinburgh, 2009


	LIVE - A Collection of Bands from the Edinburgh Live Scene	Foreword by Ally Brown Tourists love Edinburgh's heritage, but music fans don't. There's Idlewild, Josef K, The Fire Engines, The Rezillos, The Waterboys, the Incredible String Band. It's not much. We can mibbe claim Boards of Canada, but probably not Arab Strap. Glasgow seems to get away with it; Glasgow's musical reputation is routinely garnished with bands who formed elsewhere; it's like a black hole (in more ways than one) sucking up all of Scotland's small town bands for miles around and claiming them as its own. I've even seen a few Edinburgh bands be limply dragged into Glasgow's vortex, and it's not just because Glasgow is Scotland's biggest city. Glasgow is our most Scottish city too: it's violent and friendly, working class and trendy, poor and unhealthy and alcoholic and witty and fun-loving. Edinburgh is English and posh and full of bankers. Edinburghers drink tea and wear suits and read books; Weegies drink Tennents and wear kilts and fight and fuck. So, if Glasgow is so rock'n'roll, how come it birthed Orange Juice, Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura? And of those six Edinburgh bands above, at least four of them grew from punk roots. That doesn't match the stereotypes at all. Do both cities' best bands strive to disprove the lazy assumptions heaped on them by history and geography? Edinburgh's underground music scene rocks like a bastard. I've got the tinnitus to prove it, and now you've the incriminating photos that prove it too, pictures that tell a thousand-and-three words each. I cannot hope to compete without waffling, but I will say one thing about my own reaction to the pictures in this book. You can tell good live music photography by how evocative it is. One image, one permanent impression of a long-forgotten fleeting moment, can convey so much that you feel like you know the band already. The whole thing: the music, the politics, the themes, the history, the drive, the dreams; it's all there. Some of Markus Thorsen's photos in this book are inspirational. I'm writing this in silence, but looking at The Hidden Masters' bassist on his knees, face obscured by a scraggly mop of blonde hair, wrestling the fuck out of his Gibson, my overwhelming reaction is: god, I love music. Isn't it wonderful? That there is the greatest moment of that man's life, his surrender to the glory of music at its fullest; and he gets to recreate that indulgence every time he plays. Look at the Hitcher singer, doubled over as if in pain; and in the next photo he's sprung back up, triumphant, to bellow it all out. What would he do without music? He'd be crippled. I don't think these guys actually care about being part of a city's heritage or scene. They just want to squeeze each moment on-stage for all that it's got. Edinburgh, 2009
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