More sweaties spotted too

Scared bunnies run through the city and avoid the foxes by hiding out at the Fillmore. More sweaties spotted too.

So for the uninitiated, the term used affectionately by the English, from the London area, for the Scots our brothers from north of the Border, is “Sweaties”. This epithet is the shortening of Cockney Rhyming Slang for Sweaty Socks as in Jocks. In past times all Scots were referred to as Jocks, by the English, which is a diminutive for John or James, partly due to their support during the war of Succession for the catholic King James. It’s similar to all Welsh being assumed en groupe to be Taffs (phonetic pronunciation of the popular first name David) and Micks or Paddies for the Irish (ditto Michael and Patrick).

So 350 miles north of the Cockney rejects the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and minor towns around have spawned over the years much amazing musicianship and great song writing. The litany of successful Scots’ rock bands is lengthy, liturgist and laudable for the relative small population of 5 million. The social history of Scotland is one of strife and sadness. The backdrop of forced expulsion from the highlands by the English, large scale emigration of up to 10% of the population as heavy industry waned and over representation in the British Armed Forces where, although Scots were only 10 per cent of the British population, they made up 15 per cent of the armed forces and eventually accounted for 20 per cent of the dead resulted in the population being around that mark since the end of the reign of Queen Victoria.

So it is unsurprising that the creative outpourings should reflect the tough life, the weather – which is enough to send a man to drink – and the economic demise, it is commonly hard-nosed and often lachrymose. Whether poetry, fiction or music there is bitter bedrock of bad experiences, bad food, bad jobs and bad luck. As Irvine Welsh so admirably put it in his admirable Trainspotting: “Fuckin failures in a country of failures. Its nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant healthy society to be colonised by. No..we are ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don't hate the English. They just git oan wis the shite thev got. Ah hate the Scots.”

With the exception of say Belle and Sebastian or CameraObscura who manage to cast a fey veneer of cheerful bonhomie over even their sad songs the canon of Scot popular music has been strident, resilient, uplifting but honed through bitterness. Even the instrumental genius of Mogwai tends to lean towards the chromatic tabulation of getting shit faced drunk and smashing stuff up. Primal Scream, Arab Strap, Malcolm Middleton, Teenage Fanclub, The Primevals, Glasvegas, Twilight Sad, Jesus and Mary Chain, not a breezy poppy love song among them.

Now that is not a bad thing, after all there is only so much Abbaful effervescence that one can deal with and life generally is improved by listening to someone else’s problems.

So having listened to the excellent troubled ballads of The Twilight Sad as support to Frightened Rabbit at their Fillmore the main attraction took the stage. I have an issue with bands that don’t make any effort with lights and stage dressing. It’s an example of a lack of creativity or a frustration around the lost opportunity to tie some visual statement to the aural spectacle. The Rabbits have a cool stage back drop of telegraph wires receding into a distance and their lights are at least timed and varied even if this is not the kind of slide show, oil projector fantasies of the Fillmore of yore when the Airplane's paeans to the stars were illuminated musical manuscripts.

They tell their tales of sad lives and strong choruses ensure we all sing along and bounce around with shared joy at their pedestrian verse:

“She cries on the high street just to be heard,

A screaming anchor for nothing in particular,

At the foot of the fuck of it
And dragging her heels in the dirt”

That is part of the glorious State Hospital. We smile along to the uplifting ditties like Loneliness, Not Miserable and a Late March Death March. The Hutchinson brothers and the rest of the band are happy to be back in town, enjoying the crowd, baiting us with poor comparisons to Seattle. The musicianship supports the strong song form and the large presence of women in the audience shows they are commercially hitting their stride as a Caledonian take on the populist modern folk approach that has worked so well for Mumfords and Ted Sharpe’s 0’s.

So as we stream out into the nearly deserted Monday night streets we are heartened to have metaphorically have swim “through the shit I write
How can I talk about life and warmth, I've got a voice like a gutter in a toxic storm” but we do feel warmed and life is good, thanks to the dark words pouring from Scott Hutchinson’s mouth.
So if you are going to dive into the veritable oil slick of despondency of the Bunnies what should you be drinking? Come on, really? there is only one drink and that is Whisky and Scotch at that. The kindly ladies and gents at K&L Wines have an excellent blended whisky called the Bank Note and I would not want to drown sorrows in anything less appropriate.