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Scared To Dance was released in February 1979, during the final few weeks of the notorious 'Winter of Discontent'. At the time, the Callaghan government's well-intentioned social contract was being assailed by widespread industrial action. Co-ordinated strikes by car plant workers, lorry and train drivers and even refuse collectors had plunged Britain into a kind of post-apocalyptic chaos, the seedbed for the wilfully destructive Thatcher years ushered in by the general election just ten weeks later. Sheathed in a distinctive sleeve by the artist Russell Mills - who would go on to do groundbreaking work with Brian Eno, David Sylvian and Nine Inch Nails (as well as book covers for literary heavyweights including Samuel Beckett, Josef Skvorecky and Milan Kundera) - the album welded the anxiety and dread of the times to a spirit of bloodied-but-unbowed optimism. Though they formed in the first half of 1977 as a punk band, spurred to action by New Rose, Anarchy In The UK and White Riot, The Skids evolved at lightning-fast pace. They quickly retooled their set from 100mph blitzkrieg bops like Nationwide, Mouth To Mouth and Sick Club to brooding, dystopian moments like the long-lost multi-part epic New Daze and Scared To Dance, the song that would become the title track of their debut album. Such was the speed of their constant reinvention that, even by the time they signed to Virgin Records less than a year later, the song was the oldest in their set. Gilded with extraordinary playing by guitarist Stuart Adamson (described by John Peel as "the Jimi Hendrix of punk" and a prime influence on six-string gunslingers as diverse as U2's The Edge, Blur's Graham Coxon and Manic Street Preachers' James Dean Bradfield), Scared To Dance pivoted around the distinctive sound of co-founder Bill Simpson's Gherson bass. However the lyric, one of the last Adamson penned for The Skids before handing over wordsmithing duties to the band's frontman Richard Jobson, was at least partly inspired by an NME sub-editor. "Richard and I were round my house one night," Adamson explained in October 1977, a few months after unveiling the song, "and I was reading Tony Parsons' piece on Smokie in Poland with a headline 'Scared To Dance'. I just took it from there. It's really two songs in one. The verses are just a boy-meets-girl situation, but the chorus has wider implications." While drummer Tam Kellichan remained their secret weapon - powering the band with a distinctive, amphetamine-edged style that would have been the envy of Top Fuel dragster racers - the band's metamorphosis was equally rapid. A questing sense of adventure led to a distinctive, and wholly unique, set of new songs less than six months after they'd formed. Among them were Of One Skin, an early live favourite, which blended Jobson's metaphor-heavy lyrical style with Adamson's rapidly expanding repertoire of guitar innovations, the nervy Zit (included here on the disc of previously-unreleased demos made for Virgin in August 1978) and the brutalist art-pop of Six Times. "Punk was the greatest thing ever," noted Adamson. "It was the feeling that was important. It was young people having the chance to say what they wanted regardless of the dictates of fashion." But by the time the Sex Pistols imploded, midway through January 1978, The Skids were already reinventing themselves. As white labels of their first release appeared (a three-track EP featuring Test Tube Babies, which had been recorded at Edinburgh's REL Studios on 31 October 1977, coupled with the more representative Reasons and all-time Adamson classic Charles), the band were already accelerating towards a different musical future. "We were affected attitude-wise only," Jobson told Melody Maker when asked the inevitable question about punk shortly after the album's release. "Musically, it was harder because we never really saw the bands. We were alienated being so far north. Through the media, that was the only way we got any vibes from it. The attitude through the media and then, eventually, the records." The Skids - as the third disc in this set, a recording of their show at London's Marquee Club in November 1978, proves - were always an outstanding live act. But properly capturing their innovative drive wasn't straightforward. Theirs, after all, was a very different sound to the new wave acts who'd gone before. Virgin initially arranged recording sessions with producer Mike Howlett, but the results were quickly scrapped. Instead, the label recruited Dave Batchelor, who'd previously produced The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, to oversee the band's studio work. Batchelor's pitch-perfect production provided the connective tissue between The Skids' extraordinary live performances and the requirements of the recording studio. Crafting a sound palette filled with sub-oceanic bass, shimmering reverb textures and eerily disembodied pianos, Batchelor - along with engineer Mick Glossop - created the perfect setting for Adamson's virtuoso guitar work. He also got the best of out Jobson, who celebrated his 18th birthday during the album sessions at London's Townhouse Studios. "It was evident from very early on that we were working on something very special," recalls Batchelor. "There were lots of moments when Mick and I would look over at each other in wonderment at what we were seeing or hearing. The band were just so inventive." While Sweet Suburbia - the first single from the sessions - stalled at No.70, the follow-up release, the Wide Open EP took The Skids into the Top 50, courtesy of lead track The Saints Are Coming. A month after the album's release a further single, Into The Valley, took The Skids into the Top 10 for the first time. Crucially, Scared To Dance was one of a quartet of seminal long-players that helped define the emerging post-punk movement. Bookended by Magazine's Real Life (released in June 1978), First Issue by Public Image (December 1978) and Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (June 1979), the Skids album was oriented towards the same principles of innovation, a rejection of the formulaic and the already-been-done. As Melody Maker noted: "Clearly they were sparked into action by the '76 explosion but their rugged individualism puts them at arm's length from the standard (and now pretty tiresome) ramalama blueprint. The music has retained punk's corrosive attack while broadening its vision." Looking back on on those times, Jobson has his own view. "We were fearless in the beginning," he recalls, "always trying new things and not afraid to be different in a musical world that was beginning to sound very derivative and safe." As it turned out, U2 and Green Day agreed. The two bands united in 2006 to cover The Saints Are Coming to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The single narrowly missed out on the top spot in the UK charts but took the coveted No.1 spot in other countries round the world, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Spain, introducing a whole new generation to the music of The Skids and, in turn, Scared To Dance. © TIM BARR - 2017 ___________________________________________________ |
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{BOTTOM OF BOX} DISC 1 - SCARED TO DANCE DISC 2 - THE VIRGIN DEMOS 1978 DISC 3 - LIVE AT THE MARQUEE 1978 This compilation Ⓟ & © 2017 Virgin Records, under exclusive license to Caroline lnternational. The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Virgin Records and is licensed to {BOOKLET} Project Co-Ordination ___________________________________________________ |
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{BACK OF SLEEVE} 01. Into The valley 09. Calling The Tune 16. Sweet Suburbia Tracks 1-12 originally released in February 1979 (V 2116) All tracks produced by David Batchelor except tracks 13-15 produced by Skids THEY COULD NOT SO MUCH AS BRING THEMSELVES TO SAY WE’RE JUST A LOT OF CHEAP HEELS, A BUNDLE OF PREDESTINED FAILURES: COULD NOT EVEN COMFORT THEMSELVES WITH THE THOUGHT THAT LIFE WAS A GAMBLE - J.P. SATRE "A CLASSIC CASE OF ROCK N ROLL PARANORA”- RONNIE GURR Ⓟ & © 2017 Virgin Records under exclusive licence to Caroline International The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Virgin Records and is licensed to Caroline International. All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying reproduction, haring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited.
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CREDITS FOR THE VIRGIN DEMOS 1978 CDjump to:(Liner Notes | Box Set Credits | Scared To Dance | Marquee) {BACK OF SLEEVE} SCOTCH BRAND Magnetic Tape REEL NO DATE TITLE SPEED ENG NOTICE: All tracks previously unreleased. Ⓟ & © 2017 Virgin Records, under exclusive licence to Caroline International.
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CREDITS FOR LIVE AT THE MARQUEE CDjump to:(Liner Notes | Box Set Credits | Scared To Dance | Demos) {FRONT OF SLEEVE} marquee Thurs 26th Oct (Adm 85p) Fri 27th Oct (Adm £1.25) Sat 28th Oct (Adm £1.00) Mon 30th Oct (Adm £1.00) Tues 31st Oct (Adm £1.00) Wed 1st Nov (Adm £85p) Thurs 2nd Nov (Adm £1.00) HAMBURGERS AND OTHER HOT & COLD SNACKS AVAILABLE {BACK OF SLEEVE} 1. Of One Skin Recorded at The Marquee, London, 1st November 1978. Ⓟ & © 2017 Virgin Records, under exclusive licence to Caroline International. |
