BMX Bandits have been making ultra-romantic pop for 37 years. Let's celebrate.
A leading light of the short-lived C-86/anorak movement of the mid-'80s, the BMX Bandits stood at the epicenter of the Scottish pop music scene for over a decade; however, despite helping launch the careers of talents ranging from Teenage Fanclub and Eugenius to the Soup Dragons and Superstar , they never grew beyond the confines of a fervent cult following, though they never gave up making sweet, idiosyncratic pop music.
~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
“If I could be in any other band, it would be BMX Bandits”,
Kurt Cobain.
“Britain’s ultimate cult group”, The Guardian.
“Gentle genius”,
Q magazine.
BMX Bandits were formed in the ex-industrial town of Bellshill by songwriter and lead vocalist Duglas T Stewart out of the ashes of The Pretty Flowers, a group that featured Stewart alongside Frances McKee (The Vaselines), Sean Dickson (The Soup Dragons) and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub).
BMX Bandits' songs mix melodic qualities and humour with, at times, raw and heartbreaking pathos. Duglas describes their songs as being his world put to music.
Starting with the exuberant 'E102' in 1986 BMX Bandits released a series of singles on Stephen Pastel's 53rd & 3rd label, where they were label mates with The Vaselines and Beat Happening.
Later they joined Creation Records, home of Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and many others.
Stewart split with his long term musical partner Francis Macdonald in 2005 but 2006 saw a new wave of concert activity and the release of My Chain. Stewart's writing on the album was compared to Brian Wilson, Michel Legend, Ennio Morricone and even Alan Bennett.
In 2011 the critically acclaimed documentary
Serious Drugs was released, the story of Duglas’ adventures in music and struggles with mental health.
The film was selected by Sight and Sound magazine as one of their films of the year.
In 2023 BMX Bandits released their soundtrack album for the independent feature film Dreaded Light. Partially recorded during lockdown the soundtrack was the first collaboration between Stewart and his current main collaborator, multi instrumentalist Andrew Pattie (C. Duncan, Isobel Campbell, The Amazing Snakeheads).
The album was one of WFMU’s soundtracks of 2023.
In April 2024 BMX Bandits are releasing their 12th studio album Dreamers on the Run on Tapete Records.
The album was originally
Now a decade on Dreamers on the Run will be released, featuring unfinished songs from 2014, now completed, and new material by Stewart and Pattie. The album is BMX Bandits most musically ambitious so far, expansive and intimate.
Although the line-up of the group continues to be ever changing the heart and soul of the Bandits remain the same, an extended musical family led by the inimitable Duglas T Stewart.
ME AND THEE - School of Blackbelts (Independent)
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by Ancient Champion
Sometimes some bands just have it, you know it as soon as you hear it but you don't know whether they know it too. So, Me and Thee embodies somehow, you can hear on School of Blackbelts, the essence of what made all of your greats great. They could be an Outsideleft archetype, a bronze boulder on our lawn out front of our new office. Think of Pavement in the garage still, their slacker greatness abides, think of Vic Goddard, think of someone else you like that much. Me and Thee are going to be generationally huge of course, like, imagine a provincial Libertines, where provincial is absolutely not a derogatory term. They're young, from Wolverhampton-ish. They're the kind of bad boys (and girls) Joan Didion would've liked in her pomp, not least of all because Me and Thee's lyrics sound like they were torn from the hands of Richard Linklater's script supervisor and thrown in the air... Landing on the right side of limpid, languid genius. They have something to say about suburban Britain and are articulate about it. School of Blackbelts is astonishingly good. (Outside Left)