Going Glasgow

Scot rockers prove that life is more than shite

by Franklin Soults

By all accounts I've heard, the level of disaffection suffered in Scotland has reached a pitch once associated only with places like South Africa, Colombia, the South Bronx. Although I doubt the Scots hope to find their economic salvation in the Labor government of Prime Minister Tony Blair -- Britain's own version of Arkansas's Great Spineless Wonder -- it says something that in the recent election they (along with the Welsh) booted every Tory MP they had, something that hadn't happened in 100 years. Even more telling was a recent BBC report on the meteoric rise of prostitution among all classes of Scottish women, a phenomenon that threatens to turn the chaste land of Queen Mary into the latest stopover on the Third World sex circuit. The situation was summed up nicely by Renton, the smack-addled anti-hero of last year's hit film Trainspotting: being Scottish, he cursed, "is a shite state of affairs."

But as has happened in South Africa, Colombia, the South Bronx, and countless other places, this shite seems to have fertilized a small explosion of local cultural creativity whose fruits are being appreciated far outside the boundaries of the land that produced them. The most famous export of this Scottish cultural explosion, of course, is Trainspotting itself. Yet in a way, the explosion's most emblematic exports are a small bevy of obscure bands out of Glasgow. Late last year Yatsura were the first to reach these shores, with We Are Yatsura (Primary Recordings/Elektra). Now two more arrivals have made the trek. Bis can be heard on both the 15-minute EP This Is Teen-C Power! and the brand new full-length The New Transistor Heroes (both on Grand Royal/Capitol); their pals the Delgados have just released their stateside debut album, Domestiques (March). Whereas Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh and literary soulmates like Duncan McLean and James Kelman are hard-edged products of the mean, jobless drudgery of contemporary Scotland, these bands offer that life's antithesis -- an impassioned negation of its harrowing emptiness.

It's in the nature of their respective art forms, really. Books have to be about places, people, and ideas (at least, readable books do); music is always first about music. That's not to say these bands create sounds as gloriously original as South Africa's mbaqanga, Colombia's cumbia, or the Bronx's hip-hop. In fact, what distinguishes them is the way they create excitement by claiming the foreign as their own. The Delgados took their name from a Spanish cyclist; both Bis and Yatsura have a thing for everything Nipponese (on that tip, check out Scottish author Alison Fell's sly and tender erotic novel of 1994, The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro). Most important, all three are in thrall with American indie rock.

That's most obvious with Yatsura, the hardest-rocking of the three, yet ultimately the most transparent. The Delgados spread their net wider and draw their catch closer. Under the joint leadership of guitarists/ vocalists Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward, this foursome have developed a style with one foot planted in the New Zealand chamber rock of the Clean and Go-Betweens and the other in the Pavement generation currently thriving in America's rock-and-roll underground. Domestiques lays down 14 tunes that are alternately tuneful, driving, or sweetly atmospheric without letting out a single clue as to any larger purpose. Elements often break free of the music's '90s-style churn and buzz -- clear and chiming guitar figures, sweetly broguish harmonies, an intriguing phrase or two -- but mostly the specific lyrics and musical details are buried by the band's easy rush, just as at your favorite pub.

Bis, on the other hand, let you know they're on a mission. The young trio take their inspiration from the riot grrrl movement, except they trade that style's "rockist" bias for their European predilection for "pop" and "youth culture." With "Sci-Fi Steven" Clark on guitars, younger brother "John Disco" on a Casio synth, and their high-school pal Manda Rin joining Steven on vocals, the group turn out ska-influenced, new-wavy tunes (think Specials combined with Tony Basil's "Hey Mickey") matched to a PC program for "teen-c power," a quaint youth revolution that seeks little more than the right to live free of stupid people with stupid prejudices. The six-song EP This Is Teen-C Power! proclaims their manifesto with numbers like "Kill Yr Boyfriend" and "This Is Fake D.I.Y." More surprising, The New Transistor Heroes stretches the teensy concept to a full hour with 18 righteous ditties displaying an impressive variety of catchy chants, hummable choruses, weirdo synth doodles, fat guitar hooks -- all the stuff of great cheesy pop the world over. They won't save the youth of Scotland any more than Tony Blair will, but they'll show us all a fun, feisty time trying. Who would dare ask for anything more?