The Skids were a Scottish new wave rock band that released four albums and thirteen singles between 1978 and 1981 on Virgin. They scored UK hits with “Into the Valley,” “Masquerade,” and “Working for the Yankee Dollar.” Bill Nelson produced and played keyboards on their 1979 second album Days in Europa. After their 1980 release The Absolute Game, guitarist Stuart Adamson departed for Big Country.

Members: Richard Jobson (vocals, guitar), Stuart Adamson (guitar, vocals, 1977-81), William Simpson (bass, 1977-80, 2007-present), Thomas Kellichan (drums, 1977-79), Rusty Egan (drums, 1979), Alistair Moore (keyboards, 1979), Mike Baillie (drums, 1979-80, 2007-present), Russell Webb (bass, 1980-82), Kenny Hyslop (drums, 1981)

Formation

The Skids formed in Dunfermline during the summer of 1977 when guitarist Stuart Adamson and bassist William Simpson teamed with singer Richard Jobson and drummer Thomas Kellichan. The first two assembled the year prior in Tattoo, a punk-inspired band that did Bowie covers.

Adamson (b. William Stuart Adamson; April 11, 1958) was born in Manchester but raised like the others in the mining areas of Dunfermline, where he took up guitar as a teenager, inspired by players like Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe. At school, he took an interest in literary texts and befriended his younger classmate, future crime writer Ian Rankin.

The Skids made their live debut at the Bellville Hotel on Pilmuir Street on August 19, 1977. Two months later, they recorded their first EP, Charles, issued the following February as a 7″ maxi-single on self-press No Bad Records, started by band-manager Sandy Muir.

1978

Charles

Charles features three songs: “Charles,” “Reasons,” and “Test Tube Babies,” all credited to Adamson. Members are identified only by their first names on the sleeve (Simpson is listed as “Alexander.”)

Riski Two
A. “Charles”

Riski One
B1. “Reasons”
B2. “Test Tube Babies”

Self-produced as “Skids ETC” at R.E.L. Studios (Edinburgh) with in-house soundman Doug Bogie, an engineer on earlier titles by Illusion, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Renaissance (Turn of the Cards), Soft Machine, and the Andy Fraser Band.

The sleeve features a three-tone scheme with a jagged pink band logo. Its release coincided with a high-profile Skids show at Edinburgh’s Clouds Disco for the “Stiff/Chiswick Challenge,” which also featured sets by fellow newcomers the Cuban Heels and Scars.

“Sweet Suburbia”

In May 1978, Skids signed to Virgin amid that label’s post-Pistols deep-dive into the new wave (XTC, Magazine, Penetration, Interview, The Motors, The Members).

On September 15, Virgin issued Skids second single, “Sweet Suburbia” (b/w “Open Sound“), both credited to Adamson (music) and Jobson (lyrics).

A. “Sweet Suburbia” (2:30)
B. “Open Sound” (1:52)

Skids recorded the single with producer David Batchelor, a longtime soundman for Scottish rock stalwarts the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and their pre-Alex forebear Tear Gas.

The b&w sleeve illustration depicts an antelope in hind-heels on a deserted suburban street. In France, the single appeared in a monochrome sleeve with a group-lineup pic by one P. Nugent.

Wide Open

On October 25, 1978, the Skids issued Wide Open, their third single (and second EP) of the year. It features four Jobson–Adamson originals in the 2.5-minute range:

A1. “The Saints Are Coming” (2:37)
A2. “Of One Skin” (2:28)
B1. “Night and Day” (2:35)
B2. “Contusion” (2:42)

Batchelor produced Wide Open in sequence with the debut single by Solid Senders, the post-Dr. Feelgood band of guitarist Wilko Johnson. The mix-down occurred The Manor, a mansion/studio in Shipton-on-Cherwell owned by Virgin co-founder Richard Branson. Freelance soundman Mick Glossop engineered Wide Open amid projects with the British Lions, Camel, Kevin Lamb, The Lurkers, Van Morrison, and fellow Virgin acts Magazine (“Shot By Both Sides”), Penetration (Moving Targets), and Yellow Dog.

Original 12″ pressings came on red vinyl. The three-tone sleeve depicts a subject aghast before a candy-striped overlay. It was designed by Cooke Key, the designer of the Virgin Records logo who also did visuals for singles and albums by XTC (“Making Plans for Nigel”), Steve Hackett (Spectral Mornings), Rory Gallagher (Calling Card), and Tangerine Dream (Stratosfear).

Skids mimed “The Saints Are Coming” on Top of the Pops for the BBC music program’s November 2 broadcast, which also featured in-studio numbers by Elkie Brooks (“Don’t Cry Out Loud”), Frankie Miller (“Darlin”’), Nick Gilder (“Hot Child In the City”), Streetband (“Toast”), the Three Degrees (“Giving Up, Giving In”), and videos by Queen (“Fat Bottom Girls”) and the John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John Grease duet “Summer Nights.”

1979

Scared to Dance

The Skids released their debut album, Scared to Dance, on February 23, 1979, on Virgin.

Scared to Dance features twelve Stuart Adamson compositions with lyrics by Richard Jobson, including two Wide Open cuts (“The Saints Are Coming,” “Of One Skin”), a re-recorded “Charles,” and their just-released fourth single “Into the Valley.”

A1. “Into the Valley” (3:15)
A2. “Scared to Dance” (3:17)
A3. “Of One Skin” (2:24)
A4. “Dossier (Of Fallibility)” (3:28)
A5. “Melancholy Soldiers” (3:01)
A6. “Hope and Glory” (3:16)
B1. “The Saints Are Coming” (2:37)
B2. “Six Times” (2:10)
B3. “Calling the Tune” (3:58)
B4. “Integral Plot” (2:36)
B5. “Charles” (2:45)
B6. “Scale” (4:40)

“Into The Valley” first appeared in early January as an advance single, backed with the non-album “TV Stars,” recorded live at the Marquee.

B. “T.V. Stars” (2:10)

Sessions occurred in late 1978 at London’s Air Studios with Batchelor, who also produced 1979 albums by Starjets and fellow Scottish new wavers Fingerprintz, a recent addition to Virgin’s roster. Batchelor played piano on Scared to Dance, which also features unspecified guitar parts by sessionist Chris Jenkins, who did likewise for the 1979 Virgin one-off by Jane Aire & The Belvederes.

Royal College of Art graduate Russell Mills illustrated the Scared to Dance cover, which shows a man alone in a corner at a round table with a billowing ashtray in a bleak blue room. The inner-sleeve features a Navy-tinted, head-to-head group shot by Dennis Morris, whose photography also appears on 1978/79 sleeves for Marianne Faithfull, Phil Daniels + The Cross, Public Image Ltd., XTC (White Music), and numerous reggae acts (Big Youth, Culture, Delroy Washington, The Gladiators, Linton Kwesi Johnson, U-Roy).

Scared to Dance was engineered by Mick Glossop, a veteran progressive soundman (Clearlight, Jade Warrior, Tangerine Dream) with recent credits on titles by The Ruts, Frank Zappa, and electro-Krautrockers Ashra, a follow-through to Ash Ra Temple.

Skids made their second TotP appearance miming “Into the Valley” for the February 15 broadcast, which marked the debut appearances of Lene Lovich (“Lucky Number”) and The Pretenders (“Stop Your Sobbing”). In their segment, the Skids mime in mod attire amid slanted green fixtures and flashing backlights. Jobson jumps about in a white blazer and matching beret. TotP re-aired “Into the Valley” on two subsequent fortnights amid late-winter hits by Chic (“I Want Your Love”), The Jam (“Strange Town”), Thin Lizzy (“Waiting for an Alibi”), and Violinski (“Clog Dance”).

“Into the Valley” reached No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart. Scared to Dance reached No. 19 on the UK Albums Chart.

“Masquerade”

On May 18, 1979, the Skids issued “Masquerade,” a standalone single backed with “Out of Town.” The single appeared as both a regular 7″ and a double-7″ with two additional songs: “Another Emotion” and “Aftermath Dub.”

A. “Masquerade” (2:45)
B. “Out of Town” (4:15)
C. “Another Emotion” (3:00)
D. “Aftermath Dub” (3:00)

Bill Nelson co-produced “Masquerade” with Be-Bop Deluxe soundman John Leckie, whose recent credits included 1978–79 albums by Magazine (Real Life), XTC (Go-2), Simple Minds (Life In a Day), and Bill Nelson’s Red Noise (Sound-On-Sound). Nelson arranged the keyboards on “Masquerade” and “Aftermath Dub.” This was his first production of an outside work.

Virgin/Polydor illustrator Jill Mumford rendered the sleeve art, which lifts two details from The Field of Prestonpans, an 1852 lithograph by Adolphe Mouilleron of a work by Scottish historical painter Sir William Allan (1782–1850), whose canvas depicts the 1745 Jacobite Rising in Prestonpans where rebel forces defeated the government regiment led by Sir John Cope (center, red jacket), the Commander-in-Chief, Scotland, of the British Army. Mumford also earned visual credits on 1978–79 releases by The Jam (All Mod Cons), National Health (Of Queues and Cures), and XTC (Drums and Wires).

Skids mimed “Masquerade” on the May 24 broadcast of TotP, which also featured in-studio numbers by The Damned (“Love Song”), Elvis Costello & The Attractions (“Accidents Will Happen”), and Tubeway Army (“Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”). “Masquerade” reached No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart.

Before their second album, Tom Kellican withdrew from the Skids, which hired drummer Rusty Egan (of the recently defunct Rich Kids) as a temporary member. Kellican earned his final credit on Nelson’s “Decline and Fall,” a fiery post-punk number.

Days in Europa

The Skids released their second album, Days in Europa, on October 12, 1979, on Virgin.

Richard Jobson wrote lyrics to the album’s ten Stuart Adamson compositions apart from “Home of the Saved,” an Adamson lone-write. The songs reference European identity and the two world wars. Musically, Days in Europa bridges the guitar/synth innovations of recent Ultravox (Systems of Romance) with anthemic qualities that anticipate U2.

Sessions occurred during Rusty Egan’s brief tenure, which coincided with Visage, his electro-dance project with Magazine/Ultravox personnel and singer Steve Strange (Egan’s fellow club entrepreneur on London’s Blitz scene).

A1. “Animation” (4:51)
A2. “Charade” (3:53)
A3. “‘Dulce et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori)'” (4:08) appropriates a 1917 poem by Wilfred Owen (1893–1918), a British serviceman killed in action near the end of WWI. The title is Latin for “It’s sweet and beautiful (To die for the country).”
A4. “Pros and Cons” (3:19)
A5. “Home of the Saved” (5:05)

B1. “Working for the Yankee Dollar” (4:53)
B2. “The Olympian” (3:32)
B3. “Thanatos” (4:06) is Greek for “Death,” derived from Greek mythology and used in Freudian psychology to represent destructive impulses.
B4. “A Day in Europa” (3:01)
B5. “Peaceful Times” (5:05)

“Charade” appeared a fortnight earlier as the lead-off single, backed with the non-album “Grey Parade.”

B. “Grey Parade”

On the September 27 TotP broadcast, Skids mimed “Charade” as a quintet with Egan (quiffed) and touring keyboardist Alistair Moore. “Charade” peaked just outside the UK Top 30.

Sessions occurred at The Manor and London’s Basing St. (aka Island Studios) with additional work at Rockfield, a lavish farm facility in Monmouth, Wales, used for recent projects by City Boy (Book Early), Hawkwind, Lake (II), Rush (Hemispheres), Trickster (Find the Lady), and Peter Hammill (The Future Now).

Bill Nelson produced and played keyboards on Days in Europa, which bears the sonic hallmarks of late-period Be-Bop Deluxe (Drastic Plastic) and Nelson’s recent solo recordings (spread across Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam and the odds-and-ends comp The Two-fold Aspect of Everything). Nelson next produced “Could This Be Heaven?,” the debut single by The Original Mirrors, a Deaf School spinoff with future Care guitarist Ian Broudie.

Rockfield staffer Ted Sharpe engineered Days in Europa in sequence with titles by French classical composer Saint-Preux and the 1979 comeback album by The Searchers.

In mid-November, the Skids lifted “Working For The Yankee Dollar” as the second single, backed with the exclusive “Vanguard’s Crusade.” An alternate double-pack version contains two additional songs: “Hymns for a Haunted Ballroom” and the Mott the Hoople cover “All the Young Dudes.”

B. “Vanguard’s Crusade”
C. “Hymns for a Haunted Ballroom”

In the “Working For The Yankee Dollar” video, the Skids (in headbands) portray bunker-huddled soldiers. They trade chorus lines with a trio of female USO singers who usher them to a hidden soundstage where the band continues the song in colored suits.

Skids mimed “Working For The Yankee Dollar” on the December 20 broadcast of TotP, which thrice aired the song amid Holiday ’79 hits by Blondie (“Union City Blue”), Joe Jackson (“It’s Different for Girls”), Madness (“My Girl”), The Police (“Walking On the Moon”), Rose Royce (“Is It Love You’re After”), and The Tourists (“I Only Want to Be With You”). Jobson donned a pompadour and bright blue attire for the Skids segment, where they appeared as a five-piece with Moore and new drummer Mike Baillie. “Working For The Yankee Dollar” peaked at No. 20 on the UK Singles Chart.

In late February 1980, Virgin lifted “Animation” as the third Europa single, backed with the album track “Pros and Cons.” Scared to Dance illustrator Russell Mills did the “Animation” sleeve art in sequence with visuals for the Wire side-projects Dome and B.C.Gilbert.

“The Olympian” appeared on a red flexi-disc with “Ten Feet Tall” by XTC in the March 20, 1980, issued of Smash Hits.

Original 1979 copies of Days in Europa sport an Olympian-crowning illustration based on poster art from the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Poster artist Mick Brownfield illustrated the cover, which features red-on-yellow Blackletter fonts by Virgin graphic artist Pearce Marchbank.

The two-fold insert presents an eighteen-panel fashion layout by rock photographer Brian Cooke, who rotated Richard, Stuart, and William against red, yellow, and blue backdrops in assorted outfits with common details (winklepickers, pleat/peg trousers). In two panels, Jobson models the yellow stage suit from their TotP “Charade” performance.

In an interview with Ruth Polsky for the December 1979 issue of Trouser Press, Jobson stated “If I could go back in time, I’d like to be in Germany in 1936. Each person thought he was a super being, psychologically. They were building up the country, just like with the Roman Empire^>.”

Amid some controversy, Virgin repackaged Days in Europa in 1980 with new cover art by Brian Palmer, an illustrator on EMI/Harvest titles by Duncan MacKay, Marshall Hain, Soft Machine (Softs), and Wire (Chairs Missing). Palmer’s cover presents a black-framed image of a white-robed gypsy woman embraced by a formally attired man whose companion stares off on a nearby balcony.

Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn (Prism, Loverboy, Strange Advance) remixed and re-sequenced Days in Europa for its North American release.

1980

In early 1980, William Simpson cleared for bassist Russell Webb, a veteran of Scottish popsters Slik (with Midge Ure) and their new wave offshoots PVC2 and the Zones.

On April 3–4, Richard Jobson participated with multiple singers (Hammill, Toyah, Ian Dury, Nicky Tesco, Hazel O’Connor) in a benefit concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre for imprisoned Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell. Jobson sang with Cornwell’s bandmates on three Stranglers numbers: the 1977–78 hits “No More Heroes” and “5 Minutes” and the ribald early deep-cut “Bring On the Nubiles.” Performances from the event later appeared on the archival disc The Stranglers and Friends Live In Concert.

The Absolute Game

The Skids released their third album, The Absolute Game, on September 19, 1980, on Virgin. This is their final album with Stuart Adamson, their only title with Mike Baillie, and their first with Russell Webb, who formed a lasting partnership with Richard Jobson.

The Absolute Game contains the Jobson/Adamson co-write “Out of Town” and nine group-written numbers, including the singles “Goodbye Civilian,” “A Woman in Winter,” and the pre-released “Circus Games.” Adamson and Webb both juggle synthesizer and percussion while Baillie doubles on xylophone. Veteran jazz hornist Derek Wadsworth (Keef Hartley, Rock Workshop) guests on didgeridoo.

Original UK copies contain Strength Through Joy, an eight-song bonus EP of group-written session outtakes, purportedly played on swapped instruments.

A1. “Circus Games” (4:10)
A2. “Out of Town” (4:08)
A3. “Goodbye Civilian” (4:15)
A4. “The Children Saw the Shame” (3:40)
A5. “A Woman in Winter” (5:40)

B1. “Hurry On Boys” (3:42)
B2. “Happy to Be with You” (3:36)
B3. “The Devils Decade” (5:42)
B4. “One Decree” (3:23)
B5. “Arena” (5:10)

“Circus Game” and “One Decree” first appeared in late July as an advanced single. Skids mimed “Circus Game” in formal attire amid pink-lit chrome fixtures on the August 28 broadcast of TotP, which also featured in-studios by Elton John (“Sartorial Eloquence”), Ian Dury & The Blockheads (“I Want To Be Straight”), Judas Priest (“United”), The Piranhas (“Tom Hark”), The Selecter (“The Whisper”), and Sheena Easton (“9 to 5”).

They returned in Thirties golfing attire for the September 11 broadcast, which also featured Cliff Richard (“Dreamin”’), Randy Crawford (“One Day I’ll Fly Away”), and Split Enz (“I Got You”) amid multiple repeats. “Circus Game” peaked just outside the UK Top 30.

Sessions occurred in the spring of 1980 at the Manor and London’s Audio International Studios, where Mick Glossop produced and engineered The Absolute Game in sequence with titles by Chaz Jankel, The Chords, The Records, The Ruts, and The Colonel (a ska-tinged XTC side-project). Chorale soundman Brett Kennedy assisted Glossop with Marlis Duncklau, a soundwoman on recent albums by Bliss Band, Runner, Split Enz (Frenzy), and Peter Gabriel‘s “melt.”

The Skids conceived the album’s cover art, which depicts each member as disembodied medium-relief profiles on an Ancient Roman marble wall.

In October, the Skids lifted “Goodbye Civilian” as the second single, backed with the non-album “Monkey McGuire Meets Specky Potter Behind Lochore Institute.”

In late November, “Woman In Winter” appeared as the third Absolute Game a-side, backed with a live version of “Working for the Yankee Dollar.” Original copies contain a twelve-page comic of a 1940s detective vignette starring the Skids.