Personnel:

Coinneach "Call Me Ken" (Heavy Metal) Livingstone : Keyboard; Vocals; Drums; Chanter; Guitar

Gordon (Mod) Macleod : Guitar; Drums; Keyboards; Vocals

Iain (Rockabilly) Livingstone: Keyboard; Vocals; Drums; Chanter; Guitar

Jimmy (Chames) Petrie : Drums; Bell

John (Byrll Creem Kid) Allan : Drum Botcher; Guitar Botcher

Sleeve by Ken (Heavy Metal) Livingstone

The Guireans' inauspicious debut, "Pronounced Goo-thans" was recorded during the Stornoway Latha Taigealachd (Thanksgiving) Holidays in November 1979 and possibly the Orduighean in February 1980, in various North St sitting rooms.

“Keyboards” consisted of a shop soiled grand piano-shaped “Junior Liberace” toy organ that Jimmy Petrie’s mother Gertie got at a staff discount from Woolie’s (50p).“Guitars” were 2 Polish kids’ acoustics (£4), one with a pick-up wired up by Coinneach (Heavy Metal)’s dad. “Drums” consisted of the Chad Valley set that Gordon (Mod) had got for his tenth birthday. On the tracks recorded at Gordon's, a genuine real piano appears. But clearly nobody could genuinely really play it.

The Guireans had entertained ideas of pop stardom ever since Gordon (Mod) got his Chad Valley drum kit in 1974. Inspired by Slade, Mud, Sweet (and in trendy Gordon’s case the cooler Bowie and Bolan) they formed aspiring Glam Rock idols “Marvel”. Marvel split up almost immediately when they discovered that they couldn’t play anything. Which suggests that whatever good sense the Guireans had as kids vanished by the time they hit adolescence. Hormones, probably.

The Guireans set out originally with the intention of being a real band and doing serious covers of the happening sounds of the late seventies, as can be seen by the choice of material (The Police, The Specials, Gary Numan, Joe Jackson etc) and the number of attempts at “straight” covers. However, the rediscovery of their complete musical ineptitude soon put a stop to that, and to cover their embarrassment at being crap the Guireans quickly resorted to irony.

The emerging “Avant Gaelic Obscurist Folk Rock” (AGOFR)  trade mark technique of localising the subject matter of the song being covered can  be seen in the classic “Is Mise Punk” and “Different For Eggs” (inspired by the remarkable resemblance between Nicolson Institute history teacher/Olympic belt-wielding champion K*nny B*ldy and small-time new wave popster Joe Jackson).

See also “Toilet on the Sea” (A tribute to the bar, catering and sanitary facilities on the "Suilven”, Caledonian Macbrayne's legendary boke-inducing Stornoway-Ullapool ferry of the period)

Between and during tracks there also appears to have been a fair bit of inter-band "banter" going on. The rest of the group hurled insults at self-appointed leader and manager Coinneach between songs, and failed conspicuously to follow instructions to refer to him by his cool new rock star name of "Ken".

An exasperated Coinneach appears to have abandoned witty repartee in favour of brute force, judging from the screams and utterances of (eg) "You've got to have more pain, Macleod" towards the end of side 2.

As might be expected, "Pronounced" is a dire and unlistenable piece of work. The Guireans would have been a lot better off today if they'd used the days off school as intended and gone to church instead.

But sadly the pattern for the next 40-plus years was set...

Tracks:

1.        I’m a Punk

2.        Throwin Up Dead Hound Dog Hangover Light Fused Blues

3.        Are Friends Electric

4.        Andy Septic Plays

5.        Amazin Grace

6.        Gordon Is A Moron

7.        Om

8.        Too Much Too Young

9.        Rising Slum

10.     Zeb’s Bunions

11.     Sitting on a Cornflake

12.     Stupid Marriage

13.     Inappropriate but wittily renamed Police song

14.     On Top of Old Smokey

15.     Is Mise Punk

16.     Tribute to Motorhead

17.     Autobahn

18.     Different for Eggs

19.     Johhny B Goode

20.     Toilet on the Sea