Champion Doug Veitch – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #51 : CHAMPION DOUG VEITCH

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From wiki:-

Douglas Veitch, better known as Champion Doug Veitch (born 1960, Hawick, Scotland) is a Scottish musician and songwriter.

The self-styled ‘King of Caledonian Swing’ rose to some prominence in the mid 1980s.A favourite of John Peel, for whom he recorded two radio sessions, he holds the record for having most (six) consecutive NME singles of the week. His music was a ground-breaking polycultural mix, using elements from dub, reggae, country Music and Scottish folk music, which foretold the cross cultural mixing more common in later years.

In 1985, he co-founded the label DiscAfrique with his colleague Owen Elias, which was one of the first world music labels in the United Kingdom, releasing records by The Bhundu Boys, Orchestre Baobab and The Four Brothers amongst others.

In 1989, he released an album of Scottish country dance music with his wife under the moniker Martin, Doug and Sara.

And from his own website, a more recent update:-

In 1989, Doug released a compilation album, “The Original”, which included all the singles plus tracks from radio sessions.

This album featured all of Doug’s musical influences, from Country, Reggae, Mariachi, Western Swing, Cajun through to the High Life guitar music of Ghana. The album gained much media attention from the press. Despite renewed interest, Doug remained a virtual recluse and could not be persuaded to perform live.

However, in the summer of 2014, Doug replied to a Facebook post from Pete Lawrence (Making Waves) regarding “Reeling” – an album of Scottish dance music that Doug had released with Martin Bell. This led to a discussion on the prospect of playing a live gig. After a gap of some thirty years and largely due to the efforts of Martin in sourcing a truly all-star band, in February 2015, Champion Doug Veitch made a “triumphant and joyous” return at the 100 Club in London.

www.cdveitch.co.uk

I only own a couple of the singles from the 80s and one of these has featured previously on the blog. So here’s the other:-

mp3 : Champion Doug Leitch – Jumping Into Love

From 1985. It didn’t chart.

Butcher Boy, Captain America, Champion Doug Veitch, Cinematics, Clare Grogan, Clean George IV, Close Lobsters, Cocteau Twins

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SINGLE (Parts 28-35)

Back on 8 October 2011, I started a series called ‘Saturday’s Scottish Single’. The aim was to feature one 45 or CD single by a Scottish singer or band with the proviso that the 45 or CD single was in the collection. I had got to Part 60-something and as far as Kid Canaveral when the rug was pulled out from under TVV.

I’ll catch up soon enough by featuring 5 or more at a time from the archives..

(28) Butcher Boy – Imperial b/w Juicy Fruit : Damaged Goods 7″ (2011)

One of my all time favourite bands. That I was able to promote one of their gigs in Glasgow in 2011 will always be a memory to treasure.

This is the thing they’ve ever made available on vinyl. Still not prepared to make Juicy Fruit available on the blog as the 500 copies of the single have never sold out….

(29) Captain America – Flame On b/w Buttermilk b/w Indian Summer : Paperhouse Records CD (1992)

Between calling themselves Captain America and ripping off the logo from a chain store, it can’t come as too much of a surprise that all sorts of injunctions soon forced changes and led to this 1992 single being deleted very very quickly. Captain America arose from the ashes of The Vaselines and sound a bit like the way Teenage Fanclub sounded in 1992. The name was soon changed to Eugenuis which was the nickname some had given to frontman Eugene Kelly

(30) Champion Doug Veitch – Margarita b/w Margarita (Mix Mescales) b/w One Black Night (remix) : Conga Records 12″ single (1986)

Read more about Champion Doug Veitch here

(31) Cinematics – Be In The World (demo) : Promo one-sided 7″ bought at a gig when band supported Editors : (2005)