WHAT were Scottish musicians, unable to perform live, doing during the lockdown? Writing memoirs, like many others. Here’s another joining a growing list that includes Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross and Primal Scream’s mythomane, Bobby Gillespie. Stuart Braithwaite is a member of Glasgow’s much-loved Mogwai. Their tenth album – As the Love Continues – topped the UK charts; reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Expectations for this book are high.
We learn quickly about Stuart’s life before Mogwai. Braithwaite is from Lanarkshire; he’s small, bald, and middle-class (mum a GP). He has a history of underage drinking and has pals in Bearsden, pals with older, cooler, siblings. He’s chased by neds in the Blantyre vicinity, worries that East Kilbride “isn’t the friendliest place in the world. He doesn’t like Thatcher but digs reading Hubert Selby Jr. He misses his Modernist, anti-capitalist father.
His childhood is idyllic. At this point I need to mention Sigmund Freud. In Civilization And Its Discontents, Freud talks about the “narcissism of minor difference”. It’s what set off the Bosnian civil war. It’s Rangers versus Celtic. Your Glaswegian reviewer is alert to this notion.
