The Trashcan Sinatras emerged from Kilmarnock in Scotland in the early 90s with three eye raising albums made in their own 24-track studio on Shabby Road. They had loyal fans who would make mix tapes of their tracks and email them to each other, and even raise funds so that the band could buy new equipment.
Then the Trashcan Sinatras’ record company Go! Disc collapsed in 1997, and left them bankrupt. What followed were what guitarist John Douglas calls “the indoor years”.
They couldn’t tour the UK, thanks to the tax department. So they’d sneak out records under false names, toured far flung places like Japan and sell albums of demos, b-sides cover versions and old live tracks under titles as Zebra Of The Family and On A B-Road. It wasn’t the best of times. They lived in freezing bedsits, were hounded by landlords and finally moved to Glasgow two years later.
An arts grant from the Scottish government allowed them to record their current album Weightlifting. Its title has nothing to do with exercising in the gym. Rather it takes its line from an earlier song which went “you would feel a great weight lifting.”
Coming from such a place of despair, you would expect Weightlifting to be an album of nothing but whining moaning noses. Instead, it has some great uplifting moments, about taking responsibility for one’s actions. On Welcome Back, singer Francis Reader (brother of Eddi) croons, “I was blind when I dined/Out with the monsters I knew at the time/But now I know better/I’m better, I’m fine.”
The line “there’s beauty in life/Yes, there’s beauty in life” in Freetime comes from the time when one of the band went camping on the island of Arran, off the Scottish coast.
“It’s a small island but it’s Scotland in miniature — the highlands, the lowlands, the rivers, the coastline. It is just a beautiful place to be in, you feel alive.”
The album Weightlifting, coming after an eight year’s break, was a turning point for them. It was simple, passionate and magical, with compelling melodies and descriptive words that came from the band’s love of Scottish poets. It was originally released in 2004, and as Douglas puts it, “It brought us back in the fold.”
They toured the United States three times, selling out three shows at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles in two days. A show at South by Southwest also got them a US deal with New York based record label Spinart.
“We’ve always had a good following in America,” Douglas says. “What’s the attraction? We’re melodic and we use licks well. That’s quite appealing to people, and it’s been rare in bands these past few years.
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“They’re a loyal bunch. They fly over to England if we’re playing. In the early days, they’d make it up to Kilmarnock, somehow track us at our homes or the studio and knock on the door. We’d have them up, show them around, maybe play them what we’d just done.”
The Trashcans also returned to Japan and sold out shows there, and found on their first tour in eight years of the UK, that there was still a place for them.
“The scene’s changed a lot, obviously, but we fitted right in. We got some really nice reviews in the UK magazines and the video got played on television. The timing was good.”
What kind of gifts do their fans give them? “Pretty much intelligent stuff, CDs, DVDs, books, socks, the kind of stuff that makes things easier on tour.”
The band is about to embark on its first Australian tour. To coincide, Stomp is re-releasing Weightlifting with some acoustic versions of All The Dark Horses and Weightlifting from American radio sessions.
Every tour, they do, Trashcan Sinatras will throw in a cover, maybe something from the Velvet Underground (although Douglas denies the band used to do the entire Velvets’ 1969 album onstage when they started out), Mink DeVille and Jam.
“It makes you feel like a fan again when you play them onstage,” he enthuses. “I was 16 when I saw the Clash live in Glasgow, and it changed everything for me. The Clash and the Sex Pistols completely changed life for me. I remember that Clash show so well, it was fantastic. It was just before they released London Calling, they did two shows in Glasgow with the guy from Ian Dury’s Blockheads played keyboards. They did the London Calling album and then they did White Riot. It was just sheer energy and very musical and very passionate. At that age, to see such energy and passion was mind blowing. I couldn’t take my eyes off Joe Strummer.
“My head got lost in music. Until then I might have ended up an archaeologist or a painter. I’m still interested in those. But music took over. After that I spent every penny on records, and every hour listening to the radio.”
Douglas is a big fan of the Aussie band Triffids. Recently when they did a track of an album based on Robert Burns’ poetry, they hunted down the Triffs’ Graham Lee to put some pedal steel on it.
Catch the Trashcan Sinatras for their tour, when they play The Cornish Arms, Brunswick on Thursday August 10. Nick Barker is in support for all shows. Weightlifting is in stores through Stomp. |
