Vultures - Interview

  by John Clarkson

published: 7 / 9 / 2025

The Vultures were a short-lived Edinburgh-based garage rock act of the late 1980s, who in their lifetime released just one record, a four-song 12” EP ‘Good Thing’ The Vultures, which included Janie Nicoll (vocals), Anna Watkins (guitar), Allison Young (bass) and Ian Binns (drums), played a total of just seventeen gigs in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and London in their time together. They have, however, gone through something of a revival in recent years. They appeared with the title track of their EP on the 2019 Cherry Red box set, ‘Big Gold Dream: A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989’. The Vultures are also featured in two recent music books about that time, Grant McPhee’s ‘Scottish Independent Music 1982-1995’ from 2024 and Saskia Holling’s Edinburgh-focused ‘You and Me Against the World’, which came out in June. Precious Recordings of London have also recently released on 10” vinyl their only radio session, which was transmitted for Radio 1 by Liz Kershaw on the 16th June 1988. Perhaps the greatest indicator of all of the renewed interest and awareness in The Vultures is that at the time we speak to her, Janie Nicoll, who is a professional artist, is designing some Vultures T-shirts that she will be selling through the gtoup’s Bandcamp page. We spoke to her about the Precious Recotdings’ release and the band’s short history. PB: Does it surprise you that you are so fondly remembered? JN: Yes and no!! At the time it felt like we quite quickly got an enthusiastic local following, we would print up our own posters for gigs and stick them up around the city centre and we were always surprised how many people turned up. In those pre- internet days, it was hard to gauge how popular we were. Even after we released our 12” single, we never heard how many of our 12” singles actually sold, so it was hard to tell if we were actually getting anywhere. The only feedback was from the music press, which like the rest of the music business was very male dominated and very London centric. It wasn’t like now when bands get instant feedback via social media from audiences or fans. Myself, Allison and Anna shared a flat together for a while and I remember we once got a fan letter and we thought it was really funny, like a big surprise. We were more looking to the music press for feedback as it seemed like everyone read or paid attention to the music press, i.e. the ‘NME’, ‘Sounds’, ‘Melody Maker’. PB: You formed at Edinburgh College of Art and ‘Good Thing’ was the fifth and final release of Narodink, the label of Eddie Connelly, who went on to become the bass player in the Motorcycle Boy. You also for three years dated David Scott who played guitar in that band. What do you remember of the Edinburgh indie scene of the late 1980’s. Did it seem especially fervent? JN: There was a really strong community around gig nights at the Onion Cellar, the Venue, and Potterow Students Union, with people turning up for gigs regularly week after week. The music scene in Edinburgh was very interlinked with lots of people getting involved in multiple bands or sharing equipment, practice rooms, doing gigs together, sharing flats. Inevitable people ended up going out with each other. I was going out with Scottie for a couple of years and was already in The Vultures before he announced he was in the Motorcycle Boy. He had hardly ever talked about being able to play guitar, although he had been in a band in Belfast when he was younger. Eddie and Alex (Taylor – vocalist in The Motorcycle Boy) moved into the big flat he was living in in South Clerk St, at around the time that the Motorcycle Boy formed. We were all either students, or on the dole, or Eddie set up Narodnik Records on the Enterprise Allowance scheme. PB: How did you become involved with Precious? JN: Last summer I went along to the book launches of Grant McPhee’s book in Glasgow, and then decided to also go to the one at the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh. We were with Fran Schoppler and Sandy Maclean on the train back to Glasgow and they were talking about the Jesse Garon BBC session which was going to be coming out on Precious Recordings and it made me realise that if I could get access to the files from the BBC Archive, if they still existed, then maybe they would be interested in releasing our Liz Kershaw session. I contacted a woman at the BBC archive, who initially couldn’t find any trace of the files. I then looked out the invoice we had received from the Beeb at the time, fortunately I had kept this in a folder of clippings, posters and band related stuff. It had all the details of the session, so with that information she was able to find the tracks. At that point I got in touch with Nick Godfrey at Precious to see if he might be interested in releasing the session and he most definitely was, which was great. PB: What are your memories of the Liz Kershaw Session? You apparently borrowed not entirely legally the Edinburgh College of Art’s transit van to go to London to do the recording. Did you enjoy the experience? JN: A couple of the tracks from the ‘Good Thing’ EP were getting played quite regularly on the Radio 1 Early Evening Show, so we were asked to record a session, and headed down to London in a minibus borrowed from the art college, under the auspices of a “research trip” as one of the guys at the ECA students union told me it would be fine! When we got to Maida Vale Studios, Andy Clement, our new drummer who had replaced Ian Binns, found that the drum kit we had borrowed contained a burst drum skin. Obviously the drum track needed to be laid down first so we couldn’t get started until we got this rectified. The technicians did not seem overly impressed, as with this being a Sunday, they had to phone round all the music equipment shops in London to find one that was actually open and get it couriered over. I just remember us waiting around anxiously wondering if we had blown it or not! We only had the day to record four tracks anyway, so this delay added to the pressure, and it was a far tighter timescale than we had previously experienced. The resulting songs all share a sense of urgency caused by being up against the clock and are all shorter than other versions. We never did find out who packed that drum-kit! It a nutshell it was all a bit fraught! PB: Vulture songs are all really short. Most of them in true 50’s rock and roll style don’t last more than two minutes. Was there a reason why they were so economic? Was it a case of less meaning more? JN: We wrote the songs during our practice sessions and then they took shape during the live gigs, when things were always played pretty fast, probably because we were always quite nervous! As time went on the songs actually got longer, and there are a couple of later songs that we never recorded, that would have been longer than three minutes. PB: What do you make now of the younger version of yourself who fronted this band all this time ago? JN: It was a good time when it felt like anything was possible. I look back and think it was a shame that we didn’t have more confidence in ourselves, as I don’t think we realised that we had something a bit different from the other bands at the time. Hindsight is a marvellous thing!! PB: The Vultures’ time in the spotlight was really brief and it seemed that you split just as you started going. Why did you split and was that really the case? JN: The split was a gradual thing, but probably came about as a result of Anna leaving the band. She had a boyfriend who was quite negative about the Vultures and pretty much undermined her confidence in herself and the band. Things were never quite the same after she left. At the end of 1988/ beginning of 1989 we were asked to do nine gigs in London, but it was after a bit of a break and I think we couldn’t face the thought of heading down to London again in a transit van. Also there were the pressures of being at Art College, Allison was in her final year at Edinburgh College of Art by this time and had her degree show coming up, which she needed to concentrate on. It all felt like a bridge too far. When we got a phone call about going down I had to admit to the guy that we didn’t want to do the gigs. That was pretty much the final nail in the coffin and we never played again after that. PB: You are now a well-known artist and live and work in Glasgow. Are you still in touch with the others in the band and what are they doing now? JN: I am still in touch with everyone through social media except for Anna, who I have tried to contact but with no luck. Allison is an artist living in Edinburgh, Andy Clement lives in America now, and I think Iain Binns is also in Edinburgh. PB: Thank you. Photos by Alan Mclean

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