Scars (originally known as The Scars) were a Scottish

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-r ...

band from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland, and were a part of that city's music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

History

Fronted by Robert King and featuring Paul Research on lead guitar, John Mackie on bass, and Calumn Mackay on drums, the band's first single was in 1979 on Fast Product; "Horrorshow"/"Adult/ery". The band's song "Your Attention Please" appeared as a free gold flexi-disc in the first issue of the

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based style magazine ''

i-D ''i-D'' is a British bimonthly magazine published by Vice Media, dedicated to fashion, music, art and youth culture. ''i-D'' was founded by designer and former '' Vogue'' art director Terry Jones in 1980. The first issue was published in the fo ...

''. This song was later included in the band's 1981 (and sole) album '' Author! Author!'' ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'' ranked the album number 75 in the list of the top 100 Scottish rock and pop albums of all time.

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

invited the band to record two of his Sessions, once in February 1980 and another in May 1981. The group was part of a literary art-punk scene that centred on a pub called the "Tap o' Lauriston" at 80 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh (near

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

), along with

The Fire Engines The Fire Engines were a post-punk band from Edinburgh, Scotland. The Fire Engines were an influence on many bands that followed, including Franz Ferdinand and The Rapture, with Meat Whiplash and The Candyskins both taking their names from Fi ...

and The Cubs.Smith, A. "With Franz like these...". ''Scotland On Sunday''. 15 October 2006. Accessed vi
the newspaper's website
In 1982, Scars supported The Church.Research, Paul. Retrieved 18 November 2006.
"Scars Moments: The Venue June 1982"
Scarsresearch.com.

Post break-up

Lemon Jelly Lemon Jelly is a British electronic music duo from London that formed in 1998 and went on hiatus starting in 2008. Since its inception, the band members have always been Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen. Lemon Jelly has been nominated for awards ...

used samples of "Horrorshow" in their song " '79 aka The Shouty Track" on the album '' '64 - '95'' in 2005. The song was the second single released from that album. When Lemon Jelly toured in support of 64 - '95'', they invited Scars (with original drummer Calumn Mackay) along to play live the sampled parts of "79 - The Shouty Track" in selected dates, including Edinburgh. Scars appeared on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

TOTP2 ''Top of the Pops 2'' (also known as ''TOTP2'') is a British television music show broadcast on BBC Two showing archive footage from the long-running ''Top of the Pops'' show, some dating back to the 1960s when the programme first aired on Britis ...

on 3 March 2007, which aired a live version of "All About You" from a 1981 episode of ''

The Old Grey Whistle Test ''The Old Grey Whistle Test'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''Whistle Test'' or ''OGWT'') is a British television music show. The show was devised by BBC producer Rowan Ayers, commissioned by David Attenborough and aired on BBC2 from 1971 to 1988. ...

'' that featured Scars as special guests. Scars played a one-off reunion gig in Edinburgh on 29 December 2010, their first live appearance in 25 years. The history of Scars is covered in 2015 documentary film, ''

Big Gold Dream ''Big Gold Dream'' is a 2015 film documenting the story of Scotland's post-punk scene, focusing on record labels Fast Product and Postcard Records. Directed by filmmaker Grant McPhee, the film's name is taken from the 1981 Fire Engines single ...

''.

Discography

* "Horrorshow"/"Adult/ery" (7",

Fast Fast or FAST may refer to: * Fast (noun), high speed or velocity * Fast (noun, verb), to practice fasting, abstaining from food and/or water for a certain period of time Acronyms and coded Computing and software * ''Faceted Application of Subje ...

1979) * "They Came and Took Her"/"Romance By Mail" (7",

Charisma Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects. Scholars in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "ch ...

1980) * "Love Song"/"Psychomodo" (7",

1980) * "All About You"/"Author! Author!" (7",

1981) * '' Author! Author!'' (LP,

1981), charted at #67 UK. * ''Author! Author!'' (EP, Stiff 1981) * ''Author! Author!'' (CD, PreVS 2007)

References

External links

Scars at Discogs

The Scars on the BBC's official John Peel Sessions site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scars Scottish post-punk music groups Scottish rock music groups Scottish new wave musical groups Musical groups from Edinburgh Musical groups established in 1977