Happy 30th Anniversary to The Pastels’ compilation album Truckload of Trouble, originally released September 28, 1993.
In the late ’70s, just as Stephen McRobbie was catching the tail end of the punk explosion, he decided to go for it—he was really going to be a part of this thing—and so he cut his long hippie hair into the tousled, pixie-ish mop he’s now had for the past four decades. It was a hot summer in Glasgow, though, and so his tender ears—completely unused to the sun—burnt a bright angry red. It was a small price to pay for such a monumental life change.
Although McRobbie was a fan of stereotypical hardcore and angry punk, one of his favorite bands was the Ramones, who paired the fast and heavy with melodic ’50s and ’60s rock & roll—and they revered the sweet-sounding girl groups most of all (so much so that they’d eventually work with Phil Spector, who characteristically pulled a gun on them). Coinciding with the tail end of punk, Glasgow had become home to Postcard Records, which represented pop-tinged local bands Aztec Camera and Orange Juice, right before the latter moved to London and (seemingly) put an end to the beginning of any sort of Glasgow scene.
It was at Postcard Records’ headquarters that McRobbie met guitarist Brian “Superstar” Taylor, a friend of the owner, and in the midst of Postcard’s heady pop atmosphere, McRobbie and Taylor formed their band The Pastels in 1981, recruiting Martin Hayward on bass and Bernice Simpson on drums. Theirs was a unique, infectious, shambolic sound, pairing the primitive and stripped-down rudiments of punk with the naïve, pretty innocence of early pop.
“We knew that our ability was limited, but I think the important thing is that we didn’t allow that to stop us,” recalls Hayward, laughing. Simpson, known at the time for her wild crop of teased platinum hair and her simple Cramps-influenced style of drumming, agrees. “I don’t think we ever thought that we were going to be on Top of the Pops. It was a genuinely—almost like an art movement as opposed to a band.” Taylor also chimes in: “All we wanted to do was to make some records. It was never particularly serious. It was never, ‘Let’s form a band and have a career in rock.’”
Filling the void left by Orange Juice and the subsequent shuttering of Postcard Records, the Pastels would set the tone for a new ’80s Glasgow music scene, particularly when McRobbie—who started going by Stephen Pastel—started his own small, lo-fi label 53rd and 3rd Records, named after the Ramones song about male prostitution and featuring a logo styled after Joey Ramone’s head. “Stephen Pastel is, really, he’s kind of the mayor of the Scottish underground,” observed Thurston Moore in Teenage Superstars, a 2017 documentary on the influential ’80s Glasgow scene. He adds later, “I think there was a real interest coming out of the Scottish underground to write really classic, heartfelt pop songs without having to subscribe to moneyed production, and so to keep it really…on the street.”
Most importantly, McRobbie and the Pastels believed that you didn’t have to leave Scotland to make great music and, hence, a hardworking and radically creative DIY scene flourished. “Without the instincts, inspiration and energies of the Pastels’ softly-spoken founding singer-guitarist Stephen McRobbie, AKA Stephen Pastel,” asserted the Guardian in 2016, “[… ] the Glasgow scene would probably be bound together by significantly less camaraderie and common purpose than it does today.”
Despite McRobbie’s, and the Pastels’, enormous influence on Glasgow and its highly recognizable post-punk aesthetic and ethos, they would hardly become the most famous band to emerge from the city. A more ambitious label, Creation Records, would eventually end up taking root in the scene, helping local bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, and the Soup Dragons all find ways of becoming much more commercial. Even the Vaselines, who stayed true to a gritty lo-fi aesthetic, became famous after finding a fan in Kurt Cobain, who covered their songs “Molly’s Lips” and “Son of A Gun” on Nirvana’s Incesticide (1992), and “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam” for MTV Unplugged in New York (1994).
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But the Pastels had their own influential fans outside of Scotland, particularly Calvin Johnson, frontman of the band Beat Happening and founder of K Records in Olympia, WA. (It was through Johnson and his devotees, or “Calvinists,” that Cobain initially learned of the Vaselines when he was living in Olympia and writing 1991’s Nevermind). Johnson was well-known in Olympia for championing DIY principles, a lo-fi aesthetic, and a naïve style of punk-rooted pop, meaning that he and McRobbie were “mayors” of two very similar scenes on opposite sides of the pond. Through kismet, they somehow found one another.
According to Mark Baumgarten’s Love Rock Revolution, a history of K Records, in the summer of 1987, Johnson received a letter from a guy named Thomas Zimmerman, who ran a touring agency for bands in Germany. Zimmerman had recently booked the Pastels, and guitarist Norman Blake (of Teenage Fanclub), who was touring with the band, had played a Beat Happening record for Zimmerman. In his letter to Johnson, Zimmerman inquired whether they could meet up in Olympia, and Johnson agreed. Zimmerman played the Pastels for Johnson, who was struck by how—with their themes of childhood, distinct ’60s sensibility, and a lead vocalist (McRobbie) who was purposely off-kilter in his melodies—the Pastels were essentially the British version of Beat Happening.
Before Johnson could even track down a Pastels album for himself, he received a letter from McRobbie asking him if Beat Happening would be interested in releasing an album on 53rd and 3rd Records. Since Rough Trade had declined distributing Beat Happening’s second album in the UK, there was a lucky opening. Johnson accepted the offer, and it sparked the beginning of a long-term friendship between the two “mayors.”
At the start of the new decade and after releasing two albums, 1987’s Up for a Bit with The Pastels and 1989’s Sittin’ Pretty, the ’80s iteration of the Pastels disbanded, and McRobbie kept on Annabel “Aggi” Wright (a fringe member of the original lineup) on bass and keyboards, and brought on Katrina Mitchell on drums. They all sang, but the female vocals became much more front and center. In 1991, the Pastels represented Scotland at Calvin Johnson’s famous International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, now considered to be the inaugural event in the formation of the Riot Grrrl movement (due to its centering of women’s bands on its opening night). The convention was also hugely influential in bringing together artists from all over the globe in the name of DIY, anti-corporate rock ‘n’ roll.
It’s likely that that’s why I heard the Pastels for the first time in college in the late-’90s. My friend Tony was a Calvinist—he loved K Records artists, and Riot Grrrl, as well as several international bands affiliated with the Olympia scene—and I heard the Pastels’ “Nothing To Be Done” either on his radio show or on a mix tape he made. It’s a warm-toned song about shivering with love and lust, a duet where the guy knows that he just can’t get past his bullshit to start a relationship with the young woman, and she matter-of-factly tells him to get over himself. I was already a fan of the Vaselines, so I remember wondering how the Pastels never enjoyed a big-break moment like their fellow lo-fi Scots (though Cobain apparently was a fan of the Pastels, too). Anyway, “Nothing To Be Done” remains one of my all-time favorite songs—it truly gives me shivers—and it sent me running to Play It Again Records in my college town to buy Truckload of Trouble.
Truckload of Trouble features a mix of both the ’80s and early-’90s iterations of the Pastels, compiling songs from 1986 through 1993. It’s a fantastic introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the band, as well as a snapshot of what’s, arguably, their golden era (though they continued to make excellent music into the last decade, and it’s reasonable to expect they might release more). At the very least, Truckload of Trouble is a look back at the Pastels when they were young Glasgow scenesters, honing their distinctive lo-fi style and DIY ethos, and forging a raw, guitar-based post-punk at a time when synthesizers reigned supreme.
The album kicks off with the dreamy, slightly chaotic “Thank You For Being You,” featuring McRobbie’s charming off-key vocals, paired with pretty harmonies. “Firebell Ringing,” a fan favorite, this time showcases Aggi’s off-kilter vocals, and it’s a cheeky song that’s either about a house fire or someone so unbelievably hot that the narrator has to beg a fireman to run and fetch his hose.
“Comin’ Through,” probably one of the Pastels’ most well-known songs, has the distinct sunny jangle of being in love, even though it’s about a lover who’s a high-maintenance pain in the ass. The video features a Jesus statue, Barbie dolls, and tousled, flirtatious glamour shots of Stephen Pastel, who became a bit of an indie heartthrob because not only was he cute, he was a research librarian to boot. (Later, he even inspired the song “Throw Aggi Off the Bridge” by Black Tambourine, whereby singer Pam Berry jokingly imagines that the only thing standing in the way of a passionate romance with Stephen is his bandmate and then-girlfriend Aggi—“So throw her off the bridge / Just toss her in the drink / She’s coming in between us / You know the girl I mean.”)
Perhaps the most Ramones-esque song on the album, the upbeat, careening “Truck Train Tractor” has that ’60s surf vibe the Ramones perfected, along with the chugging stutter (tr-tr-tr) of the title’s alliteration in the chorus. The aforementioned “Nothing To Be Done” has that warm-toned guitar, a wailing, metallic guitar solo, and the electricity of doomed romance. In the same vein, “Different Drum” is a cover of the Michael Nesmith-penned tune (performed by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys in 1967) in which a romance is over before it even began, all because the dude can’t help running away. (“I ain’t sayin’ you ain’t pretty / All I’m saying is I’m not ready for any person, place or thing / To try and pull the reins in on me.”)
The folky, joyful “Speeding Motorcycle,” is a cover of the Daniel Johnston song— “Pretty girls have taken you for a ride / Hurt you deep down inside, but you never slowed down.” It pairs well with the following glam-rock tinged “Speedway Star,” which assures a lover, “We’re gonna ride on through the scary night / ’Cause it’s alright, it’s alright.”
The Pastels went through more changes over the years. Aggi left to become an illustrator, and now the core group consists of McRobbie and Katrina Mitchell, who became romantically involved and have lived together for decades. They continue to release music every so often, and run a label called Geographic, as well as a record store called Monorail, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. It’s in Glasgow, meaning McRobbie has stuck by what he set out to prove—that you don’t need to leave Scotland to make great music.
McRobbie views the DIY scene he forged as part of a larger Scottish tradition, one that began long before he decided to cut his hair that punk summer in the late ’70s. “One thing that I think is important here is that a lot of our parents and grandparents worked on the [River] Clyde and were union members and socialists. I think their lives were to an extent ‘co-operative’ for want of a better word,” he explained in 2014, when asked what makes the Scottish music scene different. “I think there is still something of a spirit of co-operation in the city. Maybe there’s also something questing—a longing to make something beautiful or affecting out of something else which isn’t.”
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