By the time
Jock Scot
made his debut album,
My Personal Culloden
, he'd been attached to the music business for nearly two decades in a variety of vague roles that can be generally summed up as a "supplier of good vibes." After hitchhiking to a 1978
Ian Dury
gig in Newcastle in full post-match football regalia, the future poet charmed his way backstage and quickly joined the
Blockheads
' touring coterie. The Edinburgh native's natural charisma earned him similar access to acts like
the Clash
and
the B-52s
and within a couple of years he found himself employed in the front office of
Stiff Records
. A later gig working for
Charisma Records
had him loosely attached to
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
frontman
Vivian Stanshall
, from whom the label was trying to coax another album of kooky spoken word abstractionism. By the mid-'80s,
Scot
himself began writing poetry and had recast himself as a sort of spoken word raconteur, eventually culminating in his first (and only) published book of poems, 1993's Where Is My Heroine?, a volume written during several heady years of heroin addiction back in Edinburgh. After cleaning himself up in the mid-'90s, he became involved musically with longtime friend
Davy Henderson
(
the Fire Engines
,
Win
), collaborating on a few tracks with his band
the Nectarine No. 9
. Making
's own album seemed a natural next step and with
Henderson
producing and his crew supplying the music,
was birthed over a frenetic fortnight in 1997. The resulting 18 tracks are a rich, fascinating travelogue through
's id, ego, history, and city, all delivered in his robust musical brogue against a backdrop of experimental rock pastiches and grooves. Veering from blunt street poetry to obscure humor and even romance, he faces fond memories and regrets ("Domestic Bliss"), professes a homoerotic attraction to a French rugby star ("Gay Paean to Thierry"), and proclaims
Ronnie Wood
to be his preferred deity ("Good God"). There's often little rhyme or reason to
's inventive production, but the spontaneity mostly aids
's material. Creepy
Tom Waits-ian
guitars and marimbas lurch behind the sensual "Someone's Yearning," while tracks like "Farewell to Ferodo" and "All Over the World Girls Are Dreaming" are supported by more ambient textural backdrops.
enlists his two young daughters to accompany him on the album's lone sung number, the appropriately spaced-out heroin anthem "There's a Hole in Daddy's Arm." It all feels wonderfully impulsive and loose with odd samples, lo-fi tape-recorded intros, and a cut-up style that prevents it from getting anywhere close to pop music. The maverick punk-poet style
developed through his live readings comes to life in an inspired studio collaboration that feels both difficult and deliciously inviting. Its original 1997 release eventually fell out of print, and for nearly 20 years
retained a cult classic status until British label
Heavenly Records
gave it a proper reissue in 2015. ~ Timothy Monger