MUSIC 68 THE LIST 5 Feb–2 Apr 2015
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THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN The Reid brothers play their debut album in full
Back in the mid-80s, when Morrissey was looking for a job and then he found a job, the Jesus & Mary Chain were looking for a reaction and they got a reaction – to their name, their attitude and their sound. Smothering their sweet, simple, 60s-girl- group-inspired tunes with a searing squall of feedback, the Reid brothers from East Kilbride created the classic noise / melody interface of their debut album Psychocandy.
The Mary Chain are now marking its 30th birthday with the full live outing (including feedback) it never received at the time, thanks to the group’s proclivity for playing short, chaotic, truculent sets with their backs to the audience.
‘We were pretty timid, whatever our
reputation was,’ remembers frontman Jim Reid. ‘I couldn’t get onstage without getting tanked up. We’d never been in bands before, we didn’t really know what the rules were so we were testing things to see how far we could push it. People got that anything could happen.’ The edge and unpredictability of those early gigs has since been replaced by a lean, mean professionalism but the swagger of Psychocandy is forever young. (Fiona Shepherd) ■ Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, Thu 19 Feb.
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