The Gayfield Enterprise – Demo Tapes From 1986

Comes with digital download code.

These tracks were recorded by Kevin Low and Fiona Carlin in Kevins bedroom in Gayfield Square, Edinburgh, in 1986. Me and my dad, Kevin, dug out a huge bunch of his tapes over the lockdown (about 80 of the them at first). Some werebetter than others, however, the Gayfield Square demos were the pick of the lot. Previously Kevin and Fiona were part of the Post Punk / indie band Wild Indians, whose first release Stolen Courage had come out in 1983 released on Flexi Disc via the Edinburgh fanzine Deadbeat. Throughout the mid-1980s they performed across Edinburghs clubs, including at the Hoochie Coochie Club (name checked on track 7), where they played alongside bands and close friends Pop Wallpaper and Visitors. The band went on to release two 12 singles, Love of My Life in 1984 and Penniless in 1986.

After the band broke up Kevin sold his guitar amp and 7inch collection, Fiona her saxophone and they went out and got themselves a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine, Yamaha QX7 sequencer and a Yamaha DX-100. These bedroom tracks are the fruits of their first venture with this hardware, combining their experimentation with synthetic sounds (mostly the DX-100s famous pre-sets) with a post-punk vocal style.

These eight tracks are also, in part, the fruit of the Enterprise Allowance scheme – a policy venture of Margaret Thatchers UK government that gave unemployment claimants access to an extra 40 to top up the basic dole money. Following Thatchers election victories in 1979 and 1983, the policy sought to reduce the figures of mass unemployment which hung over Britain well into the 1980s. This policy, according to Kevin, helped to keep up the credit payments. He notes that, when Fiona and I turned up at the DHSS office with the sure-fire money-making plan of making a business as a song-writing duo they signed us up. However, I still think they thought we said, sign writing as they were filling out the form.

Kevin and Fiona stopped making music together shortly after these tracks were recorded so unfortunately, they never saw the light of dayuntil now!

Fiona went on to work in Film and Television sound. Kevin became a photographer, working mostly in theatre. He is now an artist/painter working in Glasgow.