BRUCE'S RECORD SHOP AD - 1978

Another great record shop doing brisk business in 1978 was Bruce's in Reform Street.

I've already got a few items relating to Bruce's in the Retro archive, so because I've covered the basics, there's no need to repeat it here.

Something I haven't mentioned before is, in 1978, Bruce's main man, Jim Stewart, had a stint as DJ down at the Sands, playing a wide variety of sounds. Some of his selection would have been the latest hot imports, because as you can see in the ad, they were the only importers in town at the time.

The shop wasn't huge but they did cater for just about everyones tastes and I can even remember buying comedy records out of there. In fact I can rattle off 3 I got in 1975 for example - Billy Connolly "Cop Yer Whack For This" - Richard Pryor "Was It Something I Said" - Bill Barclay (remember him?) "Almost Live".

Mind you, I've no idea who the funny looking fella in the ad is, holding up the vinyl.
Mark Knopfler?

MORE ST ANDREW & THE WOOLLEN MILL

Bringing May's mega music mix to a halt, I'm gonna let St Andrew & The Woollen Mill continue with the comedy and have them play the month out with a bit of a chuckle.
This is another couple of tracks taken from the same source as yesterdays but shows a different side to the act, because along with the self penned material in the set, St Andrew also performed well known tunes...but with a humorous twist of course!
So once again the examples here were both recorded live - first one is a rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross", and the second one, the tune from "Close Encounters", dropping Vangelis's "Chariots Of Fire" into the fray!
I've seen them do this back in the early 80's and it's now interesting to observe that this comedy routine predates Bill Bailey by quite a few years.

Thanx to Jim.

ST ANDREW & THE WOOLLEN MILL - LIVE

Around about 1985ish, St Andrew & The Woollen Mill brought out a cassette that chronicled the history of the band. Done in the style of a mock documentary, it had interviews, fly-on-the-wall behind the scenes shenanigans, studio recordings and live recordings. It was put together really well, lasts an hour, and of course being comedy material, is funny all the way through. It's also loaded with references from the early 80's Dundee music scene, as well as mentioning quite a few well known places around town.
To give you a flavour of the content, here below is a recording capturing some of the fun of their live performances.
As a wee reminder, and to help put you in the picture, the mince roll caravan was up the Hulltoon.
The rest should be self explanatory.

Big thanks to Jim.

BIG YIN AND THE SEX PISTOLS - 1976

Dundee features in this episode of The Big Yin cartoon strip from December 1976 - on the list of gig cancellations!
The Big Yin was of course, Billy Connolly, who in the mid 70's had started to hit the big time. As well as his stage shows, he also indulged in tv films, had records in the pop charts and had now become the star of his own cartoon strip in the Sunday Mail.
The character was created by Malky McCormick, who himself appears in the strip as The Wee Man, The Big Yins chum.
Every Sunday the strip would revolve around that weeks topics, and in this particular instalment, the main subject that hit the headlines was all the publicity the Sex Pistols received after their notorious ding-dong with Bill Grundy, followed by the commotion caused by their cancelled shows..!!

HANK LOCKLIN & HUMBLEBUMS - CAIRD HALL - 1970

I was flicking through an old Courier I have, dated 11 April 1970, and I spotted this review of a concert that had taken place in Dundee the previous night.
Country & Western singer, Hank Locklin with his backing band Country Fever were top of the bill. Not a show I was at but he seems to have gone down rather well judging by the FIVE ENCORES he got!
Sharing the bill were the Scottish duo, The Humblebums, featuring Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly, who played a selection of hill-billy music, rock, folk and "comedy".
Yeah that Gerry Rafferty is a really funny guy. Not sure what happend to the other one though!!