MUSICAL ensemble The Tenementals are on the march again through Glasgow’s streets.
Their latest single, The Broken Stones of the Calton Weavers, was released on September 3 on the 240th anniversary of the murder of six of the striking Calton weavers by the British army.
The weavers were striking against pay cuts, marking one of the first acts of labour solidarity in both Scotland and Britain.
The title of the single addresses the terrible state that the burial stones of three of the murdered weavers in the Calton Burial Ground are now in. The lament opens up the issue of just exactly who and what is remembered in history – and why.
The saying that the history is written by the victors – and not the vanquished – is largely true. The victors here are the ruling class while the vanquished are the poor and dispossessed.
Workers and the working-class have sometimes had victories but these are seldom broadcast or celebrated.
The Tenementals are seeking to help overturn this by bringing back to life the almost untold radical history of Glasgow by putting it to song through writing original lyrics and composing new music.
In their own words, they say: “[We] aim to tell a radical history of a radical city in a radical way.”
The Tenementals are a group of academics, artists and musicians whose debut performance at the 2022 Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival received the Outstanding Event award.
Their debut album, Glasgow: A History (Vol. I of VI), was released in 2024. They were founded by David Archibald, a former worker at John Brown Engineering, turned Professor of Political Cinemas at the University of Glasgow.
A lifelong socialist activist, Archibald is the lyricist and lead singer. He is joined by Bob Anderson on drums, Ronan Breslin on keyboards, Mark Ferrari on bass guitar, Therese Martin on vocals, Olivia McLean on cello, and Simon Whittle on guitars.
Special guests on the single are Clare Thomas on coronet, and Ivan Marples on saxophone.
The Tenementals’ second album is due out early next year, with The Broken Stones of the Calton Weavers being a taster for it.
As before, the new album, whose title the band remain tight lipped about, will be released on Strength in Numbers Records, in vinyl, CD and digital formats.
But behind the single is a lot more which speaks to The Tenementals being artivists – artists and activists. The band have also launched a public petition to right a centuries-old wrong, with the Glasgow city authorities awarding the freedom of the city to the military officers who ordered the soldiers to shoot at the weavers.
Archibald says the Calton Weavers suffered not just a terrible injustice in life but also in death. The petition calls on Glasgow City Council to formally and publicly disassociate the modern city from the historic civic honours bestowed upon the military officers; revoke all civic honours granted to these officers; and bestow the freedom of the city (or the highest possible level of posthumous civic recognition) upon the Calton Weavers in order to officially amend the historical record.
The Tenementals play at labour movement and left-wing events and festivals as well as performing benefit gigs for progressive causes.
The driver behind these activities and the lyrics of their songs is to explore how history can be created and communicated beyond the conventional academic formats of books and papers.
Often described by the band themselves as a kind of “wild research”, the purpose is to ask what history might look, sound and feel like if made by a rock band which uses music, performance and popular culture as legitimate forms of historical enquiry and account.
One of the songs on the ensemble’s first album, Universal Alienation (We’re Not Rats), brought to life Jimmy Reid’s rectoral address called Alienation to the University of Glasgow on April 28, 1972.
Reid was the primary spokesperson for the victorious Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in between 1971 and 1972. In his address, he explained what alienation meant in a Marxist meaning, urging people not to be rats in a capitalist rat race.
It is to be hoped that The Broken Stones of the Calton Weavers’ gets at least a smidgeon of the attention and airplay that Paul Weller’s Broken Stones got.
Released in September 1995 as the fourth single from his third solo album, Stanley Road, Weller was inspired to write the song after a conversation he had with his son on a beach, with the idea that people were like a broken stone trying to become whole again.
The Broken Stones of the Calton Weavers is a bold attempt to make whole again the memory and meaning of the murdered Calton Weavers of 1787.
Details of the single can be found on the Strength In Numbers bandcamp page and the Tenementals have their own website and can be contacted on [email protected]
You can sign their petition at www.change.org/Calton_Weavers_Freedom_of_the_City_of_Glasgow
