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One of my favourite authors writing about one of my favourite bands, wonderful! I've been enjoying Zoe Howe's perceptive and sharp music books since the great Slits biog, "Typical Girls?" a few years back, and this is every bit as good. Apart from the main text, there's a really well put together timeline of the JAMC era, & it really took me back to the mid-80's and the inane blandness of the dominant pop scene then.
So it's amusing to find the little snippets I'd read in the NME about this strange new band from Scotland - who reckoned they'd already got their first three albums written in their shared bedroom at home & who played deranged 15 minute live sets generally resulting in riot and mayhem - were part of later Creation/Oasis mainman Alan McGee's desire to be the new Malcolm Maclaren. When put on to them by Bobby Gillespie, he reckoned he'd found his Sex Pistols.
Zoe Howe describes all this in fascinating detail, with some great anecdotes, and enough humour to leaven some of the darker aspects of the story (violence, alcoholism, rip-offs, drugs). Probably the book's strongest point is how willingly all the main protagonists - bar one - have been to talk at length to her about the many twists and turns in the group's career. In the end though the book easily overcomes the lack of direct involvement from the older Reid brother, William. There's been some serious background research, which has turned up plenty of quotes which do enough to show some of the differences between him and Jim.
That's an underlying theme which the author maintains throughout the book: the fact that however much the brothers fight, hate each other and fall out, neither is as good on his own and in the end they can't escape the symbiosis between them. Whether they like it or not, they need each other.
Like one of the other reviewers here, my enjoyment was enhanced by digging out a stack of old JAMC tapes and discs. If in any doubt as to the validity of a book about a couple of weirdoes from East Kilbride, just listen to the astonishing "Darklands" album and be transported back to 1987 - and a time when we really did need a pair of black-clad loons with freaky hair emerging from a storm of feedback and distortion to fight against the Stock Aitken Waterman tide.
Some more pictures would've been nice, but that's about my only gripe. Apart from the timeline and a handy "Where Are They Now?" feature (intriguing how many JAMC people have gone on to careers in design or graphic arts) there's a comprehensive JAMC discography too. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the formative days of the indie scene and anyone who's ever felt the timeless power of black leather and squalling feedback.
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