"The Associates were a huge band in Scotland; they certainly had some success in the rest of the world, but they were ours. Certainly when I was growing up I hadn't yet really discovered too many Scottish bands at that point – this was to change of course but these were one of the first I discovered. 
 
 The Associates struck me because I was aware that they were Scottish after I saw them on Top of the Pops and suddenly I made this connection between, 'Oh, you can be from Scotland, where there's no music industry, and be successful. You can get on Top of the Pops, you can be heard by an audience'. It was just a peculiar lesson and a sudden revelation for me of the possibilities that existed for musicians. 

 When you come from a country where back then there was no real established record industry, per se, they stood out. We had a couple of great record labels, you know, 53 & 3rd and Postcard Records and so on, but it was rare to get signed to those two labels, and they were still very small and independent; it was difficult to have the clout of a major London-based record label. 

 The Associates really captured my imagination. I loved them musically and I was really interested in their style. I was obsessed with the 'Gloomy Sunday' cover that Billy Mackenzie did. He had this extraordinary operatic voice; I'd never heard anything like in my life before. 

 I used to go to this club called the Hoochie Coochie Club in Edinburgh, which was big in the game for me, like I spent every weekend at this club. I was introduced to Billy Mackenzie and we really hit it off; I just was kind of obsessed by him. I just thought he was brilliant and really funny, irreverent, rebellious, and fascinating with the voice of an angel. He was so tortured and he had such a sad story in the end. 

 When I heard that he had taken his own life, I was so gutted: the whole of Scotland felt like they had lost a son. He had so much to give – he wasn't just sort of average, he wasn't an averagely successful musician: he was this extraordinary talent, a great interpreter and, again, a great communicator. He was able to make his own brilliant music but to also re-interpret classic songs that had been done by the greats and still he brought something of his own to that. 

 I think 'Gloomy Sunday' by The Associates is by far the greatest version of 'Gloomy Sunday' I've ever heard, and I've heard some amazing versions, like the one by by Sinéad O'Connor or Billie Holiday, but he brings something really special to that.
 
The Associates helped build Scotland's musical confidence to then start really exploring the music scene on its own terms, as opposed to going through London."

"From one extreme to the other. Belle and Sebastian were one side of what was happening in Glasgow, and Scotland, in the ‘90s when I was really young and just starting out and to me Country Teasers represent another parallel, a much darker and more sinister side of what was going on. “They came out of Edinburgh, where they were all from, apart from Ben Wallers, the singer, who’s English. They’re another band I put on in The 13th Note and another band I was drawn to both sonically and lyrically. As you’ll know if you’ve heard this record, Destroy All Human Life, some of the lyrics are extremely difficult. Ben’s attitude has always been to try to make people as uncomfortable as they possibly can be and to explore issues that are usually not talked about at all. “This song, weirdly, I find to be quite beautiful; the melodic line is really wistful and melancholic, which as I said, is what I was aiming for with this collection of songs. There’s a sort of perverse humour to this particular track too. That’s what makes it all the more vivid for me; he’s talking about his bandmates, who I can picture because I knew all those characters at the time. “He rips into them mercilessly! He’s saying Richie’s so weak he almost can’t be seen and something about Eck being skinny and Alan, the guitarist, having a big hook nose. Simon, I think, he said had funny feet and then at the end, he says, “I am the perfect image of mankind / Made by god to remind him of his son / My back is straight like a straight white line / Golden apples issue from the hole in my bum.” It’s really fucking funny! “And also, it captures a particular sense of humour that was shared by a lot of people I hung out with in Scotland at that time and still do. It’s quite dark and sadistic.”"