| Scars | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Genres | Post-punk |
| Years active | 1977–1982 2010–2011 |
| Labels | Fast Product Pre Records Charisma Records Stiff America |
| Website | The Scars' website |
| Members | |
| Robert King Paul Research John Mackie Calumn Mackay Steve McLaughlin |
|
Scars (originally known as The Scars) were a Post-punk band that hailed from Edinburgh, Scotland, and were a part of that city's bustling music scene of the late 70s - early 80s.
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Fronted by Robert King and featuring Paul Research on lead guitar, John Mackie on bass, and Calumn Mackay on drums, the band's original sound was angular and offset with a dance-based rhythm section, as evidenced by their 1979 single for Fast Product "Horrorshow"/"Adult/ery". The band's popular set-closing song "Your Attention Please" appeared as a free gold flexi-disc in the third edition of the influential London-based style magazine i-D. This aforementioned song would later be included in the band's 1981 (and sole) album Author! Author!, but in the meantime the group maintained an ever-mounting momentum and attention via singles releases and constant touring, and soon they were noticed by John Peel. Peel invited the band to record two of his legendary Sessions, once in February 1980 and another in May 1981.
By the time the band started recording Author! Author!, their sound had matured from being rough and aggressive to something more melodic . From that album sprang perhaps the most recognizable Scars song out there, "All About You", which was the only single launched directly from that album. Calumn Mackay left Scars the year prior to the album's release, so Steve McLaughlin took over drumming duties for the band at around this time. The band continued to receive positive attention and increase their fan base as they were first able to co-headline gigs with the Comsat Angels, then headline gigs with Josef K as their supporting act.[1] Scars even managed to land a full-page spread in Smash Hits.[2] By that time, the band was headquartered in London
In the summer of 1982, Scars landed a supporting slot with Australia's The Church as the headliners.[1] This was to be the beginning of the end for the band. Having been together—and constantly playing live gigs—since they were all teenagers in 1977, the glue that held the band together started to weaken. Robert King left the band and the rest of the band members, in turn, tried to keep the band going as a cohesive unit with Paul Research taking over lead vocal duties. The band recorded a song called "Bone Orchard" for a planned second album that never materialized; at year's end, the Scars were no more. King would soon go on to modest but temporary success as a solo artist (the synthpop-ish "Paper Heart" being the most notable of his recordings), but by the mid '80s the various Scars bandmates have been content to continue being musicians and pursuing other interests beyond the glare of the limelight.
There has been a recent resurgence of interest and attention on the Scars ever since electronica artists Lemon Jelly elected to use samples of "Horrorshow" at the urging of band member Fred Deakin, who was a huge Scars fan in his youth.[3] The samples were utilized in their song "'79 aka The Shouty Track" (or "The Shouty Track" for short), for inclusion in the album '64 - '95. The song was also the second single released from that album. When it came time for Lemon Jelly to tour in support of '64 - '95, they invited a partially reformed version of Scars (that included original drummer Calumn Mackay) along to play live the sampled parts of "79 - The Shouty Track" in selected dates, including in the Scars' former home base of Edinburgh.
Guitarist Paul Research is the most visible former member of Scars and maintains a de facto official Scars site.
In November 2010, Scars announced a one-off reunion gig in Edinburgh for December 29, their first live appearance in 25 years.
The Author! Author! LP, produced by punk band Penetration's Robert Blamire, is now available on CD. Due to a history of stalled negotiations with reissue companies[4] and the difficulties involved in "disentangl[ing] The Scars copyright spaghetti",[5] the complications involved in releasing an official CD version of that album have historically been far too much for even the former band members to overcome. Nevertheless, now that they have been overcome, a new generation of fans is enjoying Scars music again.
In October 2006, small events that had been put into motion thanks to the Lemon Jelly-driven Scars renaissance began to coalesce. It was announced at that time that Author! Author! would be remastered and finally released on CD format with additional tracks added in. In December 2006, the tapes were fully restored to playable mode at Abbey Road Studios by EMI, the record company that currently has ownership of the album masters, with an anticipated release date of sometime before the end of 2006. However, the remastering and CD transfer processes were put on hold pending an ISRC issuance.
The tapes were remastered by Steve McLaughlin and transferred to CD format, and the original artwork was also remastered by John Mackie. The CD became available for purchase on Paul Research's Scars Moments site in early 2007. Eventually it was also released for sale on Amazon UK. All versions include bonus album tracks and remastered versions of the band's various PRE/Charisma Records singles releases.
Scars appeared on BBC2's TOTP2 on March 3, 2007, which aired a live version of "All About You" from a 1981 episode of the "Old Grey Whistle Test" that featured the Scars as special guests. Along with a special music blog entry from February 2007 by a music editor at the respected Guardian UK newspaper entitled "Chasing Scars" and subtitled with, "Is the post-punk group Scars the Last Great Lost Band?", this has helped keep the band's name in the forefront of people's consciousness. Scars performed a live session on Marc Riley's programme on BBC Radio 6Music on 10 February 2011.
