Skip to main content

Jeremy Thoms - The Stereogram Revue

When Jeremy Thoms decided to start a record label, it was initially to put out the debut album by his own band, The Cathode Ray. Three years on, Stereogram Recordings has a roster of eight acts, six of whom will be taking part in the two-night mini package tour this week styled by Thoms as The Stereogram Revue. A seventh, The Band of Holy Joy, will be represented by proxy, but more of that anon.

“It's something that hasn't happened for a very long time,” Thoms says of the initiative. “I was inspired by the likes of the Stax revues in the sixties, and the Live Stiffs tours in the seventies, where all the acts on the label play on the same bill. With the Stereogram Revue, everybody plays twenty minute sets and hopefully leaves their ego at the door. There will be rough edges to it, I'm sure, but I quite like that. All my favourite artists, like Vic Godard, just plug in and thrash it out. Even so, I suspect I'll be a complete nervous wreck on the night.”

With James King and the Lonewolves closing each night, the rest of the bill will be made up of Dunbar-based wunderkind, Roy Moller, St Christopher Medal, formed by veterans of 1990s combo, Life With Nixon, and velveteen female-fronted sextet Lola in Slacks. The Cathode Ray and another of Thoms' musical vehicles, The Fabulous Artisans, will also appear on the bill.

In terms of running order, other than the Lonewolves, acts will be “shuffled round like a pack of cards,” says Thoms. “It's all about the collective.”

To accompany the events, the label will be releasing The Sound of Stereogram, a limited edition cut price CD featuring all the bands from the shows plus latest Stereogram signing, Milton Star. While the album will feature a track by The Band of Holy Joy, The Stereogram Revue will see them represented by actor Tam Dean Burn. As a long time artistic collaborator of the BOHJ's driving force, Johny Brown, Burn will present a piece of performance art in the guise of the Band of Holy Joy Scrap and Salvage Movement.

“There will be visuals projected,” says Thoms, “and that opens the night up to other areas. It's a very art thing, and will probably be quite freeform.”

If the roots of The Stereogram Revue are in old-school package tours, the label itself has umbilical links with Alan Horne's Postcard and, especially, Bob Last and Hilary Morrison's Edinburgh-based Fast Product. Douglas MacIntyre's Creeping Bent label, which was also inspired by Fast, can be regarded as a fellow traveller.

Many of Thoms' signings have roots in the original wave of post-punk, with James King and The Lonewolves and The Band of Holy Joy the best known of the Stereogram roster. This taps into a recent resurgence of interest in the original Sound of Young Scotland, exemplified best in Grant McPhee's film, Big Gold Dream, which documents the era.

“There's definitely a continuum,” says Thoms, whose own musical pedigree dates back to fronting The Presidents Men, who released two singles on Aberdeen's Oily Records label. Moving to Edinburgh in 1982, Thoms formed the Strawberry Tarts before playing with the likes of The Sour Grapes Bunch inbetween touring with The Revillos.

“From a distance you realise how important all that stuff was, but when you're in the thick of it you don't know it. But Stereogram seems to have tapped into that as well. It's people who did stuff, then dropped out of the scene, got a job, got married, had kids, and who've now come out the other side and are still making music that matters.

“With The Stereogram Revue, hopefully we'll be reaching fans of all the bands who are playing, and maybe introducing something new to fans of one band who maybe haven't heard some of the others. Although none of the bands on Stereogram sound similar, there is a shared ethos there that these two nights are trying to cement in some way. In it's heart of hearts, it's like a good old-fashioned variety show.”

The Stereogram Revue, The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Wednesday; CCA, Glasgow, Thursday. The Sound of Stereogram is released on Wednesday.
www.stereogramrecordings.co.uk

The Herald, December 1st 2015

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL