Well pop-pickers, look no further. ‘The Band Name Book’ has all the answers. From And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead through to ZZ Top, this book is a fascinating read and explains where the best-named bands got their names.

It does of course include yours and my favourite band, the Trashcan Sinatras. I remember when Paul told me he was going to join them. I thought ‘strange name’, but anything was better than The Shock Club or Hectic Circus (right Paul?).

Anyhow, the photograph below explains how the band came up with their name, but you knew that anyway didn’t you?

2008 The Boston Mills Press

This was an early gig with The Seers, The Milltown Brothers and headliners Ride from April 1990 and preceded the Trashcans’ gigs with Prefab Sprout later that year.

I’m sure they played a blinder, but then perhaps Jonathan didn’t understand.

21 April 1990 Melody Maker

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Boo Hewerdine is not really someone I was familiar with until he’d written and co-written a fair number of songs for/with Eddi Reader. From there I discovered that he’s released a dozen albums or so throughout his career. A career which didn’t really get serious until he formed The Bible in the mid-Eighties. I’d heard the band name before but never made the connection. However, a quick look through the old CD collection, and there at the back of the cupboard, was Graceland – probably their best known single. I’m listening to it as I write this and it’s magic!

As well as writing for Eddi Reader, Boo has written for a number of musicians over the years including Natalie Imbruglia, Marti Pellow, Spice Girl Mel C, David McAlmont, Suggs from Madness and kd lang.

What’s all that got to do with the Trashcans though?

Well, on Boo’s last studio release, God Bless The Pretty Things, both John and Stephen Douglas appeared on half-a-dozen songs or so. John on electric guitar and Stephen on drums and percussion. The album shuffles along at a steady pace with acoustic finger-picking taking the lead on most songs over accordion, banjo, double bass and strings. Track 5, Rags, with Del Amitri’s Justin Currie, is a particular favourite.

Recently, Boo has collaborated with American singer/songwriter, Brooks Williams to form State Of The Union and John got in on the act by filming some videos of Boo and Brooks on his trusty old Super8. Watch them here.

Anyway, I’m going off now to discover some more Boo. Fancy joining me?

2009 Navigator Records Navigator11

So sang Frank at the Casbah, San Diego in 2005.

Anyhow, I’m patiently waiting for something worthwhile to come along that I can post on the archive, but in the meantime, here’s a picture of a cat…

This photograph, taken by Paul Cox, was used to promote the band during the Cake era.

1990 Polygram / Go! Discs / London Recordings

Here’s MOJO Magazine’s James McNair’s 4-star review…

Long straight-jacketed by bankruptcy and record company sub-clauses, Ayrshire’s Sinatras emerge butterfly-like on their own label with a filler-less cracker. Strident opener Welcome Back aside, it pitches up somewhere between Aztec Camera’s Stray and Prefab Sprout’s Andromeda Heights. Band linchpin Frank Reader, brother of Eddi, is especially affecting on the heartbreak of caring divorce (witness A Coda, sung with all the melting class of a young Art Garfunkel), while Trouble Sleeping manages to tackle child murder in the band’s hometown with sensitivity, its harmonica solo delicately elegiac. With Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake guesting on the equally touching Got Carried Away, and exemplary jangler Freetime proving that hope really does spring eternal, Weightlifting gives and gives. Tender, wise, compassionate and magnanimous, it’s a special, special record for anyone who has ever hurt. James McNair

MOJO Magazine Issue 133 December 2004

The Trashcan Sinatras are Scotland’s great lost band. In the early mid-’90s they released three albums on Go! Discs. Cake, I’ve Seen Everything and A Happy Pocket are sparkling collections of the ‘jangly’ pop that loads of Jock bands try to do, but hardly any manage with the melodic grace, instrumental imagination and lyrical rigour of this Ayrshire five-piece. They never cared much for the comparison but a good marker was early Aztec Camera, especially in the lilting athleticism of Frank (brother of Eddi) Reader’s vocals.

Then stuff – label hassles, the taxman, booze – got in the way, and the Trashcans drifted off. Now, buoyed by healthy internet enthusiasm and a significant cult following in America and Japan, they’re back. True to form, Weightlifting is a work of unshowy genius. Recorded in Glasgow and Connecticut, the production elegantly layers guitars and orchestrates dreamy soundscapes. All The Dark Horses, for instance, is folksy gem worthy of pastoral ’60s troubadours. What Women Do To Men is a sigh of a song, its textures as existentially stirring as the lyrical subject matter.

Sticking with the heavy stuff, Trouble Sleeping is an unsettlingly gorgeous number, the keyboards and guitars exquisitely arranged, about a child murder in the band’s home town. More chipper are It’s A Miracle (lovely strings) and the opening Welcome Back (charging riffs), instant pop belters both. Finally, the closing title track is a drifting, quietly motivating, positive lament (if such a thing can exist). It’s a hand round the shoulders, a word of encouragement, a little lift from a mate. Craig McLean

This edition of the magazine came with a free sampler CD which included the track Weightlifting. More info on the CD can be found in this earlier post.

The Word Issue 21 November 2004

Written by Matthew Berlyant… SCOTLAND’S TRASH CAN SINATRAS WON’T EVER BE ACCUSED of flooding the market: it took them five years to release the excellent In The Music, their first new studio album since 2004′s Weightlifting (my favourite album that year). While that may seem like a lot, this is actually a considerably shorter period than the eight years between 1996′s A Happy Pocket and Weightlifting! And it’s only their fifth in two decades.

Sitting with guitarist JOHN DOUGLAS before their two sets at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia to discuss the album and the band’s recent history, Douglas notes that, “We were on the road for a year-and-a-half; then we went back to Glasgow and lived life. A couple of guys [singer FRANK READER and guitarist PAUL LIVINGSTON] are living in Los Angeles now, and they’re married and happy there, while myself and [drummer/brother] STEPHEN are still in Glasgow.”

Douglas insists that after songs piled up and they decided to record a new album, they “didn’t really want to go through any of the techniques of recording that we’ve used before.” He says that the songwriting on In The Music was a bit more “groovy-savvy” and that the material written for it wouldn’t have been appropriate if given the arrangements of their earlier records. As well, the band didn’t have a label, but were helped out by producer ANDY CHASE (who mixed Weightlifting) of IVY and BROOKVILLE. The band recorded the bulk of In The Music in Chase’s studio in New York while the producer found an apartment for them on the Upper West Side. The band also pulled a major coup in getting ’70s star CARLY SIMON to provide backing vocals on “Should I Pray.”

Introduced through Chase in Nantucket, Simon got to know the members casually and came down to the studio one day. After the band sent her demos of “Should I Pray” and the title track, Douglas revealed that “she was very complimentary towards ‘Should I Pray.’ She said it was the best song she’d heard in 10 years!” Meanwhile, the band released “Oranges and Apples,” a song inspired by the late PINK FLOYD founder/visonary SYD BARRETT and recorded at the same sessions, as a stand-alone digital single in late 2008, to time it with a festival that benefitted the Barrett trust.

Although still unavailable in the U.S., the band decided to sell a deluxe edition of the new album as a pre-order through their website. They also recorded all the shows on their recent U.S. tour and sold them on USB sticks available 15-20 minutes after the shows ended. Douglas explains, “Things like that come about because you’re in a situation where you have to think on your feet and trying to keep your quality control.” As of this writing, the band were talking to several U.S. labels hoping to release In The Music here. Let’s hope negotiations prove successful [Amen! - ed.], with another tour resulting.

For who knows when they’ll make another LP?

2009 The Big Takeover Issue 65