Andrew Duncan Scott
The hand printed cassette covers for Andrew Duncan Scott’s band, The Moth, are in keeping with the primal, absurdist and avant garde output of this Englishman.
My first experience of tape trading occurred in June 1990. I don’t even remember where the actual advert was but I believe it could have been in the weekly Sounds music paper which was one of competitors to NME at that time. The said ad stated something like that the person was looking for musicians to collaborate & “make something truly extraordinary”. As I was just entering my even weirder stage in life & was keen to promote my music I decided to risk it & respond. To my surprise I received 5 sides of A4 paper in response, maybe as I had written something extraordinary too?!! It felt great to get such a long, personal reply detailing the persons influences, artistic & literary tastes etc etc. Anyway said individual was a Dave Bourgoin, who was going under the Another Headache moniker at the time. He had also sent me tape entitled Cacophony Concerto, with various movements of droney, electronic, pseudo-industrial pieces. As I was more into post-punk type “rock” at the time it was not really what I was used to hearing although I could appreciate its subversive elements, albeit I thought some of it was samey & not wildly inspiring. What I liked best though was the inclusion at the end of the tape of his cover of Sonic Youths’ Schizophrenia as I was really into the group at the time. He did introduce me to names such as Coil, NWW, Zoviet France, as well as more familiar hardcore outfits. Some of these names were vaguely familiar & perhaps launched me on the road to full-blown subversive action by the end of the decade. He also recommended that I send my music for inclusion on a Graphic Death compilation that was being planned: I did so with little hope of success & likewise was stunned when in Nov 90 I received the said compilation , the first of many compilations that The Moth appeared on through the 90s.
Shortly after I sent him a tape of my then current stuff. Unfortunately he stated that was too vocals-based for his tastes, & noise-for-noise sake!! Although I was chuffed when he stated that I sounded as though was operating under influence of Fall & Beefheart. How did u guess? Although I had no further contact with this particular artist we did end up on compilation together sometime in the future.
The whole experience had therefore introduced me to the sub-culture known as tape exchange & experimentation, made me realise that there were people out there who could help & be vaguely interested in my work & of course led to my first real fame. I was alone no longer. More importantly it laid the seeds of experimentation & the desire to explore: there was more to left-field music than the obvious post-punk heroes!
