MINSTRELS, POETS AND VAGABONDS: A HISTORY OF ROCK MUSIC IN GLASGOW.

Minstrels, Poets & Vagabonds is a history of the Glasgow rock scene by Robert Fields.

Minstrels Poets & Vagabonds will at no time claim to be the definitive book on the history of the rock scene in Glasgow over the last half century, but what it does claim to do is sit nicely on the shelves along side such fine tomes by, Russell Leadbetter, Martin C. Strong, Brian Hogg and Martin Kielty and to fill in, and in some cases the huge gaps left by them.

I’ve tried to remain loyal to my genre as im a Rocker and I feel that this scene has been (and I can exclusively reveal) totally ignored in most parts by the mainstream media over the past 50 years .And so not in this book will you find the magnificent pop rock meanderings of Slide because in allowing that then the floodgates would surely open and coming rushing through would be the likes of Texas, Del Amitri, The Silencers, K.M.O., Simple Minds andTravis etc all fine bands in their own right and as fellow Glaswegians earning a crust in the very fraught arena of the music business they have my 100% respect but their end product is NOT what this book is about nor did I want to go down the indie rock route. I couldn’t open the door for the likes of Glasvegas and Mogwai or I would have to include bands like Primal Scream, Jesus and the Mary-chain, The Fratellis, Ac-Acoustics, Murmur, Kit Cumming’s fantastic Said Florance, The Vaseline’s, Captain America, Teenage Fan Club, Bmx Bandits, Mickey Rooney’s mega Primevals, The Gyres etc.

Nor did I try and adopt any band or artiste which has been the case from the early seventies with the likes of Rod Stewart(have you heard him talk!!! Nuff said) and a craze that has carried on to this day with the likes of Snow Patrol and Franz Ferdinand all at some point featuring in various Scottish/Glasgow charts and polls when their Scottish/Glasgow links are very tentative to say the least.

When setting out the plan for this book I thought it would be cool to have a cd of free downloads for the reader to enhance their journey through the five decades and on putting pen to paper I ended up with a Six cd with 115 track historical artefact listening post which in my wee u’mble opinion is quite unique and superb so get the kettle on and download your listening post “Are you sitting comfortably?” then let the journey begin…………….Xmas comes early kiddies.

Robert Fields