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Thanks so much to Ian, Paul and Martin for the interview! The Radio Ghosts have just got back together, after releasing some great records in the early 80s, to release a new album called “Boo!”. They have written new songs and they sound great. The CD is available directly from the band, which features members of classic indiepop bands like The Wee Cherubs, The Bachelor Pad or A Tune A Day. Get it here!
And to learn more about them, here’s a great and funny interview I just did with them!
++ Hi! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you?
Iain: In the pink. I speak only for myself; the others may admit to other shades.
Paul: Even paler than usual, having been indoors even more than normal.
Martin: Hi! I am fine, if slightly distressed from having recently emerged from a bath which was far
too hot.
++ I was surprised to see a new release by the band, a CD album! It has been released so many years after your previous release (1982!). I have to ask, what sparked this reunion?
Iain: Paul and Martin got in touch to suggest a one-night reunion birthday party gig. We played to a small invited audience and had such a blast we thought it was a shame not to do more. I said, ‘let’s make a concept album!’ but common sense prevailed and we started writing and recording in a more conventional manner.
Paul: In July 2018 we reunited to play at Iain’s birthday event – I’m sure Iain won’t mind me telling you it was a big birthday for him. He was ninety. No, not really, but we’re none of us young any more, you know. I just thought we should try and do something together while we still have a few usable faculties left.
Martin: In fact, we were working on the middle eight of a particularly tricky song from 1982-2018. This took up all of our attention, so gigging just had to take a back seat for a little while. Eventually, we went back to our initial version, so that was fine. Then we decided just to play a few songs at some bum’s birthday party, just for something to do really. Iain, I think his name was, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
++ Are the songs in the new album brand new? Or are there songs written back in the day?
Iain: It’s all new material and gushing out at a positively indecent rate. We have score of news songs written over the last year or two. Not all will manage to crawl from their puddles in our dark recesses into the light but many will at some later date.
Paul: We played some of the old songs at the reunion gig, but we decided it would be good to record some new stuff – and there seemed to be a lot of it emerging. It was quite hard reducing it down to just one album’s worth.
Martin: All except one are new, and written in a ten month spell of feverish, frantic creativity.
++ The new album is titled “Boo!”, why did you choose that name?
Iain: As, I believe most bands do, we spent ages mulling over what to call it, eventually settling on Hauntology Volume II: A Dance and A Cheery Song. Which we thought was great until we had to say it out loud. Paul saved us with this pithier and relevant suggestion.
Paul: I think we had been thinking too seriously about it for a while, and Boo! just made us smile.
Martin: We chose that name because that, allegedly, is what ghosts say.
++ For anyone new to your music, what can they expect in “Boo!”? Has the sound of the band changed much from your first period?
Iain: Freneticism and angular guitar has given way to a more varied feast of musical offerings. We have enriched our musical palette, nibbled on a sonic smorgasbord from hither and yon, sipped from the cup of diversity and offer up a banquet of tasty treats with more depth, width and heft. All nonfattening.
Paul: There’s things about it that still make it identifiably Radio Ghosts – Martin’s guitar playing is very distinctive for one thing, and often takes songs in unexpected and sometimes breathtaking directions. But there are differences too. The fast songs are less fast, and the slow ones are deeper, man. Iain and I are singing more now too, which I think adds new colours. And the technology has changed how we record songs too. Because we live in different parts of the country, we mostly record digitally, which also means we have more control over the recordings than we did when we were hiring studios and paying by the hour. Oddly, although you might think remote working would make collaboration more difficult, it has actually increased it I think. Partly because we have the time and space to go away and think about what we would add or change, rather than always having to come up with something on the spot in a studio or rehearsal room.
Martin: Dramatically. Our earlier incarnation produced spiky, guitar based post-punk excursions into harsh introspective territories. Our current form sees us more mature, still stirring the same pitch dark pot of paranoia, but not putting so much chilli in. Though the themes remain, the music ha definitely evolved and is more satisfying and rewarding for the listener.
++ And who are Spectroscope, the label that released the album? Is it yourselves?
Iain: We are not liberty to divulge this information.
Paul: Scary, dangerous people. Move on.
Martin: They say we may never know who is behind the shadowy Spectroscope entity. We definitely feel this is an area where the fewer questions we ask, the healthier we will remain.
++ Oh! And there are these three cartoons of the band members in the sleeve and booklet. Do tell who is who?
Iain: I believe I am the big-eyed, worm-like one. I make no comment on that.
Paul: For some reason I’m the cartoon character with the huge ears. I can see no possible justification for this. Other than the fact that I do have huge ears.
Martin: Cartoons, well perhaps, but the likenesses are striking and the depictions were based on real imagery from private sources. Martin is depicted wearing a loose-fitting summer dress, with his unmistakeable ear-flaps semi-extended. Iain, with his massive, earless grey head, is shown with his bifurcated trunk fully deployed. Paul is the only member of the band daring enough to sport cullottes, and as usual, is happy to bare his teeth to the world.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
Iain: I wanted to learn the flute. Instead my music teacher gave me a recorder and public humiliation. Then a schoolmate stole a guitar for me. We didn’t have a proper record-player in our house until my father suddenly bought a decent stereo system and the world turned upside down.
Paul: My dad had quite a few old 78rpm discs – an eclectic mix of big band and light operatic stuff as well as Jimmy Shand accordion reels, and one of my earliest favourites, “Ghost Riders in the Sky” by Frankie Laine. He also had some early 45s – I particularly remember Anthony Newley’s “I’ve waited So Long” and Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” on EP. Like I say, eclectic. My oldest sister bought most of the early Beatles 45 singles when they came out, so they were always an influence. Actually thinking about it, my dad most likely bought those for her, as she’d only have been 11 in 1963. He also had one of those cool hinged-lid record players that could stack up 45s and drop them down one after the other. At school, as well as listening to Bowie like the cool kids, I also had a weakness for glam-pop bands like Roy Wood’s Wizzard. Later I got into Steely Dan, then Talking Heads, Buzzcocks, Cure,
Kraftwerk, Human League, Joy Division…
My dad also bought me my first guitar (for £8) when I was 12 – an almost unplayable steel-strung classical-type guitar (the action was about an inch off the frets at the top of the neck) – and then when I was about 15 I got my first ‘proper’ guitar, a big red jumbo acoustic… But I didn’t start taking music-making seriously till I met Martin, then I quickly realised I was never going to be as good as him on the guitar – which also partly explains the move to bass.
Martin: My earliest musical sources were playing my sister’s pop and Motown singles, my father’s 78’s, on the same radiogram. One evening, on the radio, I heard Immigrant Song played live by Led Zeppelin, and knew at that time that there was something deep and dark about it, much more so than any of the members of Led Zeppelin did. Then my brother brought home some prog rock albums – Atom Heart Mother, Ummagumma, In The Court of the Crimson King…and hey ho and away we went. But I still had a deep love for chart fodder. The 1960’s was a very rich melodic period, musical invention was spilling out everywhere.
My first instrument was a plastic guitar whose neck I accidentally broke and then had to hide under my bed after unsuccessfully trying to glue it back together. My parents took pity on me and bought me a cheap acoustic. I learned to play this along with Paul as we had taken up the guitar roughly at the same time. I was always very jealous of his big, red jumbo. And his nice guitar. Then my father saw I was making progress, and bought me a Sigma acoustic in the 1970’s. I still have it. It sounds awful.
++ Had you been in other bands before the Radio Ghosts? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?
Iain: We were all three in a band called The International Spies (called after an Anaïs Nin book, which kind of says something about our street cred. The leader became a successful sociologist, which also kind of says something about our street cred)
Paul: Martin and I had dabbled in music-making for a few years, as school friends, mostly in each other’s houses – we just wrote ridiculous songs and did sonic ‘experiments’ with whatever very basic, ropey recording equipment we could get our hands on. But we had a few minor collaborations with other people – one of which led eventually to the formation of the International Spys, a confusingly long-haired post-punk band. The reason I started playing bass was because the Spys didn’t really need a third guitarist at the time, and there was talk about bringing in someone else on bass – so I decided to switch to bass myself, basically so I would have a place in the band. But it turned out to suit me musically anyway.
Martin: Paul and me had various bedroom bands, and recorded some very awful things on a variety of old reel to reel tape machines and comically failing cassette recorders. It would be hard to describe accurately what these recordings sounded like. Some things are better left unheard. Then, we were approached by some guy to be in a band called The International Spies, and made our entrance onto the punk scene. The Spies were disgraceful.
++ Where are you from originally?
Iain: We are all Glaswegians, of the Southside variety.
Paul: I’m technically a northerner – born in Springburn, in the north-east of town, but moved south to Shawlands when very young.
Martin: From the South Side of Sunny Glasgow.
++ How was Glasgow at the time of the Radio Ghosts? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
Iain: We formed in the post-punk period when all things were still possible, if not entirely probable. There was an epidemic of bands, largely centring around our local venue, the Doune Castle, a beer cellar with a sticky stone floor, sticky tables and some stonking music.
Paul: We were lucky living so near the Doune Castle pub, which was one of the main gigging venues for up-and-coming Glasgow bands in the late 1970s/early 80s. The punk/new wave era and its ‘anyone can be in a band’ ethos was great for us – we knew we didn’t want to be like a slick and predictable ‘covers band’, even though that might have got us larger (but less discerning) audiences, more gigs and and more cash. Or any cash. Enjoying the music we played always seemed more important than a music career for us.
Other popular Glasgow venues at the time included the Mars Bar, in the city centre, and dance-club type venues like Night Moves and the Mayfair ballroom. The record stores I remember best were independent ones like Listen and Bloggs. Have I still got the carrier bags…?
Martin: There were many bands playing in Glasgow at that time, all of whom were effortlessly attracting more success than we did. We didn’t make strenuous efforts to be commercial, mainly because we lacked the know how to do so. Simplifying and deadening your music so that it became
commercially more palatable was not our palette.
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
Iain: There was a bit of a Southside music scene going on. My brothers both played in other bands and The International Spies supported my older brother’s band, The Alleged. Through that I met Martin and Paul.
Paul: Iain joined the Spies a few months into their existence, and when they imploded in late 1979 we thought it would be good if the three of us carried on in some form. Being in a band seemed like a pretty essential and quite natural thing to do at the time – or at least not being in a band for any length of time felt wrong, somehow. We were lucky to know each other already, and we didn’t have to get into the whole ‘musicians wanted’ recruitment thing – though we’ve probably all done that with some later bands.
Without knowing much about drum machines, we bought a drum machine, and gigged with that for the first six months or so. I still have it of course, being a hoarder – an Electro-Harmonix Rhythm-12. It was almost entirely pre-programmed, with preset fixed rhythms, so you could only really vary the speed/tempo. So we would do ridiculous things like use an extremely slow tango rhythm, or an unnaturally fast reggae rhythm, with jaggy frenetic guitars over the top. So our original drummer looked like this…
It was a novelty at first, but when we realised it was a bit limiting, musically and visually, we drafted in Craig Leslie, a great local 17-year-old drumming prodigy who could play fast punk or slow jazzish styles, or even both at the same time. And no doubt tango and reggae at various speeds if asked.
You can still hear the EH Rhythm-12 on the backing of ‘The Big Man Bites The Sidewalk’ on the Handfuls mini-album (and also on the ‘Falling Into Darkness’ demo on Messthetics).
As a sidenote anecdote, while we’re on the subject of ‘The Big Man…’ – that was a memorable recording for a couple of reasons. It was originally called ‘23’, just because we liked the number, but when we were recording it at Park Lane Studios, we wanted something weird and surreal to add to
it, and the studio engineer, Kenny McDonald, suggested we might add some random radio sounds – like a channel-tuning radio in a Beatles/Walrus style. We liked that idea, so we turned on a little transistor radio in the studio – and literally the first thing we heard was a live news broadcast of the shooting of President Reagan, which we had no idea was happening right then. So we scrambled to stick a microphone against the radio and quickly recorded some of the broadcast. This was long before the days of affordable samplers, so what you hear on that track is a pretty much live radio broadcast of a historic event, almost as it happened, faded in and out of the track. So there you go.
The other thing about that track? Just a wee musical anomaly that always makes me smile – there’s a big noisy ‘stramash’ section near the end, where we all just hit our instruments and other random things as hard as possible for eight bars, which was good cathartic fun to do. But when we stopped hitting things, unknown to us, we’d gone out of time with the drumbox, so we were then playing along with the off-beat for the next section. But being the musical pros we are (ahem), we seamlessly slid back into the right rhythm for the end section. And it all sounds intentional, of course. Too much information for you, I know, but who else are we going to tell?
Martin: After escaping from the International Spies, Paul and me decided to see if we could entrap Iain into playing guitar. He fell for it, and we knew that the extensive list of other desperate candidates for the gig need not apply.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
Iain: We mostly practised in an office on an industrial estate just outside Glasgow, where we could make as much racket as we wanted and the drummer could practise handbrake turns in the van.
Paul: When we started, as a three-piece with a drum machine, we just practised and worked out songs in each other’s houses. Then when we recruited Craig on drums, that wasn’t practical, but luckily his dad had a warehouse/office space on an industrial estate in Renfrew just outside Glasgow, near the Airport, within smelling distance of the sewage works. Craig also had a van, which meant we no longer had to hire transport to get our gear to gigs.
Martin: Songs would be born and shared and then either prosper or left aside. Informal rehearsals took place in various bedrooms, basically whoever had the most amps, then more complete recitals would take place in various rehearsal locations, our favourite being in our drummer’s dad’s office, next to a warehouse complex, because it was free, and because we got to drive the forklifts.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
Iain: The other two were keen on a relatively obscure band called Slap Happy. It comes from one of their songs.
Paul: We just liked the sound of it, and liked that it was a reference to an obscure band we liked. It was only later I found out it’s also an astronomical reference – a radio ghost is an “X-ray cavity caused by shock-induced compression of fossil radio plasma”. Which is more information than anyone needs. It’s also appropriately how we often feel.
Martin: One of our secret influences was a wonderful dissolute trio called Slapp Happy. They had a song called Arthur Rainbow, which contains the line ‘he’s cool like the breath of a Radio Ghost’.
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
Iain: I suspect the others will suggest different names but Talking Heads, Television, The Velvet Underground, the Beatles and Bowie are some of the names from that time, I would guess.
Paul: It probably changed from song to song, and definitely over time. I think we combined a lot of earlier and contemporary influences into quite a unique sound, not like any single other band. The sound was also inevitably influenced by the technology of the time, including early drum machines, roto-toms and affordable synths, as well as all kinds of guitar effects proliferating in those days.
Martin: Our peers and contemporaries at the time, too many to mention.
++ I know you were recording already in 1979, as the “Falling into Darkness” song that appeared in the Messthetics compilation was a demo from that year. Were there demo tapes prior to this one? And what other songs were recorded before your first release?
Iain: No idea.
Paul: We were recording all the time, in a sense – but mainly just mono cassette tapes of practice sessions. Martin and I had been making rough recordings for years – some of them on old reel-toreel tapes, now largely disintegrated. We always liked to capture what were working on – mainly so that we didn’t forget it, in case it was good. They were never meant for public listening or release.
But Chuck Warner, the Messthetics compiler, asked me send him as much stuff as I had, and ‘Darkness’ happened to be one he liked that didn’t sound quite as muffled and distorted as most of the others, so he put it on the CD.
We also did do a sort of studio demo as a 3-piece in a Hospital Broadcasting studio (for some reason) – but the quality of that was probably worse than our home cassette tapes.
I do have a few other ‘proper’ Radio Ghosts demo tracks from around 1981 that were never released – like ‘Black Shiny FBI Shoes’, ‘Belief in Myself’ and ‘The Funny Men’. Not sure the world would want to hear them, but I can dig them out if there’s any demand.
Martin: I frankly have no idea about that release. I do know about the song, which may have been inspired by Paul opening a cupboard door at a large venue we were about to play at (the Plaza in Glasgow, with the Cuban Heels) and taking a step in, only to find it was an unlit flight of steps down into a basement. ‘Help me, I’m falling into daaaarknesss’ he shouted. ‘Hang on,’ I replied, ‘I want to write that down, it might make a good song title.’
++ Your first release being “The Radio Ghosts Say Hello to the World of Love” EP, which was out in 1980. This one came out on Statik Records. Never heard of this label, so wondering if you could tell me who were behind them? How was your relationship with them?
Iain: That label was formed by The Alleged, Restricted Code and Positive Noise; the first two bands have also recently resurfaced.
Paul: We knew the bands that launched the Statik label – I shared a flat with a couple of the Alleged, Iain was related to one of them, and we all played the same sort of gigs. So it was quite close-knit. Not sure they released that many other records.
Martin: If I could remember, I would tell you.
++ This EP, in the front cover, has a text about a bearded man in a pub. What’s this about?
Iain: This was about us having a laugh, playing with phrases and giggling disproportionately.
Paul: I think it’s Falstaff, from Henry IV, Part 1.
Martin: The text is free association word play, which may very well have been written, at least in part, in the Shawlands Hotel bar. As well as our musical and pharmaceutical influences, we had literary inspirations too. Many of them came to play for that tawdry little sololiquoy.
++ Your 2nd record, the mini album “Handfuls of Everything”, came out in 1982 on Grampaphone Records. Again a label I’ve never heard. Can I ask any details about them?
Iain: It was a very do-it-yourself era. We just wanted to make music and let people hear it. So we did.
Paul: It seemed a good, funny label name for a record put out by young guys. Wouldn’t be so funny now.
Martin: I refer you to my previous comments on Statik Records. But I do think Grampaphone is a very good name for a record label.
++ By the way was there any interest by any other labels? Perhaps big labels
Iain: We had some interest but nothing ever came of it. Martin’s bands may have had more serious interest. I don’t know.
Paul: We did approach some record labels at the time, but we weren’t really savvy enough about, or have enough interest in, the business side of music to know how to approach it, or to know how to present ourselves as commercial entities. We never had a manager or agent, we used to find and book the gigs ourselves – mostly me I guess. I think sometimes those things can make the difference between commercial success and failure, rather than the music itself – our music was a lot better than some bands who did get signed. Not that we were the best band musically either, but we had something, and we could have BEEN somebody, man. We could have been contenders. I blame our older brother Charlie, he should have looked out for us.
Martin: I think the Ghosts were too uncompromising, and in a way, not good enough, to attract major label interest.
++ The front sleeve of the the mini-album has photos of the band members. Where were they taken? At your practice space perhaps? While on the back I’d guess there’s photos of you as kids/babies. Who is who here?
Iain: Yes, the industrial estate. I had the Fireball XL5 toy. Where is that now, I wonder.
Paul: I was quite proud of my Bass Machine bass amp, behind me in the pic. Its claim-to-fame was being dropped down the stairs of the Edinburgh Playhouse. Not deliberately, but we were too drunk and laughing too much to keep hold of it – and it was the quickest way down anyway. I seem to remember I’m wearing a leather jacket lent to me by flatmate and fellow bassist Brendan Moon – I was in the early throes of vegetarianism, so was unsure about wearing it, but Brendan insisted it would make me look cooler. I think I just looked like I was auditioning for the Grease house band.
On the back I’m the one on the ground in the nappy. Nothing’s changed.
Martin: Indeed they were, at the head office of Gordon Leslie Transport near Glasgow Airport.
++ This EP had many more songs, 6 in total. Some were recorded at Park Lane Studios and some in Cava Studios. Which studios did you like better and why?
Iain: Cava was plusher and more expensive. Park Lane was more rough and ready and therefore more comfortable to work in.
Paul: CaVa was a good experience for us I think – we’d never been in a proper top professional recording studio before (or very much since tbh – well apart from me and Iain moonlighting at George Martin’s Air Studios in London, but that’s another story). I can’t even remember why we used CaVa, or how we afforded it – we must have got a special deal somehow.
Trivia time again – the slamming door at the start of ‘My Room’ was me closing the big soundproofed door of CaVa’s sound room, which I thought would double nicely as a padded hospital ‘cell’ door. Took longer than it should have to get that sound right, and no doubt pissed off the rest of the band in the process.
Martin: Ca Va was a much revered, professional studio in Glasgow, but not so professional that they didn’t notice me pushing up the volume slider on Reflex Reaction half way through it. Park Lane was definitely our favourite of the two, as it was much more relaxed and informal, and you could skin up like a madman and no-one really cared.
++ Are there any other releases by the band? Compilation appearances?
Iain: Not as far as I’m aware.
Paul: Don’t think so, just the Messthetics stuff as far as we know.
Martin: The answer is no. None that I know of anyway.
++ And are there more unreleased songs from this first period of the band?
Iain: Paul is a hoarder. He has many, many ancient recordings stashed away, but damned few of them are of releasable quality.
Paul: There are some unreleased recordings, but they’re mostly verrrry rough rehearsal tapes, and I doubt even the best modern digital audio enhancements could make them sound acceptable.
Martin: Dozens of them, all locked in a vault and still squeaking and bleating to this day.
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Author”, which was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions”. Is this your favourite book by him? Which other authors come to mind, as a top five?
Iain: I think Breakfast of Champions is my favourite, but I also enjoyed Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan and others. Authors: Flann O’Brien, Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy, Dickens, Haruki Murakami…not a top five but just some favourites that spring to mind.
Paul: Martin introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut – I was particularly struck by the writing style of Breakfast of Champions, and the excellent use of the scrappy hand-drawn illustrations. I liked Flann O’Brien’s Third Policeman too – the first band I started with Iain after the Radio Ghosts was briefly called Sergeant Pluck & The Bicycle Pumps – a Third Policeman reference – but we only ever played one gig before Iain had to go and catch a bus to England. I have to admit to being less literally literate than Iain and Martin (not sure how I wangled an English Literature degree), but I did get a bit obsessed by Douglas Adams for a while, and have enjoyed an odd bit of Orwell, McCarthy and Banks.
Martin: It was just a book I happened to enjoy at the time. At this time, it was considered cool to be stating around Glasgow with a book in your coat pocket, such that the title could be seen, thus letting all and sundry know how desperately cool and learned you were. But that was just a book I enjoyed. As for the second question, anything by Barbara Cartland really. Oh and maybe Masque of a Savage Mandarin by Philip Robinson. And while we’re at it, Merlin by Robert Nye.
++ If you were to choose your favorite Radio Ghosts song, which one would that be and why?
Iain: 1969. It’s Martin and Paul at their best in terms of invention and production.
Paul: Out of the older recordings – I like them all, to be honest, but if pushed… I still find Handfuls of Everything can give me goosebumps, and I like the manic disco frenzy of I Won’t Tell You Lies. On the Boo! album, again it could be any of them, but I love the moody atmosphere created on Campfire, and the pure swaggery noisiness of Bring The Quiet. Some great new tracks in the pipeline too, including Biscotheque, Hidden and Little Snowflake…
Martin: Oooh I love choosing favourites let’s see. My current favourite is a song about those despicable, loathsome, shitty spiteful little arsehole-shaped creatures, wasps, called Wasp, but yesterday I was crying after listening to a song called Hidden. Neither of these have been unleashed on the public yet – but will be.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Iain: Lost count but not enough.
Paul: Maybe 100 or so over the 2-and-a-half years we were together? The Doune Castle in Shawlands was our local, most regular venue, and also quite prestigious on the ‘indie circuit’ (which probably wasn’t called that yet back then), despite being really just a small grubby bierkellar
underneath a steakhouse.
Martin: TOO MANY.
++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
Iain: The last few where we were developing more a groove. We covered Chic and our own songs were really coming along.
Paul: Yes we got to play a few support gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh with touring bands – like Huang Chung, who had a couple of chart hits and kept changing their spelling. One of the other highlights for me was a charity gig I organised at a big local Glasgow dance hall, the Plaza (now demolished, not completely because of us) – which was probably the biggest audience we played to in one place (500+). And of course I managed not to die after falling down a flight of stairs in the dark. And then later our frantic cover of Le Freak became semi-legendary. In the sense that we’re only half sure it ever happened.
Martin: I remember Huang Chung’s gong fell off the stage and landed next to me, and I was deaf for the next 2 days.
++ And were there any bad ones?
Iain: We did a two-night tour, hitting Glenrothes and Dundee. At the second gig a shaven-headed Dundonian pulled out a knife as we were on stage. ‘Ye Glasgie bastards,’ he growled. Show business, eh?
Paul: There were a few dodgy gigs in very unlikely venues, where we knew nobody and told nobody we were playing, but somehow expected people to magically turn up. Sometimes they did, but often they didn’t. (See, not very business-like.) I remember one gig where there were only two people in the pub/club audience, and they were only there to play pool, not listen to the band. The show went on anyway. There was another one where we kept getting electric shocks off the equipment, and our roadie/tech guy/vandriver Dougie worked out it was the faulty electrics in the venue – but instead of us refusing to play, he rigged up some kind of makeshift earth-grounding system and held it in place while we played. There was very little health & safety in those days.
One other classic gig always makes me laugh – we were mistakenly booked into a pub venue that normally hired country & western bands (surprisingly popular in Glasgow, but wasn’t at all what we did.) When we started playing, only halfway into the first song, the pub manager quickly realised the mistake, walked over and literally unplugged us from the power socket, only offering a simple, curt, “Not tonight boys.” We had to just pack up and leave.
Martin: Oh, the Dundee gig, which became known as the Tay Bar Disaster, was the pits. It was a tiny, narrow little place, but we brought in the full PA (well, we’d paid for it). It must have been SO LOUD. And he really did have a knife. Plus he kept switching on my effects pedals on while we were playing. Or even worse, turning them off during my solos.
++ When and why did the Radio Ghosts stop making music? After that you all were in very well known bands of course. But if there’s a chance to just list them, that’d be great!
Iain: Martin was always an infinitely better guitarist then me and I suggested I should do more of the singing which would leave him more free to do the tricky bits. He wanted to go in a different direction and instead formed the less complicated and more dreamy The Wee Cherubs. I left the
country in high dudgeon, or was it low dudgeon? No, I think it was a bus.
Paul: We stopped in around mid-1982. Ironically we were probably sounding better than we ever had as a band. The reasons were probably complicated, and might have seemed different to each of us. It did seem like we’d been trying for eons to make it, and were frustrated at limited success – but I guess in retrospect we might have got lucky if we’d stuck at it a bit longer, we’ll never know – just didn’t seem an option at the time. We all knew we wanted to keep doing music, so all threw ourselves into new projects. But it always seemed a shame we never did more together. We are now though.
Martin: I had become an insufferable little prick, certainly, and eventually decided that the others, who are two very nice people, should not have to put up with me any longer. We’d played so many gigs, tried so hard, made so little progress, so enough was so enough. I know I felt that the songs we used to love playing were becoming a bit of a chore, and losing their impact.
++ Had you been in other bands afterwards?
Iain: Paul had an electronic duo called Bamboo Shoots and later Iain and Paul played together in a band called A Tune a Day. There were other groups but the names would mean little to anyone and that was the case at the time too.
Paul: I realise this may shatter your idea of who I might actually be, but I’m often confused with other more famous musical Paul Quinns in various other bands. For instance I’m NOT the Bourgie Bourgie/Edwyn Collins-collaborating Paul Quinn – though we are more-or-less contemporaries. I’m also not the Paul Quinn who played drums in the Soup Dragons and then Teenage Fanclub. And I’m not the guitarist in Saxon – never had the hair for that. As we all do different things, I’ve always felt the four of us namesakes should get together and form a complete band called The Paul Quinns. But then I think, no. Other than Bamboo Shoots and A Tune A Day – who were very nearly but never quite signed by Virgin, Go Discs and some other 80s record labels – I was also briefly in a band in London called the Potato Underground.
Martin: That bit about Paul Quinn not being Paul Quinn is hard to accept. Anyway, I formed the Wee Cherubs after the Ghosts, who are enjoying a little revival just now as Optic Nerve Records are rereleasing the single Dreaming, as well as an album of previously unreleased demos. After the Cherubs, I formed the Bachelor Pad with Tommy Cherry, and quickly lost my mind. Wheee!
++ Did you get much attention from the radio? TV?
Iain: Our various formations had a few airings and interviews on local radio and some of Martin’s work made it onto TV. We did not set the broadcast media alight. John Peel played our records on national radio and for a short while we got fan mail. Which was just plain weird.
Paul: The John Peel radio playings were probably the highest profile, and a bit surreal. He had a huge cult audience on BBC Radio 1, and when he played Handfuls of Everything he read out our address on-air, and we got about 50 fan letters. Some people even quoting lyrics to the songs, having picked them up after just one hearing. This was way before the internet, so there was no researching or lyric-checking going on. We were quite chuffed. Some people kept on writing to us, even after we’d run out of things to tell them, and had run low on hair and bits of clothing to send them, which was kind of odd.
Martin: After John Peel played our single, and read out my address, I felt very chuffed but expected nothing, but then I got a deluge of letters. It was just so wonderful. We wrote back to them all. I even went to someone in Glasgow who had written, to personally give them a copy of the single.
They were hugely embarrassed that a Pop Star should walk two miles to do this – from Shawlands to Pollokshields! – and quickly offered me a cup of tea, which I wouldn’t have touched if you’d paid me.
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
Iain: Very little.
Paul: I think we got a couple of reviews in the music press – I remember the singer in local band Positive Noise doubled as a reviewer in a weekly national music paper… possibly Sounds, or Melody Maker? I probably even have a copy of it somewhere, but who knows where. Or why.
Martin: some gig reviews, and I think a few singles reviews. I remember my singing being described as ‘diffident’ in one, and so for years, I thought that ‘diffident’ meant ‘horrible and badly out of tune’.
++ What about from fanzines?
Iain: I remember one in particular. We interviewed by Bobby Bluebell before he was in the Bluebells (‘Young at Heart’) for a fanzine called Ten Commandments.
Paul: We were interviewed as a three-piece (must have been 1980) by Robert Hodgens – later called Bobby Bluebell – in Ten Commandments fanzine. There is a copy of that somewhere.
Martin: what they say, they seem to know what they’re talking about.
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
Iain: The last few gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh really felt like gigs ought to. Buzzing.
Paul: Getting played on the Peel show is still a good one – to be fair he did play A LOT of bands over the years, but at least we can say we were one of them.
And making records was a big thing – I liked the whole process from the studio to the pressing plant, especially getting them back all neatly packed in cardboard boxes with all the spines matching. At the time it just seemed like something everyone was doing, or everyone we knew anyway, but in hindsight, in the big scheme of things, it’s not something everyone has done. And it’s great to be doing it again.
Martin: looking back, just having a band that was doing its own thing, playing gigs, being enjoyed by people. But the best thing for me personally was the sheer fun in having these two guys as friends.
++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
Iain: I read, write and run a book group.
Paul: I rescue bees with teaspoons of sugary water. And I stamp on the ground until worms come up then feed them tea and biscuits.
Martin: I am engaged in a ceaseless campaign to rid the nation of wasps, fuck that Springwatch guy. I have a dog that has no respect for me. I have* a tame blackbird called Cheesybeak. I enjoy making videos for the band and these can be seen on the Radio Ghosts’ Youtube channel, and my own channel as 0ldfinger (with a zero). Smash that Like and Subscribe! Button as hard as you dare.
*No, I don’t
++ Been to Glasgow a couple of times but I still would love to hear your recommendations as locals, what sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?
Iain: Take a stroll up Byres Road, get a coffee at the Tinderbox, try a Play a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor, go to the Botanics and the Kibble Palace, see a play at the Citizen’s theatre, a film at The GFT, get a curry at Mother India’s Café and see bands at the Barrowlands or one of the more low key venues like Mono. The West End is the place to be, says a Southsider.
Paul: I don’t live there any more, now down in the south coast seaside town of Brighton, but Glasgow always has a big place in my heart. Or maybe it’s an arterial blockage. But you MUST have pakora when you’re in Glasgow. It was introduced in the 1960s by Indian/Pakistani immigrants, and has become as Scottish as porridge and haggis. And when you walk around the town centre, look up – the buildings are astonishing. Glasgow’s also surrounded by hills, and less than an hour from the seaside – take a trip down the Clyde Coast and eat chips in seafront cafes. Martin can advise on the whisky choices…
Martin: Yes, I am something of a cultural ambassador for Scotland and Glasgow. What I’d do is go into any large discount supermarket and buy a bottle of own label whisky – the cheapest you can find will do. Drink it noisily in the queue for the checkout, and get yourself into a violent argument about nothing in particular with the first person who makes eye contact with you, and have yourself escorted from the premises, shouting I DO NOT CONSENT. That’s what I call a day well spent.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Iain: You can follow our Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/radioghosts/ And you can buy the Boo! album, or individual tracks, on iTunes or Amazon, or stream on Spotify or Deezer, among other places. Or we can send you a CD ourselves, for $10 + P&P!
Paul: We’re working on a new album, and may well release individual tracks into the wild as we go along. Keep an eye on the Facebook page.
Martin: I think Roque is a wonderful name. I think I told you this before. Do you want to swap?
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