BLUE NILE IN GLASGOW
PJ Moore is very easy to talk to. We are gabbing away while wandering across from the Kelvingrove to the nearby Ronzio cafe to pick up takeaway teas.
I’ve never met him before but we have a friend in common – Irish journalist Ken Sweeney.
Ken made a radio documentary, In Search of The Blue Nile, about the musical journey of PJ, Robert Bell and Paul Buchanan. The recording was inspired by a trip Ken made to Glasgow, where he was keen to explore a cityscape that he had imagined through the albums he had listened to while growing up.
He wanted to see the places connected to the music. The show was broadcast on RTE Radio, found an audience around the world and was then picked up by BBC Radio Scotland. If you want to hear the story of the band in their own words, you can find a link to the programme on the Glasgowist website.
We take a walk back and sit on the steps of the museum. The tall tenements of Argyle Street and the turrets of Kelvin Hall look vivid in the bright afternoon sunshine. Skateboarders are improvising a circuit in the garden and you can see activity along the mini-canyon of Regent Moray Street.
I mention the documentary and the connection Ken made with Glasgow through the music. At times, The Blue Nile’s songs can seem a bit too ethereal to be written about Sauchiehall Street or Byres Road in the 1980s, yet Tinseltown in the Rain is about us: “It’s there to be immutable. Tinseltown will never change. I mean the structure of the song, not the poetry. It’s written in stone.”
PJ thinks their debut, 1984’s A Walk Across the Rooftops, has the most Glasgow in it: “The second record (Hats) has more of actual America in it because by then we’d had a short US promotional visit for Rooftops.
“The first record’s a naive imagining of Glasgow as an American city and it’s vertical and black and white. Hats is technicolour and more horizontal, but the first one is a fearless leap into the dark, and I love it for that.”
This makes me think about the point when Glasgow moved from a sepia tone, post-industrial city into a brighter modern era as a place for artists and musicians to find their voice. Before I get lost in metaphors, PJ continues: “We cut off London when we were making the records, it was all independent. The music doesn’t sound like it was made using lo-fi equipment.
“It’s funny. People talk about polish and smoothness and beauty but I was working as a waiter at the time, we were borrowing synths and the box that I used to interface with the studio, that enabled us to take the first step, cost five pounds.”
The European City of Culture year in 1990 was a breakthrough in how Glasgow perceived itself.
The Blue Nile had toured America, were back home and the Royal Concert Hall was due to open so they found themselves being asked to play the first concert at the new venue – “but by then Glasgow was already a hotspot for pop, I’ll give you my theory on that if you want?”. I do.
“Well in a place like London. The size of it, it’s hard for people to find the scene, you’d have a few venues for punk, whatever’s happening, they’re there. Good bands and bad ones.
“Then the New Romantics had places, Boy George at the Blitz Club, Spandau Ballet. But in the absence of that, everyone in London’s just walking around going, ‘Anybody know a bass player and what kind of bassline should he play anyway?’
“And it was at that point these A&R guys with their bomber jackets and their attache cases started jumping on the shuttle and coming to Manchester and Glasgow, where they could at least find something.”
I ask PJ where he was waitering in the early days of the band: “Nico’s, Rock Garden. The Ultratheque. It was a great laugh, man. Nico’s was set up as a cocktail bar and art students loved going there, but what they didn’t like to do was spend money on Harvey Wallbangers or Brandy Alexander or whatever passed for class at the time. But you could get a coffee or a beer, and that was a first.
“These places were important for cultural exchange too. It’s where you could go in and meet someone with a funny haircut and you might end up getting a gig out of it.”
At the same time he was running a rehearsal studio “below a very dodgy second-hand shop at The Barras.” Things changed when “we saw a chance, the idea to send messages from here in music, realistically.”
PJ recently made a downloadable walking tour that took in some of the landmarks associated with the band. The artwork for A Walk Across the Rooftops is a photograph of the trio taken on Cathcart Road, but the record was made in a flat in Otago Street: “the building was like a member of the band”.
Then there was a one-bedroom bedsit on Buckingham Terrace: “It came to me through a friend who knew I was looking for a place to stay in Glasgow. I was renting in Edinburgh – Paul visited once and we did Late Night Train – but it was time to get out of there. I moved in, we’d meet, tape recorder in the middle of the room, watching the traffic pass: Headlights on the Parade.
“We made half of Hats like that. We’d take a break and go a walk to the Cul de Sac bar on Ashton Lane”.
We talk more about The Blue Nile and the sense of place in the music. This side of town is where they met and have the strongest connection: “The West End’s almost a city on its own. We were all from the north side, but really the uni brings you here, even if you’re back staying with your maw, you’re heading for Byres Road.”
But are we listening to a more cinematic version of the city than where they were living?
“We always felt American. We’re closer there in terms of the look of the city and everyone grew up watching American movies four times a week when they were kids.
“We were just applying that dream for ourselves more than anybody else. No-one looked at Hope Street and said it was like Madison Avenue, right? There was something in those vistas for me, I’ve got notebooks with me trying to draw a big long street with exactly that kind of vibe, that’s Easter Parade.
“The Glasgow you see now, it isn’t the Glasgow that was there when we were writing the songs. It never existed. It was part Chicago, part New York, part Brigadoon.”
The Best of Glasgow is a book celebrating people and places in the city with neighbourhood profiles, recommendations for things to do, alongside stories from independent shops, creative businesses, musicians and artists. It includes a chapter featuring recipes from top local restaurants including Ubiquitous Chip, The Gannet, La Lanterna and Julie’s Kopitiam. Written by Glasgowist’s Paul Trainer, the city guide features personal reflections on local life from personalities including Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Clare Grogan, Harri from Sub Club, The Blue Nile’s PJ Moore, Gavin Mitchell, Pat Kane, Jean Johansson and Lynn Ferguson. Order your copy from glasgowtimes.co.uk/best-ofglasgow-book
OVER the past few months I have been seeing a lot of patients complaining of back, neck and joint pains. It has been particularly noticeable because the demographics of the people presenting has shifted from the usual middle to older age groups to those in their 20s and 30s. I have been enquiring, with interest, into the lifestyles of these patients and found a similar trend – those who would usually be leading a more active lifestyle are now more sedentary and the sudden transition from busy working lives to working and learning from home has contributed to a rising number of people troubled with aches and pains which are easily preventable.
I am hearing all sorts of habits that have formed over this past year, from people working long hours from home, slouched over their laptops on their sofas, to children spending hours on iPads and laptops lying on their tummies or hunched over on their beds.
I need to also address how stressful and high pressured a time it has been for everyone, which contributes to the build-up of tension in the neck, shoulder and muscles of the upper back too, so it’s no wonder our bodies are seizing up.
During the first lockdown last year, people were not as affected by sedentary behaviours as they are now. The days were longer and the weather was inviting so we all made the most of that one-hour-aday allocation to exercise outdoors. People were motivated to move and stay active.
Fast forward a year, though, and we are all feeling fed up. The cold weather and shorter days have made getting out to exercise feel like an effort not worth making for many people. While the reasons are understandable, we do need to raise awareness and change our habits if we want to avoid the aches and pains.
Movement does not need to be arduous exercise – but it is important to remember that we are not designed to be sat in the
Movement does not need to be arduous exercise
same position for hours on end. The purpose of our joints is to move; our muscles waste when they are not kept active and we run the risk of stiffening up.
I therefore always recommend people to introduce and incorporate movement snacks into their day.
Especially if you are working or learning from home, it is vital to sit less and move more. To ensure you are getting enough physical activity, set a reminder or alarm to go off every 30 minutes and use that as a short break to stand up, stretch your body and shake those hands and feet. If you are waiting for your kettle to boil, why not try doing a few lunges or squats – it really is as simple as that, but a little movement often will go a long way to staving off those aching joints.
Lots of people have lost connection with their posture. It is important to review what your back, shoulders and neck are doing during prolonged hours at the desk. Perhaps your laptop needs to be mounted, or you need an office chair or an extra cushion to help straighten the back? If you’re suffering from back pain, do not ignore it. Speak to your employer and review your working-from-home set-up. If it is impacting your quality of life or is not settling, speak to your GP.
A lot of people find standing desks helpful and you don’t need to buy a special desk to try this – simply place your laptop on an ironing board throughout the day for a change. Other people are doing work calls whilst walking and therefore killing two birds with one stone! The point is to think outside the box to create more opportunities to keep your body moving and engaged; we have to look for ways to make our working lives more healthy and sustainable.
I like to do my telephone consultations either standing up or walking around the room these days as I find my body really stiffens up if I spend a day sat at the desk. Movement breaks it up, helps circulation and keeps us refreshed.
We know that getting a daily dose of fresh air and exercise is beneficial for our physical and mental health so we need to push ourselves to do what we can. The guidance for adults is to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week. If you break this into small movement snacks throughout the day, it won’t feel like hard work!