Stuart Braithwaite (2022) Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth.

Ask yourself a simple question. Would you rather be blind or deaf?

We can’t really imagine it. But for most of us, the answer, I’d guess, would be easy. I’d much rather be deaf. I’ve only heard one guy say he’d rather be blind. He loved music so much the answer was obvious to him, too.

Stuart Braithwaite is the lead singer of Mogwai. The band took their name from creatures in Gremlins but in China also means ‘demon’ (I think because I never checked if that translation rings true). It was a kind of in-joke between band members. Braithwaite also writes songs and plays the guitar. Music is his life and his job. Mogwai have released ten albums. I’m reading this from the back cover. His autobiography mainly covers the first five.  I’ve not heard or listened to their music. Braithwaite said they haven’t sold out to commercialism. More John Peel than Top of the Pops.  Any music that I listen to I prefer four-to-six sugar sweet with vocals.  

I really should. But I don’t listen to real music, whatever that is. I know I’d hate it. When he tells the reader that when his band play tracks like ‘Helcon’ or ‘Herod,’ or ‘Our Father/Our King’ they go for a guitar-decibel level of a plane taking off. You can probably hear me sighing. I often wonder where these nice middle-class kids got to practice. If it was anywhere near me or mine we’d be having words. But it seemed they were far enough away in one of the band’s parent’s house in Bearsden (snob capital) of East Dunbartonshire.  

Braithwaite’s book was, I presume, a marketing exercise, written for fans. I loved the names of many of the bands such as Nirvana. Hole. Spunk. Slint. The God Machine. Screwdriver and Arab Strap.

The structure of the book is straightforward. Young lads from Hamilton get together to create a brand of music. Being young has its uses. They are indestructible and after freebies. They don’t know how to create a unique sound or market, but that’s OK. They just make music. I like that because it’s much like writing. And I like them because they support my team, Celtic and have met Martin O’Neil—the friend of a friend dated his daughter and O’Neil (unlike me) was a music fan.

Most of the Scottish bands feature. I like Arab Strap, in particular, because they were (or are from) Falkirk, where my brother stays and are suitably working class and daft enough to pull me on board, even though I’ve not heard any of their music. (I know I’m repeating myself).

Songs resemble books in that, once creators publish them, we no longer possess them or their meaning. They can often be time machines. Resonance creates memories. I can, for example, remember when I first head Donny Osmond sing Puppy Love on Radio 1.  I was in a caravan park in Wemyss Bay. It was so obviously a song about my deep puppy love for Pauline Moriarity that Donny wrote the words for me and sang his teeth out. I never picked up a guitar to write my own songs, or brushed my teeth in any consistent way that wouldn’t leave the dentist out of work, or got to thank Donny. Reader, I did not get to kiss Pauline Moriarty. Sad endings are my speciality.

The problem here isn’t the saccharine, but clichés. ‘Sang his heart out,’ is clichéd.  Reality suffers from the use of such semantic short-cuts. Spaceship Over Glasgow is stuffed to the gills with pap not pop (yeh, I know more clichés) with flat notes that fail to resonate. No cliché is unused but nobody was hurt in the making of this book. 

If you’re a fan of Mogwai, you’ll love or like this book. Stuart Braithwaite would perhaps agree with me that there is a wonderful character inside as a support act. Unfortunately, it’s his polymath—Thatcherite hating, telescope making—genius of a dad. His story I’d really like to read. Read  on.

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