#edwyn sinclair

[bonetrussle]

My take on a genderbent Enid Sinclair! This is a companion piece to a short fic I have in mind where Edwyn Sinclair is a performer (singer? actor? dancer? haven't decided yet hmm) who is forced to keep pretending to be a cis straight man, until a certain dangerous and mysterious individual arrives and shakes his world up :)

genderbent Wednesday's version pending!

[weaversweek]

1 "Since yesterday" - Strawberry Switchblade

writers Rose McDowall, Jill Bryson

12 points (DOUZE POINT!)

Like sixteen swans taking flight at once!

Part of the UncoolTwo50 project, marking the best singles from 1977-99.

Jill: "We get different categories of letter. Ones like 'we think you're a really great pop group', ones from people struggling in other groups saying 'can we support you' and really long, dead sincere letters. I like the long sincere ones the best."

Strawberry Switchblade met at Glasgow School of Art; originally a four-piece, they slimmed down to Rose and Jill. The group was named after a fanzine written by Orange Juice that never came out; it took its name from a James Kirk song.

They hung out on the fringes of the Postcard Records scene, and were particularly close to Edwyn Collins and his group Orange Juice. Supported them on a tour in late 1982, and seemed to be on the gentle nursery slopes, the fringes of fame without ever breaking through to the public consciousness.

Strawberry Switchblade are deceptively strong and marvellously strange. The knowledge that Rose used to be in a group called the Poems who once made a single financed, at least partly, by shoplifting tends to imbue her current endeavours with a somewhat sterner significance. Their songs are sometimes cute, sometimes irksome, sometimes fun, sometimes twee. If I was 10 they'd be on my wall. -- Mick Sinclair, Zig Zag

"Since yesterday" started life as "Dance", changing almost the entire lyric over three years before being released to the world in late 1984. Its minor-key horn riff comes from Sibelius's fifth symphony - the third movement has a recurring motif inspired by swan calls. Perhaps that's what proved key to their success - here's something vaguely familiar, being re-interpreted and literally shattered before our ears.

despite the ribbons and bows falling from their curls, the sentiments that Rose McDowall and Jill Bryson project through their songs are often as pretty as Lou Reed's sugar-coated 'Heroin'. For these two girls, Scots by birth, populist and perverse by and large, are not in the business of soft selling sweet Pop. After all, the twist in the name Strawberry Switchblade could hardly be anything but intentional. -- Adrian Devoy, International Musician and Recording World

"Since yesterday" became an unlikely, unexpected, and wholly welcome hit in early 1985. It opened doors for Rose and Jill to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in pop...

Until he accepts his second award - after which he leaves - Prince and his two bodyguards sit at the same table as Strawberry Switchblade. "What did you talk to me about?" I ask them. "We were struck dumb," confesses Jill. Apparently there was no conversation whatsoever. -- Neil Tennant, Smash Hits

...but it proved to be the one and only hit. A number of other singles from Strawberry Switchblade fell short of the top 40, and the group broke up a little later.

They'd made an impression.

ROSE AND JILL of Strawberry Switchblade may look like Macbeth's weird witches but sisters they aren't. "We actually think we dress quite differently," complains Jill, "but other people still get the wrong name in the third meeting!" Rose remembers having a polka dot dress when she was wee and claims that, "everyone wears polka dots when they're six months old." Once the girls had polka dots everything just evolved. "If you get the idea, everything just seems to sprout from it…" Everything includes all kinds of accessories, from earrings that look like chandeliers to ribbons that are almost floor-length. Strawberry Switchblade have fertile heads like overgrown gardens and hair like Egyptian haystacks. Witches always invent themselves. Why else would the church have burned them but for their independence and knowledge of nature? After punk, Rose and Jill formed a group and began to learn guitar (not necessarily in that order). Their inspiration came from the softer songs of the Velvet Underground. As followers of Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and the rest will know, everyone in Glasgow has the Velvets "Banana" album on the coffee table. Next year we'll be hearing a lot of Strawberry Switchblade's quietly haunting songs, folk ballads on the eerie side of twee. Meanwhile the girls are concerned to convey the right impression. "People expect us to sound punky because of the make-up so we try to smile a lot to reassure them: we're lovely people, really. The people who hear our music tend to describe it as 'lovely or nice or beautiful' rather than 'great'. Everybody can be great — not everybody can be lovely. Our main problem is the ribbons falling on to the guitar strings while we're playing. We need a ribbon roadie and someone who'll iron our clothes before we go onstage. Oh, and someone to tune the guitars…" -- Mark Cooper, Record Mirror

Some would argue that Strawberry Switchblade still influence fashion. They brought a certain style, sweet polka dots and malevolent attitude, and it clicked with the people of Japan. Did Rose and Jill spark off the enduring "Gothic Lolita" scene? Certainly they're well-remembered and well-loved - I haven't had to go deep into The Internet Archive to find Strawberry Switchblade.net, servicing fans since 2005.

Life has inflection points. They were on the cover of Smash Hits magazine. Inside was a gripping feature on Band Aid, and some serious writing about trivial subjects. Writers like Sylvia Patterson, Mark Ellen, Linda Duff, Dave Rimmer, and the masterful work of Tom Hibbert. Their mixture of breezy chat and intense knowledge is something I try to replicate - in the Week, and in this collection of essays.

Pop music changes lives. Random chance changes lives. I wouldn’t be the same person without a chain of events kicked off by “Since yesterday”, and that’s why it gets the lot - token, teatowel, and my DOUZE POINTS.

Thanks to #UncoolTwo50 sponsor and numbercruncher Arron. And to you for reading, if indeed you still are.