Collins Edwyn - Simply Thrilled: The Preposterous Story of Postcard Records

They had a SOCK drawer for an office, almost no money and more dreams than common sense. But when Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne decided to start up their own record label from a shabby Glasgow flat, no one was going to stand in their way.

Postcard Records was the mad, MAKESHIFT and quite preposterous result. Launching the careers of Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and cult heroes Josef K. they stuck it to the London music biz and, quite by accident, kickstarted the 1980s indie music REVOLUTION. Simon Goddard has interviewed everyone involved in the making of the Postcard legend, to tell this thrilling rock n roll STORY of creating something beautiful from nothing, against all the odds.

Simon Goddard first met Edwyn Collins in 1994 through their mutual fascination with sixties recording madman Joe Meek. He claims full responsibility for the failure of Edwyns solo single If You Could Love Me (because he directed the video) but only minimal credit for the success of the Orange Juice box set Coals To Newcastle (because he wrote the sleeve notes).

This is his fourth book about pop music. He lives in London.

Ziggyology

Mozipedia

Songs That Saved Your Life

This is the preposterous story of Postcard Records.

Preposterous, because thats how the people involved remembered it. Story, because those same remembrances have been woven together in a dramatic reconstruction. The preposterous story of Postcard Records is a fairy-tale, not a documentary.

A fairy tale, but not necessarily a fantasy. Many peoples recollections contradicted one another. Others were clearly distorted, whether by decades of retelling, selective memory or, in rare cases, self-delusion. During the many interviews I conducted for this book, various people it doesnt matter who told me the following:

Whatever anyone says I did, I plead insanity.

No, but stick that in. It sounds better.

They did what? Thats an Edwyn joke, surely?

Oh, print the legend! Absolutely. You have to.

Yet when stitched together, all anecdotes still clung to the contours of the same truth. The famous story of Isaac Newton under the apple tree might be a fiction but it helps us remember who Newton was, and what he did. Myths exist for a reason. They are colourless realities translated into the sweet language of romance. So it is with the preposterous story of Postcard Records.

As a story about people making records, this book is about the people more than the records: the large annotated discography section at the end should hopefully satisfy anyone equally interested in both.

The reasons why I wanted to tell this story are numerous: because nobody else had, because nobody else would, because its a story worth rescuing from its own sock drawer of pop history where it has been mothballed for too long. But mainly because its a story of pop heroism. The victory of the excluded. Whatever anyone believes Postcard did or didnt achieve, Alan and Edwyn never strayed from that most noble ambition, to make art. The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it. Valiant purists, they didnt fail.

To them, to all those involved, and all inspired by their example, I dedicate this humble Scottish play.

Simon Goddard
401 miles south of West Princes Street

This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Maxwell Scott

By the time they threw him in the nuthouse he was 63 years old, but everybody had always known poor Louis was crazy. The interminably tragic look on his face. The eyes that rarely if ever flickered with joy. The moping moustache he grew purely to cover the cleft lip, which had blighted his childhood conjuring cruel jeers and bloody fists. His low voice, speaking in a frantic, monotone rush. The way he played piano, witnesses remarking on his jerky and nervous tunes, fingers bayoneting the keys in epileptic rhythm to the mental skewering within. His habit of telling people hed written an opera, currently in pre-production for the London stage, which existed only in the dress circle of his brain. His frequent whispered asides that hed managed to harness electricity from the surrounding ether, now pulsing through his bones. His sudden flinches when accompanied on beach walks, screeching that hed just spotted a sea serpent! close to shore. And his discreet confession to one of his few friends that the spirit of his late wife had since transferred to their cat. Those who crossed his path in later years would excuse themselves in that uniquely embarrassed English fashion and apologise for finding him a trifle odd. They neednt have. Louis Wain was insane.

Doomed from the womb, he was a sickly child, stricken with scarlet fever and waking nightmares that every time he left the house hed be chased down the street by a giant ball of dark energy. He was ten before his parents dared, in vain, to thrust him through school gates. A habitual truant, hed wander alone through the city streets, teaching himself the language of industrial machinery, hypnotised by the steam and clang of ships, factories and large artillery. It was only a love of music, for which he possessed no talent, which wooed him back to the classroom. But it was his genius for drawing that kept him there. Place a pencil in his hand and this unhappy, restless cleft-lipped wretch of a child was a phenomenon.

After a hopeless if brief spell trying to make a living as an art teacher, the adult Louis found work in anonymous illustrations and greeting cards. His new career was well timed, just as his father died leaving his mother and five younger sisters entirely dependent on his income. His reaction to this grim domestic burden was to run off and marry the new governess his widowed mother had recently employed, a woman ten scandalous Victorian years his senior. Their bliss was short-lived. The new Mrs Wain died of breast cancer three years later, leaving 26-year-old Louis childless and alone.

Well, no. Not quite alone. He still had his true love. He still had Peter.

Long before hed convinced himself that his dead wifes soul had voodoo-danced into Peters furry black and white body, the cat was uppermost in his affections. Their marital home in Hampstead was The Sacred Temple Of Peter in all but name, its walls and dressers decorated with drawings and paintings of his beloved four-pawed companion. His dying wife told him his Peter pictures were his best work. Louis resisted her pleas to sell them, under the illusion he was more of a dog artist until encroaching debt persuaded him to volunteer a first festive feline cartoon for The Illustrated London News. His Kittens Christmas Party was an immediate hit. Whether by luck, fate or the mystic influence of Peter, he had found his destiny, soon to be famous throughout the empire. The Cat Artist, Louis Wain.

His catalogue of cats was infinite, depicting all shapes, colours, breeds and sizes in all manner of amusing anthropomorphic poses: cats playing fiddles and puffing on tubas; promenading pussies in dresses twirling parasols; naughty kittens in high chairs; old monocled moggies smoking pipes and reading newspapers by crackling fires; canoodling lover cats by moonlight; police cats collaring kitten pickpockets; kilted cats skipping highland flings; cats playing cricket, golf and wheelbarrow races; bewigged cat judges sternly instructing cat juries; sleek waitress cats serving afternoon tea to dickey-bowed tabbies; old maid cats; parson cats; painter cats; pianist cats; and entire cat orchestras. There was scarce a late-Victorian or Edwardian child who wouldnt have recognised a Louis Wain cat. A turn-of-the-century publishing infestation, they purred and pranced through newspapers, penny prints, anniversary cards and shelf upon shelf of nursery books.