BOOK REVIEW: Postcards from Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983 - 1995 by Grant McPhee

This article was originally published in The Big Issue in July 2024.

Postcards from Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983 - 1995, Grant McPhee, out now, Omnibus Press, £18.39

1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, Ian Wade, out now, Nine Eight Books, £16.49

The esteemed music journalist Simon Reynolds once said, “Indie music as we know it was invented in Scotland.”

He wasn’t wrong, and here’s the hefty oral history to prove it. Curated by filmmaker Grant McPhee, director of the essential Scottish music documentaries Big Gold Dream and Teenage Superstars, it’s the definitive account of a seminal period in pop history.

This is the story of a hugely creative and incestuous scene nominally led by the likes of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, the Pastels, Primal Scream, and the Shop Assistants.

But to McPhee’s eternal credit, there are no footnotes or also-rans here – practically every Scottish indie act who released a record during this fertile epoch receives their due. The circle wouldn’t be complete without contributions from the Jasmine Minks or Meat Whiplash, or even Nocturnal Vermin and their bizarrely prescient ‘tribute’ to budding MSP classmate John Swinney.

It’s a Byzantine saga involving hundreds of musicians and ever-changing line-ups, so much so it sometimes resembles Monty Python’s Rock Notes sketch. McPhee – who provides context via clear-eyed chapter intros and outros - is aware of this, drily noting at one point that the sprawling rock family tree he’s dealing with “would send shivers down Pete Frame’s spine.”

Nevertheless, he makes compelling sense of it all. A labour of love, it’s a sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet tribute to a gawky generation of like-minded dreamers who fully embraced the post-punk DIY ethos. They all left something indelible behind.