Boxset Review: The Skids - The Singles
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
For his next retrospective release, Captain Oi! turns his telescope onto Dunfermline’s finest punk / new wave sons, Skids, and their singles output for the years 1978 to 1981. Distanced from the burgeoning scene in London at the time, Skids were unhindered by expectations on their formation in 1977 and could set about making the music they wanted to hear, rather than have record companies and ambitious A&R men dictating their direction.
Prior to the release of the band’s debut album, Scared to Dance in 1979, Skids had already got the ball rolling, with their first music coming out almost a year before the full length. The Charles EP hit the shelves in February 1978 and features three tunes that would not – initially at least – find their ways onto Scared to Dance. The title-track has a flavour of the spirit of ’76, mixing social commentary with a driving beat; backed with Reasons and Test-Tube Babies, each demonstrating a different facet of the band’s creativity, they made waves and sent a warning there was a threat coming from the north.
September of the same year and Skids would be bothering the charts with the catchy Sweet Suburbia, an example of how to maintain a punk attitude and wrap it in a more appealing package. Backed with the bass-heavy Open Sound, it suggested these Scots were going nowhere.
Barely a month later and the Wide Open EP would emerge, four tracks led by one of Skids’ defining compositions in the shape of The Saints are Coming. It’s been covered by the likes of U2 and Green Day, as wells as being used by various sports teams, it broke the top 50 upon release and still holds a special place in the setlist to this day. Wide Open also featured Of One Skin, another still popular live track, it blends punk with a bouncing beat and a solo to give it some serious danceability. Both Night and Day and Confusion remain closer to the style of Stiff Little Fingers and their take on the punk aesthetic of the time.
To mark the release of Scared to Dance in February 1979 the band issued their most successful single so far in Into the Valley, backed with a live version of TV Stars. Reaching number 10 in the UK singles chart, the opening bass line never fails to get the blood pumping for what would turn out to be one of the first wave’s defining anthems. I recall Skids doing TV Stars at both of their 2022 Rebellion shows and getting to chant “Albert Tatlock” with a few thousand others was a great experience. Also, I remember my older brother having this single back in the day, so it holds a place of particular nostalgia for me.
Come May of 1979, following that year’s General Election, Skids would find similar chart success with Masquerade’s radio friendly jaunt; here backed with the competent Out of Town, a distinctly Scottish sounding Another Emotion and the experimental Aftermath Dub.
Much of the promotional material Skids released at this time did not feature on the debut album and by September 1979 they were gearing up to release the sophomore Days in Europa, which was described at the time as being new wave in tone with heavy metal tendencies. Lead single Charade leans more into an electronic sound and scored another top twenty placing, while B-side Grey Parade, a non-album track, is a haunting tune that deserves more attention.
Charade brings disc one of this collection to a close and disc two picks up immediately after, keeping us in the Seventies for another Skids live favourite: Working for the Yankee Dollar – referenced by David Brent in The Office, if I recall correctly – and backed with the more punk-oriented Vanguard’s Curse.
The band saw in the new decade with one final visit to Days in Europa and the February issuing of the single Animation and its B-side of Pros and Cons; both of which were album cuts. I always feel there’s a wistfulness about Animation, its companion is another competent addition, complete with electronic accoutrements.
All went quite on the Skids front for six months while they worked album number three, The Absolute Game, only breaking radio silence in August of 1980 with Circus Games, backed with One Decree, both to feature on the upcoming record. The new wave elements would continue to rise to the fore on both and would signal the direction of what would become the band’s most successful full-length to date.
Come the autumn and Goodbye Civilian would be edited into a single; in hindsight it’s easy to start to pick out the work of Stuart Adamson and hear ideas he would eventually take with him to Big Country, and part of …Civilian’s mid-section could easily sit alongside Fields of Fire or In a Big Country. The flipside, Monkey McGuire Meets Specky Potter Behind Lochore Institute, is an instrumental fusion of punk and jazz.
Also edited for a single release was the near-six-minute Woman in Winter, trimmed by about a third it’s still an epic sounding piece that broke the top fifty at the end of 1980 and was backed with a live version of Working for the Yankee Dollar.
Work was ongoing for Joy, Skids’ fourth record, meaning all was quiet until the release of Fields in August 1981, here presented in both 7” and 12” versions with the B-side of Brave Man being given the same treatment.
Joy was the first time Skids had recorded without Start Adamson and the result was a far more Folk focused album. Fields used acoustic, rustic instrumentation and evokes the windswept plains of pre-industrial Scotland. Brave Man doesn’t really fit into Joy’s trimmed down vibes and is closer to the sound of The Absolute Game. Alternate versions see both with extended running times to meet to requirements of the 12” singles market at the time.
The final release on offer here is Iona, a staunchly Caledonian march with traditional feel, offered in two versions, and album track Blood and Soil, about as far away from Into the Valley and The Saints are Coming as it’s possible to get.
Skids would go their separate ways in 1982, only reforming in 2007, though Stuart, after finding success with Big Country, would pass away in Hawaii in 2001. Frontman Richard Jobson would continue to fly the flag, releasing the band’s first album of live material since Joy in 2018 and the frankly excellent Burning Cities record. They continue to tour to this day, though, other than Jobbo, the personnel is different, playing all those tunes we know and love and feature on this collection with a gusto and zeal that belies their age.
Included is a booklet, curated by the band’s website, giving a whistle-stop tour of the development of one of punk’s early originators, whose music is still as important today as it was back in the Seventies and Eighties.
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