|
Edinburgh in the late 80s and early 90s suffered at the hands of the Spooks. Ron Doo Ron on guitar and vocals, Peach McNulty on bass and vocals, Gregg Comparison on lead guitar and vocals, Dingo Rodent III on drums and vocals.
Remastered Album on CD “With and Without” - Now Available
Text from 1990
I first saw the Spooks early on in the summer of '89 at the now legendary Bikini Club. In those days it was the original Bikini, at the Kasbar in the Cowgate rather than the much more elaborate and spectacular grand scale events seen in 1990 at Moray House. But the familiar trademarks were already there: the blaring disco, the swirling lights, the op-art backdrops and tablecloths, even the photographic slides although they were difficult to make out through the smoke in the cramped venue with its sardined occupants and low ceiling from which would dangle lethally sharp precariously wobbling rotating metal fans ready to slice into lots of little pink twitching bits any human fans eager to jump slightly too high or clap their hands above their heads.
And then, of course, the band. Made manic by heat, exhaustion, encouragement, noise and above all an inherent instability they would render themselves even hotter and more unstable by dancing and darting about the stage area in an increasingly unpredictable manner as the music built up to crescendo and right through the other side into inevitability.
These recordings celebrate the later incarnations of the Bikini club, epitomised by more lights, effects, colourful smoke - together with simultaneous film, video and slide projection. A larger stage and more aggressive PA system allowed the Spooks to present two sets: one in their trademark collarless jackets, white shirts, thin black ties, drainpipe trousers, rectangular dark glasses and impossibly pointed Chelsea boots, and the second dripping in psychedelic shirts, beads, flowers, elaborate military jackets and a trippier artillery of songs.
|
