The scene was an arty party in London, and there was already a clear musical link between former Josef K, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera guitarist Malcolm Ross and frontman of Glasgow-based young fogies The Low Miffs, Leo Condie.
For anyone of a certain vintage who’s heard The Low Miffs, their chief influences from the post-punk Sound of Young Scotland era (which Ross’s understated riffing, jangling and twanging went some way to defining) will be obvious.
On top of this, Condie croons and wails like a reborn Billy Mackenzie with a Jacques Brel fetish. With such cross-generational common ground between Condie and Ross, collaboration was inevitable.
A couple of years on, the end result is the just-released Malcolm Ross and The Low Miffs album, which, in the spirit of democracy, is credited to The Low Miffs and Malcolm Ross.
Following a couple of record shop showcases – at which Ross featured singing Josef K classic, Sorry For Laughing – this weekend’s full sets in Edinburgh and Glasgow look set to extend the alliance.
“It was all quite natural,” says Ross with a modesty that belies his position as one of this country’s great guitarists.
“I’d first heard The Low Miffs on MySpace and liked them, then when I met Leo and found out the band were all Josef K and Orange Juice fans, it all seemed to fit, and I really liked their similar attitude to those bands. Then we discovered that when Leo was a wee boy he lived with his parents across the road from my mum, so it all seemed to be meant.”
Despite the age gap, Ross joined The Low Miffs for a Highland tour supporting The Horrors, after which Condie and co decided that “the whole experience was rather good. For us, it was an amazing opportunity to work with someone like Malcolm, especially when you’re in a band where you get to know how everyone works to the point that it is hard to change the dynamic.
“All my influences come out of intelligent pop, so it was really nice to get a glimpse through Malcolm of how that’s done, where you can keep things simple, but with some kind of substance at its core.”
The Low Miffs were born at Strathclyde University, where Condie, guitarist Peter Webster, saxophonist Thomas Brogan, drummer Rory Clark and bassist Mike Fowler were music students keen to rebel against their classical training (Clark’s first instrument is the French horn) by picking up guitars.
By that time Condie had been weaned on The Beatles before following a free-associative path through David Bowie, Brian Eno and Harold Budd before eventually landing on the original Postcard Records roster, which included all of Ross’s old bands.
“That was when I became aware of all the great music produced in Scotland,” he says.
The Ross/Low Miffs conjoinment isn’t the only example of musical batons being passed down the ages. Former Fire Engines lynchpin Davy Henderson’s latest incarnation as The Sexual Objects, who last week supported Gang of Four in Edinburgh, currently feature Graham Wann, vocalist with Glasgow’s other heavily Sound of Young Scotland inspired young turks, Bricolage, in their ranks.
One can blame this on the Franz Ferdinand effect, whereby Glasgow’s now global musical statesmen took a sound patented by Ross’s DIY generation almost three decades earlier into the mainstream, and dropped the names of their influences as a means of paying their dues. Things haven’t always been this way, however.
“In the early 1990s,” Ross remembers, “when Marina Records in Germany put out one of my solo albums, the NME said they weren’t running a review of it because it wasn’t relevant to the times.”
Beyond The Low Miffs, Ross remains busy with The Bum Clocks, the Robert Burns meets Iggy Pop super-group formed with actor Tam Dean Burn and his brother, former Fire engines drummer Russell Burn. He also recently guested with a revitalised Edwyn Collins. For Condie and the rest of The Low Miffs, it was a golden opportunity to watch and learn from the pair’s wisdom and experience.
“It feels like the old guard who’ve done it all are passing things on to the likes of us who are naïve and clueless, and we’re very grateful for that.” Condie says.
The Low Miffs and Malcolm Ross play Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sept 26, Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, Sept 27. Malcolm Ross and The Low Miffs is available on Re-Action Records.
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