Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth

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In the book, Braithwaite describes Arab Strap’s 1996 debut album, The Week Never Starts Round Here, as “probably the first time I’d heard something that properly reflected my experience of growing up in Scotland”. In coming years, bands such as the Twilight Sad, Glasvegas and Frightened Rabbit became more confident in their identity; before then, Braithwaite says, “even in Scotland, people would just think the Proclaimers were absolutely hilarious, because they sang in a Scottish accent … you wonder what was going on in the national psyche, that people were embarrassed to sing in the way that they spoke.” So, I was hyped for his memoir and it's competently told, with simple prose, full of interesting glimpses behind the scenes and a lot I wasn't aware of. The excesses and hedonism, the making of both Young Team and CODY were fascinating, the chaos. The middle section gets somewhat repetitive; there are only so many ways to describe being off your tits on anything going (and as someone who used to drink a lot and now doesn't at all, it got a little exhausting). The final section also felt rushed. I wanted to know more about the recent years, what happened with John, insights into the band's collaborative processes, is the alcohol and drug taking still ongoing or have things changed, why etc etc? The first time we played with them was in Edinburgh in 1996 while I was still a teenager. We were tearaways and always as drunk as we could get away with. Low – teetotal mormons – had different leisure pursuits, but treated us kindly and warmly that night as they continued to over the following decades when our paths crossed.

Stuart Braithwaite (19 April 2017). "Oddly shaped emptiness – 10 Years of 'Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters' ". GoldFlakePaint. I had another video that featured Iggy, a compilation of performances from Factory Records boss Tony Wilson’s So It Goes show. The performance from Iggy on this was even more mesmerising. It was live footage from the Manchester Apollo where he played The Passenger. It was completely visceral. If you've lived in Glasgow and had any interest at all in live music then this book is likely to please in a particular way, like me you will be familiar with many of the bands, venues, local areas and festivals mentioned. There's something quite thrilling about reading about familiar places in a real book. At heart, this book is a love letter to music, especially live music, and Stuart Braithwaite writes quite movingly about formative gigs and musical experiences. I'm about 6 years younger so it was interesting for me to see where our experiences intersected. Many of the bands Stuart loved as a teenager, or knew as fellow musicians, I didn't discover until much later. I didn't see the Cure play until 2011 and by the time I discovered Nirvana Kurt Cobain was already dead. The years aren't clearly stated, but when he said he saw David Bowie's last gig before he cancelled the rest of the tour I wondered if that was the same year he cancelled his appearance at T in the Park where I would have seen him. I didn't discover Mogwai themselves until about the Mr Beast album. Indeed as a teenager I was quite into Britpop bands which get a bit of a hammering in this book. Fortunately Stuart has a good time with Elastica, who played the second gig I ever went to.Throughout the book Braithwaite recounts gigs he’s been to and songs he’s listened to, and I found it quite amusing that so many of them are held up by him to be akin to the “perfect” one. Yet also, on a very fundamental level, he is right. Music is an endless repetition of different perfect moments and this really brought that home for me.

Braithwaite met Dominic Aitchison at a Ned's Atomic Dustbin show at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow on 10 April 1991, and four years later, along with school friend Martin Bulloch, they formed Mogwai.

A natural, and often painfully honest, autobiography, Stuart Braithwaite tells of his riotous journey with Mogwai, including all the emotional bumps in the road

Braithwaite, Stuart (2022). Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth. London: White Rabbit. pp.317–319. ISBN 978-1-4746-2412-1. After an initial outing in the unfortunately (and provocatively named), Pregnant Nun, Stuart – alongside teenage friends Dominic Aitchison and Martin Bulloch - upgrades the band name to MOGWAI. They release their first single ‘Tuner/Lower’ in 1996. Championed by the legendary John Peel, and making a name for themselves for tinnitus-inducing live shows, MOGWAI’S subsequent single ‘Summer’ is named Single of the Week in NME. Their first album, Mogwai Young Team, follows to significant critical acclaim. There’s a long paragraph about a morning where he finds a sense of peace alone in a park in Japan, and this to me is the writer that he might become. His openness in recounting naïvety as well as wild nights are what kept my interest as well. Not knowing what cheesecake is, not having heard of Gladys Knight and then loving her, his love of skateboarding and its mental health benefits. It’s these wee moments that give us a truer sense of who someone is, which is surely the purpose of memoir. My big sister Victoria had great music taste and it was by taking her record collection that I found my way in music. She was into The Stooges, Pixies and biggest of all for me – The Cure. I obsessed over all of The Cure’s albums, and by the time they were about to release Disintegration in 1989 I was a fully fledged fan. I counted down the days till its release like Christmas, even dreaming about what it would sound like. Disintegration was the first record I ever bought and it didn’t disappoint. It was a work of utter majesty. The Cure were the first band I ever saw.

I think, given Braithwaite’s previous history of how he spends time, something will be done with it. Mogwai in 2001 … (from left) John Cummings, Martin Bulloch, Stuart Braithwaite, Dominic Aitchison and guitarist Barry Burns. Photograph: Andy Willsher/RedfernsAround then I had a dream that I was in a band (something that was only a flight of fancy at this point) and was playing a gig with The Cure in a big field. It was a prophecy of sorts as 14 years later, now playing in my own band, Mogwai, we were invited by Robert Smith to play with them at Hyde Park in London. Pay attention to your dreams. They just might come true! I read Stuart Braithwaite’s Spaceships Over Glasgow with a certain amount of personal interest, in addition to the trepidation that came with being a long time respecter of Mogwai’s music. I grew up in Hamilton, the Lanarkshire town where much of the book is located in the chapters dealing with its author’s formative years, a place that subsequently hovers throughout the text in spirit. Braithwaite’s mum was our family GP and I distinctly remember her injecting my arm when I got my primary school jags. Scotland is a small place and yet what I think the book perhaps does best is show how the connections between people and place can lead to new, larger possibilities within and emanating from the country. But it's not just a carousel of music and madness. When discussing the genuinely heart-breaking moments in his life - the death of his father, the breakdown of his first marriage - he's disarmingly candid, honest and full of resonant perspective. A more or less full list can be found at "Mogwai - Frequently Asked Questions". Archived from the original on 21 April 2006 . Retrieved 21 April 2006.