Billy Mackenzie, image by Richard Haughton

Back then, if you wanted to know which bands were playing when in Edinburgh you went to Ripping Records on South Bridge and looked at the concert tickets displayed in the window, an analogue version of Ceefax, Ceefax being an analogue version of the yet to be invented world wide web.

This was July 1982, we were just kids enjoying our last school summer holiday. That afternoon we’d cycled to Ripping to buy tickets for one of three shows being put on by Scottish post-punk band, The Associates the following month at the Assembly Rooms. On the way down there, we had been messing about and I’d momentarily lost my balance. I should just have let myself fall but I stuck my left arm out in a hopeless attempt to prevent the inevitable and only ended up grinding loose grit into the palm of my hand.

John Richardson, owner of Ripping Records 1975 - 2026, image © Copyright: HES

Ripping Records was owned by John Richardson who retired in 2016 having run the shop since 1975. After we’d bought our tickets for the Assembly Rooms, John tried to sell me a copy of the Associates recently released single. It was a double A-side: a new track, 18 Carat Love Affair, and a sublime cover of the Diana Ross classic, Love Hangover, but I didn't have enough money and, with my bloodied hand, I was having enough difficulty holding onto the handlebars of my bike, let along control a bag containing a 12" vinyl single.

And this is where the story gets weird. There were three of us that afternoon and one of my friends suggested we “get jobs”, a novel concept for all of us. Whether we decided working at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo would be fun (it definitely wasn’t) or we just pedalled past their office at the foot of Cockburn Street and thought “that’ll do”, I can’t now remember. Either way, after an interview of no longer than 10 minutes and no background checks whatsoever, we secured three weeks employment as stewards at all 21 performances of the Tattoo.

Oh, the Associates gig? It never happened. Along with those on the following two nights - the concert was cancelled. As to the precise reasons, no one knows. It was reported that singer Billy Mackenzie had lost his voice but, regardless, that night, at the peak of their success, guitarist Alan Rankine quit the band.

I still have the ticket. I never returned to Ripping Records to get my refund. £3.50 if you’re interested.

***

Even now there seems to be precious little security around the Lawnmarket during performances of the Tattoo. People are able to line the road to watch the military bands exit the Castle Esplanade during the show as they march towards the various buildings commandeered for the month as temporary dressing rooms. It was into this carnival atmosphere that my wife and I stumbled on a stiflingly hot Saturday August evening two summers back. We were on our way to see a play at Riddles Court.

Pausing to enable the musicians to cross Upper Bow I glanced up: waiting to cross in the opposite direction and no further away than three drummers was a young woman wearing an Associates t-shirt, sparking a memory of that concert 40 years ago that never happened.

There was a gap in the ranks, she crossed the road, we crossed the road. And that was it, all over in – at tops – three seconds. Even at that moment I couldn’t say for certain what the image on her t-shirt was, it was rendered in black & white and might have been the cover art of Fourth Drawer Down. But what was unmistakeable was the distinctive elongated font, spelling ASSOCIATES, used on that album, the following year’s Sulk and on almost every release thereafter.

Fourth Drawer Down, LP, Situation Two, 1981

We listen to music written or recorded by artists who are long since dead all the time, in that there’s nothing particularly remarkable. But there was something about that woman which resonated with me: she probably hadn’t been born when dear Billy took his life in 1997. And yet his – and, of course, Alan Rankine’s – music lives on, just a wee band from Dundee, still giving pleasure after all these years. The Associates’ flame might have burned briefly but it burned bright.

Later that evening, walking down Johnston Terrace with the Castle towering above us, my wife told me how, when she lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia her bagpipe playing neighbours the Macquaries were invited onstage to accompany the White Stripes. Moments later - and this is no word of a lie - we were deafened by the US Army Field Band who burst into a rendition of Seven Nation Army which was met with rapturous applause from a delighted capacity Tattoo crowd.

How lovely it would be if the Scottish Massed Pipes and Drums kicked off next year’s Tattoo by marching through the smoke covered drawbridge of Edinburgh Castle with a rousing version of the Associates best-known hit, Party Fears Two. What an inspiring sight and sound that would make.

After enduring twenty-one performances of the Tattoo in 1982, I said I would never, could never go back. But for that … there’s a lump in my throat, a tear in my eye just thinking about it.

I’d be there like a shot.

As read at the Argonaut Bookshop Spoken Word Night, 15th September 2025.
Original version published on Bella Caledonia, 21st July 2023.

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