About Topplers

Part1. FROM A BAND TO A LABELTopplers were a post-punk band from the West of Scotland from around 1980 to 1983. Although they never released any records tracks by the band appeared on two cassette compilations in the UK and they shared a cassette release with other bands in Belgium! Their name was allegedly a tribute to the FALL but their sound was characterised by imaginative trebly guitars over sinuous basslines with distictive vocals, all pinned down by the rock-solid beat of Ian Murray on drums! (he later went on to play with pompous celtic AOR band Capercaille!!!!)After they drifted apart in 1983 most of the band members stayed away from the music scene until, in 1990, Allan the bass player joined Nyah Fearties.The Fearties had a worldwide reputation as an uncompromising duo who produced more noise from amped up acoustic instuments and junk percussion than most did with a full band! By 1990 they had produced two albums and two singles and were taking a well earned rest.Davie Feartie was looking for a new direction and along with Allan from the Topplers started recording using drum machines and cut-up samples to fill out the sound on some spaghetti western styled instrumentals. It wasn’t long before Stephen Feartie joined in with his banjo and a whole new electric/acoustic sound developed. Although all three were writing lyrics for the new tunes Lewis Mitchell, the Topplers singer, chipped in with his words to some songs which were taken up by the Fearties.Allan stayed with the Fearties for the next 5 years but after Lewis drank the entire Fearties rider at a gig in Queen Margaret’s University, his collaboration with the band was abruptly stopped!In 1999 Allan started playing again with a couple of younger musicians, Brian and Zeke, under the name of the Joy Boys! A recording was made of five tracks but no-one bothered to write any lyrics or was prepared to sing! Lewis heard the tracks and immediately sprang into action. He had years worth of lyrics waiting to be used and within days had transformed the recordings into proper songs!By this time everybody had CD writers and colour printers and a profesional looking sleeve and label was made up for this collection of songs. The band luckily changed their name to The Reverborators on Lewis’ suggestion but what would they call their imaginary record label? Well, two of them had been members of the Topplers so why not call it Topplers Records? the fist CD on the original topplers label 1999Part 2 - THE EARLY YEARS

TOP01-Reverborator

TOP02 - TheDecider

TOP03 - JimmyWolfe EP

The Reverborators had split up by the time the CD was finished but Allan & Brian continued experimenting with home recordings and Allan eventually invested in an iMac and got himself a free copy of Pro Tools. Lewis was still getting copies of the recordings and writing his own lyrics which became CDs under the name of The Deciders.Brians brother Michael joined in on some of the recordings and his band ‘Jimmy Wolfe’ were looking for a CD to sell at their gigs so they became the next act to have their music released on Topplers.

TOP04 - TheDecider!

TOP05 - JimmyWolfe EP

Top06 - The NoMen

By 2002 Topplers had their own website and had released five CDR albums. Brian was playing in a band called the YesMen with his neighbour George who used to pop round and borrow Swell Maps and TVP records.Allan had always loved the Swell Maps but his favourite records were released by artists who used the Swell Maps as their backing band such as The Cult Figures who had a wonderful pop-punk single called Zip Nolan which had one of the best 7″ covers ever and Steve Treatment who had a fantastic 5 track single which mixed Marc Bolan’s lyricism with Swell Maps’ shambolic punk. Allan had bought the Steve Treatment single in 1978 and had never heard anything else by him but in 2002 he went to a record fair with Brian and saw another Steve Treatment single in a home made sleeve which, even though it cost a fiver, he bought. It was another classic! It had lost some of the frenzy of the Swell Maps backing but the songs were brilliant so he decided to use the internet to find out if there were any other Steve Treatment records out there. Using the Topplers website he put up a Steve Treatment page with all the info from the two singles he had and asked if anyone knew of any others. There were numerous replies pointing out that we had the first and third singles and that there was another one out there, but then we got a message from Steve’s sister and another from Christine Isherwood (who sang backing vocals on the records) saying that Steve was alive and well and they would get him to contact us…Just before New Year of 2003 Allan got a call from Steven John Finney, otherwise known as Steve Treatment! It was a long conversation… He talked about his old records and his band in the nineties called The Ticket Inspectors. He played the single we hadn’t heard down the phone and it sounded great so he promised to send copies of his recordings up to us! A few days later a package arrived stuffed with singles, cassettes, press clippings and photos. The records were great but of more interest was the cassettes full of unreleased recordings and demos of recently written songs!By this time Allan had also joined ‘The Yes Men’ with Brian and George and together they went through the tapes with the idea of rerecording them with Steve singing and releasing them on Topplers. It seemed like a good idea but by the time they started recording they were having so much fun they decided to do them without Steve and release them under the name of “The NoMen”. To beef out the sound our friend Billy was brought in on percussion. He played with his own elecro-pop band The Electroluvs and had also remixed and rerecorded a Decider single on his own X-Static label. An album entitled “The Keys to Talgarth Road” was produced and a few CDR copies were made up and sent to various people. We were very surprised that this home made CD got reviewed in The List magazine and even more surprised when we actually sold a few copies!!! Steve heard the NoMen recordings and was amazed - “They sound more like me than I do!” It was time to get Steve involved…

TOP07 - Steve Treatment

TOP08 - Steve Treatment

TOP09 - Steve Treatment

Part3. GETTING SERIOUS…Steve loved the NoMen sound and was keen to get involved. He started sending us new recordings which we brought out on CDR as “Picked Apart on Tape” and “The 5 ‘A’ Sided CD”. We also did a Christmas single with Steve Treatment called “Christmas in October”. In early 2004 Allan sold his flat and have a few hundred pounds of profit which he decided to invest in a ‘real’ 7″ vinyl single by Steve Treatment and the NoMen.  Plans were made as to what tracks were to be recorded and we sent Steve a return ticket to get him from London to Scotland for the weekend’s recording session. Sadly it was not to be. Steve claimed he went to catch the bus but they wouln’t let him on as he was drunk (it was an early moning bus!) and he had a carry out with him. The driver seemingly told him to come back later and he could still use his ticket. At this point he phoned and said he was going to bed to sober up and would get a bus in the afternoon… We knew at that point he wasn’t coming.Although disappointed that Steve wasn’t coming Allan was determined to put out a 7″ records before the money got spent on something else.  The NoMen had done a few other cover versions at this point of early DIY punk single including the classic “Zip Nolan” by the Cult Figures. Someone had a copy of the single on EBay which had sold for £20 so Allan contacted all the bidders saying that an alternative version of the “Zip Nolan” song was available for only £1 from the Topplers website. Not only did we sell a few copies but Gary Jones, the singer with the Cult Figures, got in touch. Gary told us about other Cult Figures recordings and said he was still in touch with Jowe Head from the Swell Maps and reckoned that Jowe would love to hear a copy of  The NoMen’s recording! The band immediately got to work on doing a selection of tracks from Jowe’s “Pincer Movement” LP which we sent him along with the other recordings.Jowe got in touch and sent some of his recent unreleased recordings which were excellent so it was decided to put out two Jowe Head tracks as a 7″ single instead of the aborted Steve Treatment release!