King Tut’s booking agent John Paul Mason on his fifth favourite Glasgow album, The Twilight Sad’s ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’

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For his fifth and final favourite Glasgow album, King Tut’s booking agent JP Mason explains what The Twilight Sad’s ‘ Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’ means to him.

Transcript

00:00 another band who you know very, very well?

00:03 - Well, I... - Better than most?

00:05 I wouldn't know them without him, though.

00:07 Oh, no, no, no, that's why I'm leaving this to last,

00:10 because Scott and...

00:14 Well, the Frightened Rabbit and the Twilight Sad

00:17 had become friends before I met Scott,

00:20 and I knew of these guys, I'd heard of this band,

00:23 the Twilight Sad, who existed,

00:25 and they were always spoken about,

00:27 and kind of like, oh, they're mental.

00:30 Like, every time they spoke about them,

00:32 it would be like, oh, these guys are...

00:34 They're wild, they're like party animals,

00:37 all the rest of it, and like,

00:38 you go on a night out with the Twilight Sad,

00:40 you'll know about it and all the rest of it.

00:43 But the music wasn't something that I didn't...

00:45 that I didn't home in on for a while,

00:46 until Scott started...

00:49 Scott got a copy of this before it came out,

00:51 because this came out in May 2007,

00:55 either April or May 2007,

00:57 and by that point, I'd known the Rabbits for a year,

01:00 and Scott said to me,

01:02 "Have you heard the Twilight Sad yet,

01:03 or have you seen them?"

01:04 And I went, "No, I've not."

01:05 They'd barely played any gigs,

01:07 and Scott was like, "They're the only band in Scotland

01:09 better than us," right?

01:10 And I remember him saying that vividly,

01:13 and he was like, "Well, you need to go and see them."

01:16 And they'd come back from America in April 2007,

01:21 and they'd been touring with Aeriogram,

01:24 and it'd been quite a difficult tour, I think,

01:26 because Aeriogram's visas had not been properly processed,

01:31 so they didn't get out to the tour.

01:33 So Twilight Sad had to basically do the tour on their own.

01:36 They'd got a bit of hype at that point,

01:37 but they weren't big enough to be playing these rooms

01:39 that they should've been playing with Aeriogram.

01:41 So it was a tough tour for them,

01:44 and they came back, but on that tour,

01:46 they'd learned how to play live,

01:47 'cause they'd been playing live every night,

01:49 and they'd had to actually...

01:51 I think prior to that, their live shows were a bit shambolic.

01:55 They just didn't know how to play.

01:56 They were just...

01:57 It was just everything was up to 11,

01:59 Andy's guitar wailing, drowning out James,

02:02 who didn't have any ears,

02:03 so he couldn't hear himself singing.

02:04 So it was just a cacophony,

02:07 which I'm sure they won't mind me saying

02:09 they would admit that.

02:11 But they still got signed off the back of one of those gigs

02:14 to Fat Cat.

02:15 But Scott and Billy from Frightened Rabbit

02:17 took me to see the Twilight Sad at the Classic Grand 2,

02:21 so the downstairs one, where it's the smaller one,

02:24 in April 2007, and I saw them.

02:27 And there was only about 20 people there,

02:29 'cause they were the third support on a three-band bill.

02:32 And I loved them.

02:33 Straight away, I was like,

02:34 "Oh my God, this band are unbelievable."

02:36 And Scott was like, "I told you."

02:38 And I was like, "Aye, but I didn't expect this."

02:40 And then they introduced me to James

02:42 straight after they played,

02:44 and James was like, "Oh, how's it going?

02:48 "I've heard a lot about you and all that."

02:49 And still probably one of the nicest things he said to me

02:53 about me to this day.

02:54 And we immediately became pals.

02:56 And then suddenly, I was just like this wee guy.

03:00 I was older than them, actually,

03:01 but I felt like a wee guy,

03:03 because I was just like,

03:04 I was around these two guys

03:07 that I just knew were important in my life

03:11 and that would be important in other people's lives.

03:14 And James and Scott were obviously

03:15 really good pals as well.

03:16 And I just loved being in their company.

03:19 I loved going to see them live,

03:21 but being in their company was the best thing

03:24 because they just were really funny.

03:25 And we had so many good times together,

03:29 going to flat parties after being in here

03:31 or elsewhere or going on tour together.

03:34 We drove to Brighton, all of us in a van together,

03:38 and it was the best fun ever.

03:39 We got a carry out for the van down,

03:41 and then we ended up on Brighton Beach

03:44 at six in the morning,

03:45 just steaming and having a great time.

03:48 It was an amazing, amazing time.

03:51 And I'm so, so grateful that I was part of it.

03:53 But when this record,

03:54 Scott gave me a demo of this record

03:56 before it came out from Fat Cat,

03:58 he was like, "Oh, here, take this."

03:59 And I remember just looking at the artwork.

04:03 And in contrast to the Alex Harvey artwork,

04:05 I looked at this artwork,

04:06 which is Dave Thomas,

04:08 who did all the Shite and Rabbit,

04:10 Twilight Sad,

04:11 and subsequently done Mogwai's artwork as well.

04:13 And as soon as I saw that artwork, I went,

04:16 "This is going to be a good record."

04:18 And I listened to the first track,

04:20 and it just blew me away,

04:22 and continues to blow me away, this record.

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