Orange Juice

Orange Juice were a Scottish jangle pop band founded in the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden in 1976. Initially known as the Nu-Sonics, they changed their name to Orange Juice in 1979, and took inspiration from contemporary punk bands including Subway Sect, Television, and Buzzcocks and 1960s acts such as the Byrds and the Velvet Underground. Musically, the band brought together styles and genres that often appeared incongruous, for example, country, disco and punk. Though their line-up changed numerous times, lead singer and guitarist Edwyn Collins was a constant presence and the 'face' of the band.

The band released their first singles in the early 1980s on the independent Postcard Records label founded by Collins and Alan Horne. Along with labelmates Josef K and Aztec Camera, Orange Juice's 'neo acoustic', jangly guitar sound (as evident in singles including "Blue Boy" and "Simply Thrilled Honey") came to define the "Postcard Sound" that would directly influence acts as diverse as the Bluebells, Haircut One Hundred and the Smiths.

History

Origins: The Nu Sonics

Orange Juice had their origin in the Nu Sonics, formed by Edwyn Collins with college friend Alan Duncan (on bass) in 1976: the band was named after the affordable Burns nu-sonic guitar used by Collins, who later recalled buying the instrument for £20 at age 16 and practising it for years.

Two students in the year below Collins – Steven Daly and James Kirk, previously in punk band, The Machetes – were drafted into the band in 1977, with a fifth member, Jeff Taylor, playing drums. A first gig was held in the Silver Thread in Paisley in November 1977, with Daly on lead vocals. Daly subsequently shifted to drums, and further local gigs followed as a four-piece. One gig supporting Steel Pulse at Satellite City in January 1978, alongside Johnny and the Self-Abusers, later to be known as Simple Minds was attended by Alan Horne who would soon become strongly involved in the group's career. Duncan left the band after a gig at Hardgate Town Hall, leaving the remaining members to search for a new bass player.

The Postcard years

Shortly after Duncan's departure, one of Collins' colleagues in the Glasgow Parks Department, David McClymont, joined the band on bass, and the band was rechristened as Orange Juice. By this stage, the band had moved into the orbit of Alan Horne and the crowd that dropped in and out of his second floor flat (2/R) on 185 West Princes Street, Glasgow. Collins recalls meeting Horne mocked his appearance when they first met at a Bowie gig.

Collins, Kirk, McClymont and Daly's first gig as Orange Juice occurred in April 1979 in the Glasgow School of Art refectory. At another early gig at Teviot Row House at the University of Edinburgh was recorded by Malcolm Ross of Josef K, and one track from this (Kirk's "Felicity") was pressed as a flexi-disc to be distributed with a planned fanzine to be called 'Strawberry Switchblade', a name that later inspired and was adopted for a band formed by friends of the group. Horne planned the fanzine with Collins in 1979 primarily as a conduit to release Orange Juice's music. The fanzine never appeared, though some copies of the flexi were given away in the Ten Commandments fanzine run by Robert Hodgens (of the Bluebells).

Daly left shortly after the Teviot Row gig, joining local punk act Fun 4. Daly was replaced in Orange Juice by Chris Gordon on drums, but was persuaded back to record the band's debut single "Falling and Laughing" for what became christened Postcard Records after Gordon suffered from stage fright at a number of gigs. The debut single was recorded in December 1979 in Strathaven, with Malcolm Ross co-producing and adding guitar to both the A-side and the playful and instrumental B-side "Moscow", the latter recorded as a tentative 'theme tune' for the coming 1980 Moscow Olympics. Collins recalls that the single was recorded in eight hours in a small 8-track studio in Paisley and attributed its slightly out of tune sound to the band's inability to afford a guitar tuner.

Fewer than 1,000 copies of "Falling and Laughing" were pressed, and most included copies of the "Felicity" flexi: 200 also included a postcard by the band. The wrap-round cover and amateur packaging established Postcard's home-spun aesthetic, with the label's "Sound of Young Scotland" tagline marking it out as something of a reaction to much of the seriousness and angst of post-punk. Yet despite modest beginnings, the label was intended to be a commercial proposition. Horne suggest that the aim was to cut out the majors labels while reaching the charts. Collins concurred and stated that the label wanted a young, popular audience rather than remaining a trendy independent label.