Skids / Spear of Destiny

Skids are a punk band formed in Dunfermline, Scotland by Stuart Adamson (on guitars, vocals, keyboards, percussion), Richard Jobson ( vocals, guitar, keyboards), Thomas Kellichan (drums) and William Simpson (bass guitar, vocals) in 1977. They signed to Virgin and issued “Sweet Suburbia” and “The Saints Are Coming” before shooting to popularity with top ten single “Into The Valley”, from their first album “Scared to Dance”. The group has split and reformed on numerous occasions; the original run was 1977–1982, they reformed i 2007 before splitting in 2010. For the third time, they reformed in 2016. They released a fifth album, Burning Cities, in 2018, 36 years after their last release.

The Skids continue to enjoy popularity with two top 20 singles, “Masquerade” and “Working for the Yankee Dollar”, from the album “Days in Europa”, produced by Bill Nelson. The Cover of the album, showing an “aryan”, was seen by some as Nazi, and was soon replaced with a less controversial sleeve. This sleeve, although conventional, still bore the image of the first release seen through the viewers eyes by a picture on the wall, alongside a picture of ‘Scared to Dance’, the sleeve portrayed a woman , bare breast showing, in the hands of a man.