In 1996, the Trashcan Sinatras released their third album, A Happy Pocket, to the kind of levels of press acclaim that they had become accustomed to with their previous releases, Cake and I've Seen Everything. Their record company was on a hot streak, having plotted the careers of Paul Weller, The Beautiful South, and Portishead. The label even splashed out on a short film, Spooktime, to accompany the album, and, even in the under-achieving world of the Trashcan Sinatras, there was cause for optimism. Surely, Britain could no longer remain oblivious to their charms.
Erm, well. It could. Having enjoyed decent sales in Japan and America on the first two albums, A Happy Pocket failed to secure a US release, and was appearing at severely discounted prices in local record emporiums a few months after release. If, from the outside, things did not look good for the band, internally they were struggling even more, all too familiar casualties of a record company takeover.
While hardly alone in this predicament, the ironies surrounding their departure from Go! Discs are not lost on the band. Asked on their website as to the highlight of their career, singer Francis Reader and guitarist Paul Livingston choose "bankruptcy." On a mock football coupon on the inner sleeve of A Happy Pocket, they set out the odds on Cardboard City (2/9) and Belgravia (10-1). If their financial problems have not been quite as dramatic as one tabloid made out, then neither have these been particularly good times for the band. Unquestionably, since they left Go! Discs and Andy MacDonald of Go! Discs left Polygram, there has been only one winner.
While the band have spent the last six years in varying degrees of hibernation, MacDonald set up a new label, signed another Scottish band - Travis - and hit paydirt all over again. In the circumstances, there is much to admire about the band's attitude (cynical rather than bitter, Reader makes only passing reference to the "Bread revival") and their resilience. If three albums in 15 years is far from prolific, then fans are clearly grateful of any activity. Tonight's show at King Tut's - their first in Glasgow for five years - has sold out.
"Our touring just kind of evaporated as an exercise in diminishing returns," says Reader of their absence from playing (they have done some shows in Japan and America since 1996). "In Japan and America, at least we have always enjoyed a bit of prestige, which actually makes playing there more realistic and rewarding than in this country. It's a bit of a shame, because I think we were just getting to the point of being good when we stopped playing regularly. At the beginning, we wrote lots of songs that we weren't able to play, but eventually we became quite regimented and reliable."
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Survival has been the main object of the exercise in recent years - and Reader seems genuine in his assertion that "even for us to get up to Glasgow (from Ayrshire) to rehearse is something of an achievement." A cover of Randy Newman's Snow, was released as a single in Japan, an album was recorded in America last year. Various band members moved temporarily to America and London, but it was a combination of songs, and the support of fans worldwide through the internet, that kept spirits up.
"Things just seemed to go into slow motion," he recalls, "and then we lost our studio. We ended up out on our ear, not answering the phone, that sort of thing.
"I think without the support of fans on the internet we may have folded. There were fans in America putting together bootlegs, selling them on the web and then sending us bits of money."
For tonight's show, which sees a return to the five-piece line-up that toured I've Seen Everything and A Happy Pocket, they are promising a mixture of new and old songs, with an album's worth of material written and ready to go, if and when they find a label willing to back it. For those getting impatient, there is no likelihood of a release this year.
"I think it has been the songs more than anything else that have kept us together as a group," says Reader. "Our moods and attitudes to each other revolve a lot round the songs, and it has been quite strange recently since we have started rehearsing again. Going back to some of the older songs has been a bit like reconnecting with dead relatives through a medium or something."
Fans at King Tut's may feel the same way about tonight's show - but the band is most certainly still alive.
Originally appeared in the Herald.
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