WHAT were Scottish musicians, unable to perform live, doing during the lockdown? Writing memoirs, like many others. Here’s another joining a growing list that includes Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross and Primal Scream’s mythomane, Bobby Gillespie. Stuart Braithwaite is a member of Glasgow’s much-loved Mogwai. Their tenth album – As the Love Continues – topped the UK charts; reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Expectations for this book are high.
We learn quickly about Stuart’s life before Mogwai. Braithwaite is from Lanarkshire; he’s small, bald, and middle-class (mum a GP). He has a history of underage drinking and has pals in Bearsden, pals with older, cooler, siblings. He’s chased by neds in the Blantyre vicinity, worries that East Kilbride “isn’t the friendliest place in the world. He doesn’t like Thatcher but digs reading Hubert Selby Jr. He misses his Modernist, anti-capitalist father.
His childhood is idyllic. At this point I need to mention Sigmund Freud. In Civilization And Its Discontents, Freud talks about the “narcissism of minor difference”. It’s what set off the Bosnian civil war. It’s Rangers versus Celtic. Your Glaswegian reviewer is alert to this notion.
Stuart hates authority, irritates his teachers, and nearly gets expelled. That doesn’t happen “…because my mum was the teacher’s doctor. An early introduction to the concept of privilege”.
This is refreshingly honest. His parents buy him tickets for Glastonbury. They are permissive as regards gig attendance and school non-attendance. Despite his rebellious nature, his beloved father has to pick him up from Ayr after he misses the last train home. Lucky boy!
Braithwaite is candid about his long history of drug and alcohol abuse. Overindulgence appears on most pages; by the end of reading his book I thought I had pancreatitis. It’s good too that he admits to the limitations of the band’s playing – “I’ve never had any interest in virtuosity” – and acknowledges Mogwai’s influences, Slint and Tortoise, the latter a band with serious chops.
He’s one of life’s enthusiasts reminding you of Paul Whitehouse’s character, that bouncy youngster forever saying things are “brilliant”. Wide-eyed Stuart loves Spaceman 3, A Guy Called Gerald, My Bloody Valentine. The narcissism of minor difference klaxon has gone off again.
There’s barely a page here that doesn’t mention a venue or a gig is “legendary”, that a band were “amazing”, and that existence in general is “incredible”. People are “lovely” or “extremely lovely”. Other musicians are “warm”, “friendly”, and “down to earth”.
No doubt they were very funny too; now the patter theft alarm is ringing loudly. Nights out are “bedlam”. He confesses that he was sometimes “acting like a dick”. The guy is exhausting…
Stuart says he’s a “connoisseur of cheek” so presumably he’ll permit me pointing out that it was Philippe Parreno who collaborated with Douglas Gordon on the Zidane art film, not someone called Peron. Maybe he’s thinking of Eva or Juan. Anyway, it’s reassuring he has “a lot of time for journalists”.
Blur are the focus of much ire, Braithwaite thinking them “vacuous”. He particularly takes against their “faux Cockney accents” suggesting that, although he’s played Colchester, he hasn’t listened much to people from Blur’s hometown. Scots-born people like my brother, who went to school with Graham from Blur, who also talks with an Essex accent … but wait … the narcissism of minor difference siren is blaring.
Braithwaite confesses he was “really mouthy” and castigates other bands with “withering put downs”; he says he was pithy and snide. He regrets the “Blur: Are Shite” T-shirt provocation, thinking today this was “childish”. He admits he was “an idiot talking crap”. Freud’s siren is now deafening.
I could have been doing with less of the fanboy salaaming as regards The Cure and his ardour for horror movies but that’s a matter of personal taste. Others may condemn his indifference to inner ear function (132 decibels – a jet taking off!) during Mogwai’s gigs.
He’s entirely correct though to describe his beloved Barrowlands as “utterly majestic and gloriously shabby”: he’s entirely incorrect to say the Queen Margaret Union at Glasgow University is “a great venue”. He knows “Glaswegians love it when their own do well” and there’s no question Braithwaite has led a rollicking life. In Stuart’s own favoured word it’s been “tremendous”.
