Postcards From Scotland, by Grant McPhee, explores the gap which had appeared in the Scottish scene of 40 years ago, after post-punk bands had left the country with hopes of making it big in London.
While the music scene of the time in Glasgow and Edinburgh is fairly well known, Grant says he wanted to focus on the contribution made by smaller communities around Scotland, Irvine amongst them.
The book includes interviews with best-selling novelist Andrew O’Hagan and screenwriter and author John Niven, both of whom hail from the town.
Postcards From Scotland shines a light on Scotland’s indie music scene of the 1980s and early 1990s. (Image: Grant McPhee)
Grant said: “I think it is important, and not only from a cultural aspect. It can be inspiring to the next generation of musicians to know that people in their town have done something that other people think is important, and has left an imprint on the world.”
Grant explained that while working on his 2017 short film ‘Teenage Superstars’, which charts the Glasgow independent music scene between 1982 and 1992, he came to realise that the 90-minute running time wouldn’t be enough for him to detail the post-punk scene in Scotland.
Both O’Hagan and Niven have gone on to carve out hugely successful writing careers since their younger days in a band in Irvine.
O’Hagan’s debut novel, Our Fathers, was published in 1999 and was nominated for the Booker Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the International Dublin Literary Award.
His sixth novel, Mayflies, was published in September 2020 and was later turned into an award-winning two-part TV series, starring Martin Compston, Tony Curran and Ashley Jensen, broadcast on BBC One in December 2022.
Niven’s breakthrough novel, Kill Your Friends, published in 2008, is a biting satire based on his career in the music industry.
It was followed by seven more novels between 2009 and 2018, and by a series of critically-acclaimed screenplays.
Andrew O’Hagan’s Irvine music memories feature in Postcards From Scotland. (Image: Gordon Terris/Newsquest)
O Brother, published last year, is the story of Niven’s relationship with his brother, Gary, who took his own life in 2010.
But what not everyone may realise is that both were very much part of that 1980s Irvine music scene.
Their band was called The Big Gun, and although they only released one LP, in 1986, the single, Heard About Love, ended up being played on the John Peel Show on Radio 1.
Grant revealed that he discovered The Big Gun while working on the set of Outlander, the historical drama TV series based on the Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon, partly set and filmed in Scotland.
A member of the show’s production team, who hailed from Irvine, knew of Grant’s enthusiasm for Scotland’s 80s music scene and handed him a copy of Heard About Love.
“I thought it was one of the most fantastic, exciting singles I’d heard,” he said. “I couldn’t believe that I’d missed it.
“Everything about it was what I wanted to capture in this book.”
Postcards From Scotland
“When people think of the Irvine music scene of that era, most people think of the Trashcan Sinatras, who are probably the most famous band from that period, but when you look in further there was just so much going on.”
Author and screenwriter John Niven was bandmates with Andrew O’Hagan in The Big Gun in Irvine in the 1980s. (Image: Newsquest)
And Grant said he was equally amazed to discover that John Niven, who he’d assumed was from Glasgow, was part of that Irvine scene of 40 years ago.
“I think Niven says he still gets the excitement he used to get when he hears the single now, because it reminds people of their youth.
“It’s a little artefact that reminds people what it was like to be excited when you were young.”
The book – whose title, perhaps not entirely accidentally, hints at the fascinating story of the Glasgow-based independent record label Postcard Records – is based on 100 interviews, not just those with Niven and O’Hagan, on the memories a whole range of people have of the thriving indie scene in small town Scotland in the 1980s.
Grant says it’s vitally important to document those stories, not just from a cultural point of view but also to inspire and encourage the next creative generation.
“I think it is important that people know that you don’t have to move to a big city,” he said.
“You can do something significant, important and with cultural value within your own town, and probably more so now with the internet. The world is far more open.”
