'Alcoholism and the music business are brutal; mixed together, they're explosive' – the tragedy of Stuart Adamson

In John Niven’s engaging music business novel Kill Your Friends, loathsome A&R man Steven Stelfox slashes and burns his way through a 90s music industry awash with cash, cocaine and conmen; if Stelfox had been operational in "the biz" a decade earlier he would've been eaten alive by a breed of major label record executive who would think nothing of remixing one of the world’s greatest singers out of a track on a whim because they could; who would ban a guitarist from their own recording session and add trumpets to his band's classic rock sound because they could; or who would, in a move Machiavelli would likely have dismissed "as a bit off", buy all the worldly rights to your band's music for a paltry sum in a rushed deal that even your battled-hardened lawyer would later describe as “less than satisfactory” because they … well, you get the picture. 

This was the toxic environment that awaited Big Country’s temperamental Stuart Adamson, the former Skids guitarist who had a reputation for “liking a bevvy” and walking out of bands, and the subject of Scott Rowley’s Stay Alive, one of three books reviewed in this episode. 

You can also hear a review of A Leap Into The Void by Douglas MacIntyre, the likeable artist-turned-record label boss of fascinating Scottish label Creeping Bent, who’s played with everyone from his own post-punk Lanarkshire band Article 58 to the recently revived – and brilliantly received – Scottish indiepop heroes Friends Again. 

Douglas’s contacts book reads like a who's-who of Scottish music (spoiler alert: his wife – and daughter – are in bands and his in-laws are Clare Grogan of Altered Images and Stephen Lironi, the latter also once of that same great parish, as well as uber-producer of the multi-million selling Mmmbop by Hanson. And that’s not a joke.) 

In this episode, Douglas talks about working in the studio with Malcolm Ross (Josef K/Orange Juice) and Postcard Records supremo Alan Horne, while there’s also a review of the brilliantly niche punk read Caledonia Screaming by the ever-creative Grant McPhee, an author, curator and filmmaker whose 2015 documentary Big Gold Dream thrust Fast Product and Postcard Records into the international limelight and made a breakout star of cult hero Davy Henderson (who also makes an appearance here). 

Scotpop is already ranking at No 6 in the UK Apple podcast chart for Music Interviews so thanks for all the support (though I suspect that may be more to do with the insight and eloquence of last week’s guest than any interview "style". ).

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