OK, reading AMG tells me that Joy is a scary last-album-only-one-original-member affair, but I’m still curious as to what people think about the record or the other two earlier albums.

The first album, “Scared to Dance”, definitely has its moments, especially the singles “Into the Valley”, “Sweet Suburbia”, and “The Saints Are Coming.” The Skids were certainly odd men out. They were lumped in with the punks, but I don’t see it at all. While most punks sang about anarchy or being on the dole, the Skids sang about well—God only knows. Their lyrics are incomprehensible. The same type of earnest pseudo-poetry nineteen year-olds write after reading too much Wilfred Owen. But this doesn’t matter because Richard Jobson’s Scottish burr is so heavy you can’t understand a word. The songs themselves are huge pop epics with great hooky, football terrace chant chorus’s that hit you up side the head and leave you dazed. And I mean that in a good way. If you see it definitely pick it up. It is one of the stranger artifacts from the time. I like them.

It was the guitarist, Stuart Adamson, who was in Big Country. He doesn’t quite have that amazing bagpipe tone that he later perfected in Big Country. But he does whip up a muscular squall of noise and harmonics on each song. He is a great guitarist who seems to be largely forgotten.

I always like “Sweet Suburbia” which I had on a compilation album. U2 & Green Day’s collaboration on a cover of the Skids “The Saints are Coming” was all over MTV a month or so ago.

thank you Ice Ice! Just what I was looking for in terms of perspective.

i really really like *scared to dance* and *days in europa*. i LOVE their guitar sound. i thought it was cool that u2 did that cover cuz it always seemed to me like the edge bit a good bit of his style from skids. “working for the yankee dollar”!! i love that stuff.

And Billy Mackenzie was on “Fields.” Kinda.

i hear the skids in some of the commie marching band music i liked as a kid. the alarm. easterhouse. definitely u2. maybe even the chameleons a little bit too. i don’t listen to the first big country album anymore, but i still play those skids records from time to time.

i bought a cheap copy of the first easterhouse album at thanksgiving and i couldn’t believe the force of the flashback it gave me. i hadn’t heard it since i was, like, 15!

ha, I SAW The Alarm (along with The Pretenders and Stevie Ray Vaughan, how’s that for a triple bill). I had that 1st EP. That gives me a good perspective on The Skids as well, thanks. Seems like Microdisney would fit into this as well.

I only know Into The Valley, which sounds like Oi! with more expensive production. I guess that’s why they were lumped in with punks? Is their other stuff much different to that song?

Microdisney don’t really fit in with the Skids, Easterhouse or the Alarm. They sound closer to the Durrutti Column than anyone else. The first couple of releases are worth checking out.

I’ve still got a copy of the first Easterhouse album around here somewhere, but never really listened much to the Alarm.

well, jeez, why didn’t we think of this before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa-PrBAOo4A

love that song. yah, the football shouts aligned them with punk. actually, into the valley is really one of their punkier songs. when i mention the alarm it’s really in relation to the military drums and that whole kinda u2/big country battlemarch vibe.

working for the yankee dollar vid!!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDTHZdG9C7I&mode=related&search=

this is awesome. it really is all about that guitar for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GYcT3710IY&mode=related&search=

he is just BLAZING on that “arena” clip.

live with billy curry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9dvqWyePa0&mode=related&search=

so prog! i love it.

actually, now that i think of it, a more cartoony version of early skids might be tenpole tudor. gang shouts, battle vibe, folk legends, imperialism, etc.

Here’s Big Country:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfc-3sJtOIQ

In the Arena clip he sounds like Steve Howe. Good stuff. Beats the Edge with a big stick.

yeah, i think the edge learned how to be a better guitarist though. over time. he started out pretty rough and rudimentary. or “punk” if you will. but stuart, man, he was quite accomplished at a young age.

awright! I get in up the morning and there’s a buncha Skids video! Thanks Scott!