75 comments
  1. Drew
    Drew
    March 11, 2012 at 10:12 pm

    Trying to remember name of a band. Can only remember lyrics of one record,
    “One day am gona go away,
    Am going back to France to stay,
    Midnight return to a Paris hotel,
    Lost in the city streets … ”

    Well something along those lines. Possibly an Edinburgh band circa 1980. Used to go to al the usual venues in Edinburgh, Glasgow etc. It was a single on record label that was a wee indie label.
    Been driving me insane for years trying to remember.
    Cheers, Drew

  2. Gus
    Gus
    April 12, 2012 at 10:27 pm

    Hello to all.

    I was one of the original members of a band from Livi called 1st Offence. We had a single out with a shite picture cover called Night the punks turned ugly in the early eighties, it sold 8,000 records although we didn’t see a penny and payed for the recording ourselves. We were meant to release a 10 incher with 8 songs through the same label (chaos records) but it never materialised though it was recorded.

    I was with a great band called the Bayonet Babies from Livi for a few years and we were nearly signed up to Alternative Tentacles in the US but we split up in ’86 before it reached fruition and I didn’t touch a guitar for about 14 years. The Bayonet Babies flirted with a number of musical genres but were punk as it comes-whilst playing for Overspill (you guessed it, from Livingston) a guy from Perth gave me our full repertoire so I know have that.

    Played guitar with the Assassins and made about 15 excellently recorded, more than half decent songs, and got a good following but we didn’t attempt to get on a record label. Just did it for fun. I saw the comments about Skroteez, they were a great band as were Barbed Wire.

    Like I said, playing with my mates from Overspill but my main reason for coming here was to say the Livi Punks weren’t a bad lot, they somehow earned a fearsome reputation (not that we were always perfect right enough) but as a self declared Livi Punk I saw most of the bands mentioned here, early Scars, even the post punk bands on postcard records-went to loads of gigs and always got on well with other punks or whomever attended gigs (and they were far from what is generally considered as people sporting a punk look.

    Have considered penning a book on the punk scene in Scotland (with a special nod towards a Livi perspective) and I know most of the stories, the good the bad and the fucking hideous bringing this right up to the present day as old farts that won’t let go of our punk roots-also thought about releasing CD’s or having a download site somewhere on the bands either I was in or those bands my pals were in. For free obviously-just to get it out there and because i like the idea of historical documents or more current ones being available for nothing. If anybody has a potential host site or suggestions as to how I could do this then let me know as long as they aren’t looking to ask others for any money.

    Would send free CD’s of stuff to anyone interested as well.

    External Menace were excellent in all their incarnations, I could go on……..

    Blabbed on enough.

    Slainte

    Gus

  3. veg
    veg
    April 25, 2012 at 11:25 am

    awright folks, jimmy savilles wheelchair. gid band fi east kilbride, till most of em moved into g/gow. there were quite a few bands round there as well: psycho flowers, greame & the nice boys, donkey, the dick finger triplet, and others ah’ve unfortunately forgotten. that period was pretty gid for bands just kickin aboot daein wee gigs in aw th g/gow satellite towns. mmmm fun.

  4. johng
    johng
    May 12, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    but my main reason for coming here was to say the Livi Punks weren’t a bad lot, they somehow earned a fearsome reputation

    in my own personal experience they were just dumb violent thugs

  5. Chris L
    Chris L
    June 1, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    ^ A challenging mitigation, M’Lud.

  6. Stephen
    Stephen
    September 17, 2012 at 9:41 pm

    To Gus from 1st Offence –

    The band you’re trying to remember are Boys in Darkness. They released 2 singles but it’s their first ‘Back to France’ you seem to remember – it was released twice. One member of the band was an art teacher in West Lothian but I forget where know (St Kent’s maybe), a Gilhooley – maybe linked with someone of the same name from Bee Bee Cee, an earlier band. Always thought that Boys in Darkness were from Bathgate but could be totally wrong on that one.

    I actually work in Livi (at Invy) and a couple of the women I work with are the partners of the punks in the article on the inside sleeve of your single. Small world. Teach a couple of their kids/nephews as well I think!

  7. Stephen
    Stephen
    September 17, 2012 at 9:42 pm

    Sorry – the Boys in Darkness message was for Drew.

  8. Jolly
    Jolly
    November 4, 2012 at 10:26 am

    Gilhooly worked at Deans as an art teacher post my time there. He had a brother, who also played in Bee Bee Cee, that was a swimming attendant at the school. They reformed the band as BBC2 and played a gig at the school around 1980/81.

  9. Al
    Al
    November 17, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    Has anyone mentioned DefCon 4? I remember I had a couple of cassettes of theirs. They came and played in my home town along with Distorted Truth once- not sure what year tbh. Only song I can really remember at the moment is one called ‘Troops Out’.

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