THE ART OF THE COMPANY PRESS RELEASE (2)

It was around this time last month that I offered up details of the bewildering and baffling press release for Oh! Brother by The Fall, released as a single in June 1984.

Without the threat of turning this into any sort of series, I thought I’d now provide an example of the more understandable and straightforward press release, although I should warn you that there is a fair use of poetic license in many of its sentences, issued on 24 September 1980:-

VIRGIN information

SKIDS – IT’S ALL SCOTTISH TO THEM

While The Skids are strutting and leaping around the nation’s concert halls and school-yards over the next month, and their third album ‘The Absolute Game’ comes rocketing into the charts at number 9, Virgin, recognising a winning streak, gear up for the next Skids single.

‘Goodbye Civilian’ which is lifted from the album and sees release on October 3, is another of those typically rousing terrace anthems which takes Scottish jungle music to an ever-widening and appreciative audience. A much jauntier number than its predecessor ‘ Circus Games’, and with some liberal dollops of synthesizer, ‘Goodbye Civilian’ firmly cements the band’s burgeoning reputation as the most exciting band to move into the first division this year.

The flip ‘Monkey McGuire Meets Specky Potter Behind Lochore Institute’ is a rousing instrumental thrash. According to Richard Jobson, aged 49 and 5ft., ‘Monkey McGuire’ is a Dunfermline (Skids home town) jockey who never quite made it. ‘Specky Potter’, says Skids’ guitarist Stuart Adamson, is quite simply a genius. “He’s the innovator of the infamous guitar strap breaking technique and is a legend in his own drinking time. The man’s ageless and he’s the cult hero of Dunfermline’s Belleville Hotel”

Speaking of Skids’ watering holes, Lochore Institute is a working man’s club situated between Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy, and wee Richard Jobson has been known to sink more than a few ales with friends within its precincts. What else do you expect an instrumental to be about?

mp3: The Skids – Goodbye Civilian (single version)
mp3: The Skids – Monkey McGuire Meets Specky Potter Behind Lochore Institute

Both taken from at least a second-hand copy, which is a bit battered, worn, and crackly.  Keepin’ it real…….

Despite the best efforts of the PR folk, the single was a relative flop, only reaching #52.  Indeed, the aforementioned Circus Games would prove to be the last time The Skids had any impact on the singles chart, and even that only reached #32.

 JC