I’m indie mood for nostalgia
IT called itself The Sound of Young Scotland.
Those who remember the Scottish indie music scene of the late 70s and early 80s are now of a certain vintage but if you were one of the floppy fringe brigade, you have every reason to be proud.
You lived through history in the making, all to the sound of jangly guitars.
If you want to live it all again, you can – at the Edinburgh International Film Festival next month.
The festival will host the world premiere of Grant McPhee’s Big Gold Dream, a full-length documentary on the post-punk/indie music scene that put Scotland on the front pages of the NME (and that meant something back in 1979).
Bands like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera blazed the trail but it didn’t stop with them. The Soup Dragons were among the many who followed and the Jesus and Mary Chain kept up the energy well into the early 80s.
The key thing about the scene was its determination to stay put. Record labels such as Postcard were determined that the London-based industry would come to Scotland, not the other way round.
Grant has been working on the documentary since 2006 and has amassed a huge amount of material on the burst of creativity that blasted Scotland. You can find out more – and revel in 80s nostalgia – at soundofyoungscotland. blogspot.co.uk