The Spook School / Garden of Elks / Colin’s Godson

Is the Scottish music scene stagnant? A question someone asked me tonight, perhaps inspired by the T in the Park / T-Break lineups recently announced. And quite possibly because none of tonight’s lineup were included in said lineups.
Colin’s Godson are, probably, not even part of the ‘scene’, whatever that is. Resplendent in self-sponsored football tops, they rip through mini prog-punk epics revolving round the space-time continuum and covering subjects such as Brian May’s status as space-based tax exile. Number one on eight planets in the Tau Ceti system (in 3176), they make what is probably called ‘outsider pop’.
Garden of Elks, it transpires, feature a former itm? writer in their ranks. Though I didn’t know this when I decided that they are rather nifty. A bit grungy in sound and appearance, and with a lively singing drummer, they are promoting their new cassette, like it’s 1991 all over again. Musically they rather kick arse, and would, you’d imagine, fit nicely into whatever the current trend is, assuming it’s not still thickly-accented nu-folk. They also, I’m fairly sure, sign off by suggesting we’ll all be dead by June 19th, without elaborating further.
Spook School are two girls, a guy, and a 70s porn moustache which has taken possession of the drummer. Sporting a slew of influences ranging from C86 all the way back to, er, punk, they’re likeably bouncy, with catchy chouses and lo-fi shambling guitar lines and instrument swapping and a decent selection of pedals, mostly marked LOUD and LOUDER.
Like their bill-mates tonight, they probably aren’t even on the radar of the current ‘tastemakers’. And for that we breathe a sigh of relief. Whatever this is we’ve just witnessed, it seems to be in rude health.