Steamin' In The SnakePark

A Concise History of Columbus Road (1987-1999 )

columbus road crawled from the debris of glasgow’s mid eighties poseur pop - forming around the ever present nucleus of allan watson and gordon davidson whose only notable achievements were rigging the charts in Poland (twice no less) with their previous band ‘brig’ - although never a popular choice on the turntables of the proletariat masses they did get tea and sympathy from the most unlikely sources, counting amongst their supporters - novelist iain banks - actor bill paterson - bay city roller alan longmuir - songwriter graham lyle - producer brian young - and red dwarf front man craig charles - their first proper gig was to support john martyn at a fund raiser for the nelson mandella scholarship at strathclyde university but martyn obviously had bad vibes about his fledgling support band and failed to turn up leaving columbus road to face the wrath of five hundred drunken angry students - although it wasn’t the most pleasant of gigs the band did have the small consolation of getting to play football with glasgow herald journalist jack mclean’s prized fedora in the dressing room where the silly chap had left it for safe keeping - the initial line up was allan watson (guitar/vocals), gordon davidson (vocals/guitar), murdoch mcdonald (keyboards), george mcconnachie (drums), paul mckinlay (bass) and spotty paul nathaniel (saxophone) - a few months later they found themselves being chosen from thousands of other hopeful would-be superstars and playing the legendary barralands ballroom along side bands from as far afield as london, liverpool and leeds in the cringingly titled yamaha promotion ‘battle of the bands’ - after the embarrassment of getting a drubbing from a kirkintilloch group featuring two girls in tight leotards who sang along to backing tapes, columbus road found themselves pared back to a duo (allan & gordon) - down but not out they were unexpectedly contacted by mr okada on behalf of a japanese record company who offered them six thousand quid to make an album on the condition they up all rights to their songs - as if this in itself wasn’t a bit off, Okada pushed his luck a bit further by asking them to record a cover version of harry nilson’s ‘without you’ - fat chance! - end of story as they say – undeterred, a four track porta studio was purchased and Columbus Road spent the next six months recording the ‘isolation tears’ album - track listing - hallowed halls -another day -love tokens -give me your love - all in your eyes -no-one listens - husbands & lovers - man made night - isolation tears - a few gigs were planned with wee murdo coming back into the frame along with pretty boy bass player john smith and a drummer whose name escapes the memory - unfortunately pretty boy john smith severed the ligaments in his hand and the nameless drummer couldn’t actually drum so it was back to the drawing board - the next step was scraping up enough cash to record ‘dreaming in the snakepark’ in glasgow’s cava studios - born again law enforcer george mcconnachie shared the drum stool with fellow stick twirler gordon campbell, demented plumber stevie patrick played bass while wee murdo tinkled the ivories big style - guest spots were claimed by alan longmuir (bass on ‘midas man’), bill paterson contributed an oscar winning spoken word performance of ‘snake in the afterlife’, spotty paul nathaniel played sax, and extra backing vox were donated by john smith and garry watson - when the money ran out, lindsay ‘ the mental insurance man’ cook coolly threw in a fat wad to keep things afloat - thanks lindsay! - the album was engineered by humph family bass player gavin mccomb and the long haired lout also undertook the task of mastering the album at abbey road - the final track listing was - paper dreams - midas man - next move - maybe - dog days - rain - snake in the afterlife - hallowed halls - I wanna steal your hat ole’ - all in your eyes - moment in time - man made night -

two months later a thousand albums arrived - each and every one a quarter of an inch wider than industry standard - the end result being that the bloody thing wouldn’t fit on midi system turntables which served the penny pinching bastards right for not buying a decent hi-fi - a few gigs were undertaken with shug rooney on drums - three months later shug was gone replaced with an atari st 520 which murdo cross bred with a sampler to provide a drummer who could double as a word processor - more gigs followed with allan, gordon, stevie and murdo – a second album was planned but brian young at cava convinced them to use the money on just four tracks and release it on cd instead of vinyl – quality not quantity was the way ahead – eventually with the cava producer’s assistance four tracks were chosen – isolation tears – what’ya gonna do for love – ships in the night – and prayer for a laughing needle
                                                        
on the first night of recording stevie made such an arse of his bass parts that session man cy jacks was hauled onboard – jess king and her impressive chest came in and sang sweet haunting backing vocals  and the whole thing might (just might) have actually worked if Graham Lyle hadn't wanted to do a remix on the title track isolation tears - the mix itself was fine but in the process the title was given an infusion of high grade slush and became 'My Love For You'  which inspired the list reviewer Alastair Mabbott to pen a savage epitaph for the band - "the squidgest of soft rock, brings to mind old granada light entertainment programmes,chicken in a basket, over- 25's singles nights, a plethora of tack. I could conceivably get quite attached to it in a perverse sort of way. Unlikely though."   - and to think nick drake moaned about lousy reviews! - prayer for a laughing needle was also renamed as sad songs (aaaaahhhh!) - as this was going on the pretty boy john smith rejoined the band and amphetamine fuelled drummer Andy Harvey came on board for what was to be a last serious fling at the big time culminating at a pretty mediocre gig in the cotton club - although there were a few radio sessions on radio scotland and eastend radio, things slid alarmingly and before long it was just allan and gordon once more - inevitably the band folded although gordon continued the band name to record a series of solo albums - painted people - horizons - miracles - the big green dream - and the instrumental landscapes  while allan slunk off to write horror novels and play guitar for john smith's band 'clear' - allan did return to guest on  columbus road acoustic (1997) and trick (1998) - for old times sake some gigs were arranged which led to smouldering fires being rekindled and a new columbus road album being released - wish (1999) - track listing - wish - million times - bill came up from london - sometimes - poems in bottles - running in the night - it's so nice it's so warm - please - left me nothing - poisoned stem - old yellow moon - as we speak another album is quietly planned - watch this space - respect dudes

Wish

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