King Tut’s booker on his third favourite Glasgow album, the self-titled album by Ocean Beat Club

National World - LocalTV

John Paul Mason first saw Ocean Beat Club at the T Break stage at T in the Park then became friends with them. He has listed their debut album as one of his favourites from a Glasgow act, putting it down to memories and music.

Transcript

00:00 This is one that you're not gonna know.

00:02 You're not gonna know it.

00:03 - Talk away, tell us a bit about what you did.

00:05 - Right, well, I was at T in the Park in 2002.

00:09 I was with my girlfriend at the time, Louise,

00:13 and we were walking through, you know,

00:15 just between stages, and a girl ran up to us

00:20 and fliered us and said, and it had that logo on it,

00:25 and it said, she was like, "Oh, my friend's band's

00:27 "playing at the T-Break stage.

00:29 "You should come and see them."

00:31 And I just sort of went, "All right, well, what are they like?"

00:33 And she just sort of went, "Well, if you like

00:35 "Scottish indie like Snow Patrol, Idlewild."

00:40 I can't even remember if that was the touchstones she used,

00:43 but whatever she did use, it made me turn to Louise

00:45 and go, "Do you wanna go and see them?

00:47 "I think they might be, I've never been

00:49 "to the T-Break stage before."

00:51 And that in itself was like, we were going off

00:55 the beaten track here, because we were used to going

00:57 to Main Stage, Tuts Tent, maybe like,

01:01 there's another new band's tent, and you had like,

01:04 the NME stage or the Radio One stage.

01:05 So we were always focused around those stages,

01:08 and the T-Break stage was somewhere that we'd never had,

01:11 or I'd never had reason, I'd been going to Teaney Park

01:13 since '98 at that point, and in none of those years

01:16 had I gone to the T-Break stage.

01:18 And they were clashing with The Hives,

01:21 which was a difficult clash for me at the time,

01:24 'cause I loved them, but I knew we had tickets

01:26 to see them at the Corn Exchange, and I was like,

01:28 "No, no, let's go and see this band."

01:29 So we walked into the T-Break stage

01:31 as they were starting their set, and it was quite busy,

01:35 and people were all into it, and I remember looking

01:39 at them on stage and hearing the sound,

01:41 and being like, "This is really good."

01:43 I didn't know any of their songs, but I was like,

01:45 "There's something about this that's really good."

01:47 And we stayed for the full set, and it got busier,

01:50 and they got a really, really good reception,

01:52 and I just was like, "Right, I want to see this band again."

01:57 And pre-MySpace, pre-obviously well before Facebook,

02:02 Bebo and all that nonsense, but the thing that bands used

02:06 to get word out about stuff was their message boards.

02:09 So I went on the Bodie and Beat Club website,

02:13 and I went on their message board, and then I saw a post

02:17 for a gig in Edinburgh at a bar called The Maltings,

02:21 I can remember it, and it was coming up in a couple

02:24 of weeks' time, it was a Sunday night.

02:26 So I got Louise, I got our friends, Graham,

02:29 and a few others as well, and there was maybe about five

02:33 or six of us, and I was like, "Go and see this band,

02:35 they're really good."

02:36 So we went to The Maltings that Sunday night,

02:38 and there was nobody there, right?

02:39 There was no sign of a band, and there was literally nobody

02:42 in the pub, and I went up to the lassie behind the bar,

02:46 and I was like, "A Rodian Beat Club playing here tonight."

02:48 And she went, "Oh, is that the band from Glasgow?"

02:52 And I said, "Yeah."

02:53 And she said, "Oh, they double booked themselves

02:56 with a gig in Motherwell."

02:57 And I was like, "All right, okay."

02:59 And I just turned around, I was like,

03:00 "The gig's happening, guys."

03:02 And then they were like, "All right, okay."

03:03 So we just stayed and had a few drinks, and that was that.

03:06 But I went on the message board and replied,

03:08 and I was probably the only person in Edinburgh

03:11 that had actually tried to go to that gig, potentially.

03:14 And Paul replied back to me, and then he messaged me

03:17 through whatever private way you could do it,

03:19 and he just said, "Oh, I'm really sorry you went.

03:21 Thanks so much for going."

03:23 Paul was a singer, by the way.

03:24 And he says, "Oh, we're playing at Liquid Room,

03:28 Best of Tea Break."

03:28 There's like a four-band bill.

03:30 He was like, "If you want to come with that,

03:31 I'll sort you out with tickets."

03:33 And no one had ever sorted me out.

03:36 Well, actually, bar one, that's another story.

03:38 But nobody that I knew personally had ever sorted me out

03:42 with tickets, i.e. someone in a band.

03:43 He was the first person in a band

03:45 that actually was like, "Here's tickets."

03:47 So we went, and then I met him at the bar that night,

03:50 and we hit it off.

03:51 And basically from that point onwards,

03:54 from 2002 to 2006, '07,

03:58 I went to every single Odeon Beat Club gig.

04:00 And they were supporting Snow Patrol in here,

04:04 and he got me on the guest list for that.

04:06 And I remember Gary Lightbody just saying,

04:07 "I want to thank the best band in Glasgow this year,

04:10 Odeon Beat Club, for opening up for us."

04:12 And they supported Half Man, Half Biscuit

04:14 at the Liquid Room.

04:15 I'd never heard of Half Man, Half Biscuit.

04:17 Went to see them, fell in love with them.

04:19 And then there was other bands.

04:22 They supported Camera Obscura, Arab Strap.

04:26 There was a lot of bands that they were all,

04:28 they were seen as like that next big thing.

04:32 And it was such a shame that it didn't work out for them

04:35 because these songs are phenomenal.

04:38 Like, I absolutely love all of these songs.

04:41 And I was from a very, very natural place in my life

04:46 where I just discovered them,

04:47 not because somebody told me to go and see them,

04:49 or that I knew anyway.

04:51 I obviously got fliered for the gig,

04:53 but it was just like, didn't know any of the songs,

04:56 walked in, saw them live, and then went,

04:58 "Right, I want to go and see this band again."

05:00 And yeah, got to know them.

05:02 And when they released this record,

05:04 a lot of things went wrong.

05:06 It's probably a whole podcast in itself with Paul

05:09 to tell you the things that went wrong.

05:12 There was issues with band members and all the rest of it.

05:16 But the thing that remains is that they released,

05:19 they finally got this album out.

05:21 And the most amazing thing for me

05:24 was when they did release it,

05:25 they've got, "We would like to thank the following

05:28 for their help and support."

05:30 And I remember, they didn't even tell me that they put it in,

05:33 but I'm looking through the list of people now

05:36 that are thanked on this, and it's like baby shambles,

05:38 'cause they supported baby shambles, I remember that now.

05:41 Snow Patrol, Arab Strap, Sneak Attack Tigers, Pop Up,

05:44 Vic Galloway, Jim Gellatly, Dave McGeehan,

05:48 DF Concerts, who I knew of, but didn't know at the time.

05:52 And then me, I'm on this list,

05:57 which when I saw it, I was like, "Oh my God,

06:01 I've been thanked on a band's album for support."

06:05 And by that point, I'd put on my first gig,

06:09 and they played my first gig,

06:10 which was a John Peel tribute night.

06:12 So in 2005, Radio One asked people up and down the country

06:17 to put on gigs in memory of John Peel.

06:21 So it was on the, not the day that he died,

06:23 but it was the 13th of October,

06:26 which was the day of his last broadcast

06:29 before he went on holiday to Peru,

06:30 and then he obviously died there.

06:33 And I loved John Peel, like absolutely loved him.

06:37 And I just thought, "I could do that.

06:40 I could put on a gig."

06:41 Never done it before, but I just,

06:43 by that point, I was close with a band in Edinburgh

06:47 called St. Jude's Infirmary.

06:48 I knew these guys, and I knew another couple of bands

06:51 through St. Jude's in Edinburgh.

06:52 So I just got the wee red bar in Edinburgh,

06:55 which is the Edinburgh College of Art venue,

06:58 got in touch with the guy there, hired it for the night,

07:01 put the bill together, made a poster up myself,

07:03 and then on the night, it was rammed.

07:05 Like, I didn't have any idea how it was gonna go.

07:08 I think it maybe sold like 20 or 30 tickets in advance,

07:11 but the walk-up was insane.

07:13 And it was amazing, and Odeon Beat Club came through,

07:16 and I made enough money to pay all the bands

07:20 and everything else, cover my costs,

07:22 and pay the venue and everything else.

07:23 And it was such an amazing night.

07:25 So they played the first gig that I ever put on,

07:29 which, if they weren't already special enough to me,

07:33 then that kind of sealed it.

07:35 But then this record, I would encourage anybody

07:40 to listen to it.

07:40 It's online, you can listen to it online.

07:43 And just some really, really classic Scottish indie songs

07:49 that were very much of the time,

07:52 but I think listening back to them now,

07:55 I think they're kind of timeless,

07:56 because they were in and around all those bands

08:01 that went on to do something.

08:02 And I'm sure, like, Sagari Lightbody

08:05 would have taken inspiration from them on certain things

08:09 and then maybe used it to make a bigger,

08:12 a more popular song.

08:13 But, and Paul to this day is still a good friend.

08:17 He releases music as Lonely Tourist.

08:19 Steve Lamac on 6 Music loves him.

08:22 Played them, I think, yesterday

08:23 in between Johnny Cash and Orbital.

08:26 He posted online saying what a night out that would be.

08:30 And so, I mean, whilst it may seem like I'm biased

08:35 or whatever, because I got into them

08:39 on a personal level and became friends with them,

08:42 clearly, like, Steve Lamac, I trust his judgment

08:45 and he's a big fan.

08:46 So Lonely Tourist, he still lives in Bristol

08:50 and still records under Lonely Tourist.

08:52 So that's...

08:56 - I'm gonna go and check that out.

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