Time for us to wash those dirty coffee cups, throw away the empty beer cans and fight our way through the mountain of empty pizza boxes: the site is up and the blog is running.

We should caption the graphic on this page for you (you’ve probably noticed it - the guy who designed this site doesn’t do subtle). These are the members of the group who recently finished mixing and mastering Pop Manifesto in Ardent Studios in Memphis.

You’ll have spotted our glorious leader, Stephen Burns, at the back. In the front row from right to left are Lead Guitar, Paul Napier; Simon Cottrell, Bass and Mark Rodgers, Drums.

You’ll hear from Stephen soon, I expect, once we give him the good news!

Avoiding the Glaswegian winter, Stephen wintered in Kan-tuck-ee, or in reality, Arizona, where it struck him to start writing material which really stretched the limits of the 4 piece Scruffs. Burns was convinced that The Scruffs were up to it and his relationship with composer/arranger Peter Shand had blossomed to the point that Burns knew The Scruffs could count on delicate and intricate orchestration.

Recording began again in April 2005, but disaster set in as Zac Ware was hired onto The Proclaimers, famed group from Edinburgh, and Zac began recording a record in London. As his replacement, Zac sent young (but wise) Paul Napier who performed on guitars, mandolin, piano and harmonica. The untested new Scruffs set about recording in April 2005. The first songs of these sessions were “Your Eyes Shine”, “She’s Got It For You”, “There’s A Girl I Know, “Situation Critical” and several others. Luckily, at that time, Giles Lamb was also able to make most sessions for keyboards. As usual, all tracks were recorded live with at least 3 or 4 Scruffs with Burns on either guitar or piano.

Burns wanted to make this a really interesting record based on the songs, performances and orchestration. At times there would be “two Scruffs”, one a pop group which at times would step aside for an alter-ego orchestrated band. Burns composed the remaining songs in both America and in Glasgow.

During 2005, Burns lived on and off in Glasgow and sessions were held in May, June, and October; finishing in Feb, 2006. During these times, Peter Shand scored six songs and the orchestrations were also recorded. All recording was done at CaVa Studios in Glasgow. On May 27, 2006, The Scruffs and engineer Geoff Allan arrived at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee to mix the album which now had the title “Pop Manifesto”.

Released in 1977, “Wanna’ Meet The Scruffs?” is one of these classic power pop albums, firmly part of a heritage embracing the Raspberries, the Shoes, Dwight Twilley and, of course, Big Star. The Scruffs recorded at Ardent, the same studio Chilton’s band had used and both shared a similar love of British ‘60s music, notably the Beatles and the Kinks.

Bursting with melody and gritty determination, “Wanna’ Meet The Scruffs?” was sadly doomed to cult status thanks to limited distribution and a print run of a mere 2500.

Two unissued sets, “Teenage Gurls” and “Midtown”, would follow before the band broke up. (Their three albums have now been (re)issued alongside “Angst”, a collection of early recordings.)

By the time Stephen and Alex were in Glasgow towards the end of the ‘90s, Chilton’s stature had been enhanced by a clutch of local musicians drawing inspiration from Big Star’s well. Members of Teenage Fanclub and V-Twin, amongst others, were equally aware of Burns’ heritage and, reinvigorated, he ressurected the Scruffs’ name.

“Love, the Scruffs”, released in 2001, featured Stepehen in
collaboration with Wil O’Brien (guitar), Bobby Kildea (V-Twin,
Belle and Sebastian - bass) and Francis Macdonald (drums -
Teenage Fanclub, Radio Sweethearts and more). The empathy across the water was clearly heard.

“Swingin’ Singles” continues this marvellous collaboration.
Kildea and Macdonald remain alongside an expanded cast of
Simon Cottrell (bass), Zachary Ware (guitar), Gary Thom (drums) and guest appearances from various Glasgow alumni. The album captures all the strengths of Burns’ muse. Fans of ‘My Mind’ will warm immediately to ‘Yesterday Girl Gone’ and ‘Lovin’ And Lyin’ Game’, while the poignancy of the twinned songs ‘Stars’ and ‘Will I Love You’ is deeply moving, buoyed by a delicate string arrangement worthy of the Left Banke or their successors, Stories.

Lyrically, Burns still explores a darker psyche, as evidenced by titles such as ‘Death To My Love’ and ‘Hit Me When You Want To (Go)’, the latter an aching, deeply personal, ballad.
For the rest, just listen. It’s been a long road from “Wanna
Meet The Scruffs?” but “Swingin’ Singles” proves the journey is worthwhile.

Brian Hogg
May 2003

Burns was considering an all new Scruffs lineup and new album. Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia were considered as possible recording sites. From Los Angeles, Burns drafted Wil O’brien from The Andersons as an additional guitarist. At Chilton’s bequest Burns visited Glasgow and became acquainted with some of the musicians there in groups such as Belle & Sebastian, Teenage Fan Club and V-Twin. CaVa Studios, owned by Brian Young, seemed a natural home for Burns and he retreated to New Orleans to write the material for “Love, The Scruffs” (which amounted to some 40 songs which were edited down to a dozen).

In late October, 1999, Wil O’brien visited New Orleans and rehearsed some songs with Burns. In November Burns left for Glasgow where Francis MacDonald of Shoeshine Records, Teenage Fan Club and solo fame was to play drums on the new recording. Tapped for bass was Davie Scott who, at last minute could not play (he later played piano on “Hit Me When You Want To Go” from the “Swingin’ Singles” album) and Burns had a problem.

Friend Jason MacPhail of V-Twin provided the solution and hooked Stephen up with Bobby Kildea (V-Twin, Belle & Sebastian) and, with one day rehearsal in Glasgow, the group cut the bulk of the songs in about 5 days in the studio at CaVa. (Two songs feature Stephen on solo acoustic guitar and were added a few weeks later). While Wil O’brien was able to be in Glasgow long enough to provide stellar guitar work on 6 or 7 tracks, the remaining lead guitar was done by Stephen, Bob Kildea, Norman Blake (Teenage Fan Club) and Stevie Jackson (Belle & Sebastian). String arrangements for three songs were written in Memphis, but performed in Glasgow at CaVa studios.

Recorded by engineer Geoff Allan, “Love, The Scruffs” was taken to Ardent studios in Memphis, Tennessee in February 2000 for mixing by John Hampton and Geoff Allan with Stephen. The album was first released in Japan on Nippon Crown in late 2000 or early 2001.

Several songs capture the early Scruff feel, notably, “It’s Your Heart” and “You Can’t See Your Way For Clear”. A favorite song of the crowds today is “A Girl Can Make You Cry” which had Stevie Jackson on tremolo guitar. Designed as a postcard of various “love” songs, it ends with the notorious “I Hate Love”.

Jangly guitars, driving drums and bass and The Scruffs were back in business on “Love, The Scruffs”. The recordings and mixing were semi-magical moments and Burns embarked upon two tours of Japan in 2001 and 2002. But, in moving forward to the next album, “Swingin’ Singles”, Burns was forced to put together new versions of The Scruffs due to new commitments facing both MacDonald and Kildea. The early magic of the reformed Scruffs was lost and it took Burns almost a year to form a consistent Scruff lineup while continuing to record songs for what would become “Swingin’ Singles”.

“Love, The Scruffs” is a special recording in the vein of “Wanna Meet The Scruffs?” Burns found himself living in Glasgow by the April 2001. “Love, The Scruffs” was released, followed by a Japanese tour in the fall of 2001. In early 2002 Burns set about writing material for the next project only to find that he no longer had a band. Dark days in Glasgow ensued while Stephen continued to record songs and reform The Scruffs.

Returning to the US, Burns worked in the everyday accounting business. In August 1995 Burns suffered an unusual heart ailment leading to a major heart attack, normally the type that simply kills. It took Burns six months to recover and during that time he turned his attention to recording songs again.

In late 1996 he entered the old TMI studios (formerly owned by Steve Cropper of Otis Redding/Stax fame) and put down about ten or twelve songs by himself. After that, a three piece group of was put together and Burns added noted keyboardist/producer Jim Dickinson (Rolling Stones/Dylan/Big Star/Mud Boy and The Neutrons) on two songs.

The album was originally to be called “Signs and Symbols”. Burns was looking to shed the banner of The Scruffs (now realized as impossible—Stephen Burns is The Scruffs) and wanted to work under the name “Messenger 45” (at this point the name is not worth explaining.)

Later, one song in particular, “Back From The Grave” (written after Burns’ near death experience in that San Francisco hospital) struck Alex Chilton as one of the better tunes on the CD. Burns kept that in mind and, as the debut of the Scruffs new online home [here] became a reality, Burns moved to re-release that collection of material from 1997 under the band name of The Scruffs and redesign the cover and re-sequence the album.
Still included on the new “Back From The Grave” are the stunning “Wild Skies” featuring Jim Dickinson on piano and also “Back From The Grave”. “You Gotta Let Him Go”, “Cloudy Moon” and “Abiqui” are great songs which are indicative of the future Scruff recordings that Burns would begin after moving to New Orleans and subsequently living in Glasgow, Scotland beginning with “Love, The Scruffs” in 2000.

A multi-year long sabbatical of self-indulgent depraved weekends were the background against which the songs on the recording which began the album “MidTown”. Abject bitterness was the emotional backdrop of the majority of the material.

Most of the songs on MidTown contain no set Scruff lineup, with the exception of “When Donna Romances”, “Secret Affair” and “My Little Russian Girl” which feature the Scruff line up that is on the second album, “TeenAge Gurls”. “When Donna Romances” was recorded in Philadelphia and was a pick hit in Record World in early 1982. “Secret Affair” was recorded live in NYC at the old Vanguard Studios where Bob Dylan and Joan Baez recorded. And “My Little Russian Girls” was recorded in Nyack, New York (no multi-tracks survived and this track was mastered from the only existing cassette copy.) “Judy (She Put The Devil In Me”) was also recorded in NY shortly before Burns departed.

The other musicians on MidTown were Memphis bohemians floating in and out of the MidTown/Scruffs/Big Star musical scene. Ross (Tav Falco Panther Burns), Randy (Randy Band), Lisa (Tav Falco), Jim Spake (sax with everyone), Gary, Zeph Paulsen (original Scruff drummer) made of the primary group on the recorded tracks. During this period, Stephen Burns returned to the concept of the early Angst by playing all the guitars and keyboards and doing most of the vocal overdubs himself.

“Things Are Green” begins the album wherein the song finds the writer realizing that the women in his life care more about money than him (her). Another self-fulfilling prophetic song that would set a pattern for years to come. “Machiavellian Eyes” with the clever lines “she’s asexual, she’s amoral, but she’s so ambitious”, yes ‘tis in fact better to be feared than loved per Machiavelli. “Obsession” reaks of a quiet reflective bitterness and “Swimming Pool (Theme from MidTown)” poetically described the issue of the “moneyed gentry of East Memphis (“Lisa’s got a painting of a swimming pool”) set against the bohemian skint (Scottish for “no money”) style of midtown Memphis. All of these songs were recorded at either Ardent of Doug Easley studios.

“Emotional Gravity”, possibly the only bitterless song on the CD, is a love song with astronomical imagery, a favorite Burns subject. It features a solo Stephen on guitar and vocals with Gary on a synth keyboard and recorded at Gary’s house on a small 4 track. “Cycles” was also recorded at this home studio featuring the original Scruff drummer, Zeph and Jim Spake and Gary.

“Metaphors” was recorded in studio C at Ardent as was “Revolution Eyes”, a tribute to certain Memphis musicians who thought that “psychedelic miniskirts” and creating a controversy would get them on the radio (probably not as far fetched as trying to write pure creative musical pieces). Some of the tracks were recorded on Burns’ 30th birthday at Ardent studios and all of the tracks were kept until the CD was put together over 10 years later in 1998. When it was released, the Village Voice (Check out the mention here) considered it an “honorable mention for album of the year”.

And the bitterness just kept on coming.

It’s also the place where the Scruffs, a band that turned angst into pretty poison, was born. Like Big Star, the Scruffs could only have come from Memphis, a place where music was a common expression filtered through various forms; blues and rockabilly and power-pop were blood relatives, just different types. It was all about the balance between soul-searching and the concerns of the flesh, between creating moving music and music that moved your body. Big Star wasn’t just the link between those two concerns, they rang a new bell that jingled with guarded English tautness and tingled with US naughtiness. The Scruffs took it even further. As American as apple pie and as Brit- influenced as Apple Records, they fit that bill like George Washington and King George. Thanks to Dave Branyan’s attention-deficit-disordered guitars and Stephen Burns’ curdled-cream vocals, “Wanna Meet the Scruffs?” was one of the first albums in the world to take the jittery desperation of punk and give it the post-Beatles juice of the Raspberries. But where that band was a troop of harmonizing romantics who just wanted to get laid, the Scruffs laid their body of work in the middle of the road to ruin. Where Eric Carmen, on “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),” wanted to hear his voice on the radio, Burns wanted to stop hearing voices in his head. Forget David Byrne — Stephen Burns may have been New Wave’s first neurotic. “My Mind” cleverly disguised the hard reality of borderline psychosis in a melody softer than a psychiatrist’s couch. In the self-reflective “I’m a Failure,” Burns does the Velvets one better by being his own mirror — and he doesn’t like what he sees.

This collection shows the Scruffs winding down from being rowdy ahead-of- their-timers who took power-pop all the way from Memphis to the New York limit — and back again. Some songs are basically solo Burns recordings, with right- by-his-side players. Due to the fact that at the various times he recorded these tracks Burns was using music as an expression, not a commodity, the master tapes have been lost, like a lover in a Scruffs song. Still, the melodies and Burns’ tilted frame of mind come through loud and clear, giving a vivid picture, in no small part thanks to Mark Yosida’s resuscitative mastering. There are examples of the old Scruffs catchiness, like “When Donna Romances” (previously a single). The song’s female subject has a power that clearly overwhelms the singer, who is not only in the palm of her hand but is crushed by his crush. In “Machiavellian Eyes,” the object of the singer’s affection has a feminine wile that sees right through him, allowing her to penetrate Burns in a way he could never do her. Even while making a splash with his girl near the “Swimming Pool,” Burns feels the suffocating anxiety in the cool luxury. Diving into the usual depression, he knows that privilege is not a life jacket that can keep him from drowning in sorrow.

On this collection, you’ll hear the ravishing unraveling of of Burns’ tightly spooled emotion, a breakdown that plummets depths unchartered by the Titanic and Alex Chilton . Breaking the ice is easy with tunes this good — just take your pick. It’s a song “Cycle” that will draw you into Burns’ world, his Memphis, home of nervous wrecks and smashing successes, where falling apart and falling in love come together — right now. Wanna meet Stephen Burns? You’ll find him in *Midtown*.

Jordan Oakes
The Riverfront Times.

Well, about a month or so later, I received a note from The Main Scruff himself, Stephen Burns, asking if I would be interested in penning some liner notes for the second, heretofore unreleased, Scruffs LP, Teenage Gurls. Never one to resist a non-paying job (ha, ha), I agreed, and Stephen sent me out a CD-R of the fifteen tracks that comprise the little digital piece of pop you’re holding as I speak.

Before receiving the CD, trepidation set in: “What if I don’t like the music all that much? What if it doesn’t match up to Wanna Meet the Scruffs? What if it’s not the amazing, should-have-been follow-up that I’ve heard it is?” (Geez, there goes that Borack, talking to himself again!)

Well, let me tell you, any such fears were quickly alleviated when the Teenage Gurls disc made its way to my CD changer. To put it mildly, I was floored! This CD is the natural follow-up to the Scruffs’ debut; from start to finish, it’s full of the same passion-fueled, heart-twisting power pop, albeit with a little more polish. As Stephen Burns says today, “We simply wanted to define our style of anglo power-pop a bit more clearly and we wanted the musicianship to go up a notch as well. But the passion, rage and fury needed to remain, perhaps with a little bit more clarity.”

Listen to this disc, and try to deny that the Scruffs succeeded in achieving Burns’ mission; tracks like the Buddy Holly-influenced “Danger”, “Edge of Disaster” and especially “Treachery” all have large doses of the passion, rage and fury that Burns speaks of. Matter of fact, in the frantic “Treachery,” Burns emotes like a power-popper at the end of his romantic rope, spitting out the lyrics as if he’s exorcising demons. And in “Edge of Disaster,” the rather desperate lyrics (”Everybody’s got to go sometime/and I think tonight must be my time” and “If I had a second chance/I’d do it all again except for romance”) belie the boppy melody.

There are plenty of other first-rate popsongs on the CD as well, but first, let’s answer the most obvious question: “Why in the name of Eric Carmen wasn’t this CD released 20 years ago?” Well?

After the Scruffs debut began garnering scads of favorable critical notices in late ‘77, the guys began catching the ears of some major record labels, such as Warner Brothers. In mid-’78, the Scruffs began recording some new Stephen Burns and David Branyan material (”I wrote songs constantly,” says Stephen) in the hopes of presenting it to the Brothers Warner and getting a record deal.

After completing the sessions (several of the tunes are present and accounted for on this here comp), the Scruffs headed to New York, where they plied their pop trade in clubs such as CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. Stephen Burns picks up the story: “Warner Brothers did not sign the group based on the six tracks we presented them [all of which are included here], but we continued to play in New York until the late fall of 1978, when, due to “love” problems, bassist Rick Branyan decided to return to Memphis. [Drummer] Zeph Paulson, [lead guitarist] David Branyan and I recruited a New York City bassist (Steve Wood) to replace Rick.”

“In February or March of 1979,” Burns continues, “David Branyan suffered an incident on stage at Max’s Kansas City and simply could not go on anymore. He, then, chose to return to Memphis.” A local NYC guitarist, Steve O’Rourke, was tabbed to replace David Branyan.

By this time, Burns says he was being influenced by the “Nick Lowe and the Knack elements” on the radio, and began writing a new batch of tunes in that sort of vein to attract more label attention. In late ‘79, the new Scruffs lineup returned to the fabled Ardent Studios in Memphis to record a dozen or so more tracks, most of which appear on Teenage Gurls. More NY touring followed—including stints opening for Chuck Berry, Johnny Thunders and Peter Noone (!)—but still no record deal.

Finally, in late 1981, Burns and the rest of the Scruffs decided to pack it in, still not having ever released any of the twenty-odd tunes that they had recorded after the first LP (the exception being a one-off single of “Teenage Gurls” b/w David Branyan’s Chuck Berry-flavored raver “Shakin” that was released in the U.S. and Germany).

So, that, in a nutshell, is the poop on how and why some of the best power-pop recordings of the late ’70s/early ’80s never were released. But thankfully, two decades on, these magical Scruffs recordings have been compiled on CD by Stephen Burns, so pop fans can hear what they missed out on the first time around.

From the straight-between-the-eyes power-pop pleasures of the winning title track and the blatant Cheap trick-isms of the snappy “How We Gonna Do It?” (Think “Southern Girls” with a little kick in the pants towards the end) to the pounding drums and clever wordplay of the near-perfect “Boys/Girls Get Their Own Way” and the “Raspberries-Meet-The Ramones-in-Memphis” pop of “Alice, Please Don’t Go” (written by Burns about a girlfriend of Zeph Paulson’s), this is prime, juicy, Grade A stuff through and through.

Burns’ pleading voice puts the icing on the Scruffs’ cake, whose other layers are deliciously filled by Zeph Paulson’s big beat (he particularly shines on “How We Gonna Do It?” and “Boys/Girls”) and David Branyan and Steve O’Rourke’s economical guitar sounds. The incredible thing is, not one of these tunes sounds dated in the least; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to hear, for example, “Go Faster” or “Nick of Tyme” (Bonnie Raitt stole that one from ya, Steve!) on the radio in 1998.

In short, Teenage Gurls is vital pop music. It was vital 20 years ago, and I’ve got a funny feeling that it—and the Scruffs—will remain vital 20 years from now. ‘Cause you see, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

John M. Borack
March 21, 1998

Among the first songs I came up with was “My Mind” by The Scruffs. For me this song was the epitome of the power pop idiom and ethos, with its beautifully lilting jangle, singer / songwriter Stephen Burns yearning yet forceful vocals, and guitarist Dave Branyan’s classic licks. When I offered “My Mind” as a potential selection to Mr. Stewart, his eyes lit up and he yelled “yeah!” (I guess he approved!). The track is tenth on the first volume of this series, called D.I.Y.: Come Out And Play-American Power Pop 1, coming right after a song from one of The Scruffs’ best mates, Tommy Hoehn.

Wanna Meet The Scruffs, the album which contains the aforementioned “My Mind” as well as 12 other power pop gems, had long been on many pop fans wish list to be reissued on CD, including those of luminaries Jordan Oakes, who publishes Yellow Pills, the fanzine that has served as a prototype for the genre, John M. Borack, well respected writer for Goldmine magazine, among others, and Bruce Brodeen, pop music’s greatest champion and owner of the prodigious pop music label and mail order emporium, Not Lame Records (in fact, Brodeen had expressed interest in reissuing the CD himself, until he found out that Stephen Burns had already set the wheels in motion). Our wishes have now come true with the CD release of Wanna Meet The Scruffs, one of a series of several reissues of Scruffs material, most of which has been previously unreleased.

It’s certainly no surprise that Wanna Meet The Scruffs has become a legendary pop album. Part of it lies with the band’s association with Memphis cohorts Alex Chilton and Chris Bell of Big Star, with whom Burns had done some recording. In fact, Wanna Meet The Scruffs was recorded at the same place as Big Star’s classic albums #1 Record and Radio City, Ardent Studios (in 40 hours yet-can you imagine even the most prudently recorded album being finished in that amount of time today!?). Another reason is the music itself, which is taut, angst ridden power pop, owing debts of gratitude to the Beatles, The Raspberries, and Big Star, but coming from an original angle as well, with arrangements that slightly bend tradition, but in a very engaging sort of way. The songs on Wanna Meet The Scruffs run the coarse of male teen angst, from invulnerability to depression to fantasy, and over again, and this emotional roller coaster is eloquently conveyed through Burns rich, tortured vocals, Branyan’s guitar which adeptly moves from muscular to sensitive as the situation requires, and the propulsive drumming of Zeph Paulson. Those who own the LP can never forget the opening screamer “Break The Ice”, “My Mind”, “Frozen Girls”, on which Branyan runs the fretboard like he’s being chased by a swarm of bees, the closing line “she’s as cold as they come” helping to convey that emotion, the utterly catchy “This Thursday”, the frighteningly portentous “I’m A Failure” (”I’m only 23 and it’s the end of me” can certainly be a roughly approximated epitaph of several pop musicians), the intense closing cut “Bedtime Stories”, and the fragile “She Say Yeah”, whose longing background vocals by Rick and Dave Branyan will bring tears to your eyes. This track further piques our interest because of the lyrics, which ever so subtly come from the female point of view, not unlike The Raspberries “Go All The Way”.

We’re part of a fortunate time now; there has been a proliferation of the internet and a burgeoning contemporary pop music scene all around the world, and with that there’s been a commensurate interest in the music that has influenced all of this. With so many of today’s artist’s doing the DIY thing, we’ve wanted to pay our respects to those who came before. We’ve recently been blessed with a richness of CD reissues of classic pop albums, from the quintessential power pop album The Toms to the twofer of The Searchers Sire Records LPs, as well as the enhanced CD issues of the first two Dwight Twilley albums and the debut release by The Rubinoos. The CD that you’re holding in your hand (to borrow a cliche), Wanna Meet The Scruffs, is a more than welcome addition to the family, and kudos should be given to Stephen, Dave, Zeph, and Rick for this fine, fine album, and to Stephen for taking the reigns and bringing this and other Scruffs reissues to life!

David Bash
Discoveries Magazine

During the process, Burns was already getting the usual inquiries of “what other Scruff material existed?” (besides the unreleased album “Teenage Gurls”—which people knew about, but had only heard the title tracks). Burns addressed this problem during that time by transferring the best mixes of original “ante-Wanna Meet” songs from the existing analog 2 track tapes to digital and mastering those takes.

During the process, Angst became “the origin of The Scruffs” as Burns realized that this was the period in which he was learning audio engineering, auditioning musicians for what would become The Scruffs, and recording solo songs. Burns engineered and produced all the material while playing guitars, keyboards and singing the vocals. During the course of Angst, both Zeph Paulson and David Branyan (original Scruffs) are added and listeners can hear early performances. An early version of “Tragedy” (re-recorded during Wanna Meet) is on the CD along with an acoustic version by Burns of “Revenge”.

The English music paper “Bucketful of Brains” concluded Burns “a genius 20 years ahead of his time”. While Burns doubts this was quite the case, he certainly had enough angst in him to move onto recording the pop cult classic, “Wanna Meet The Scruffs?”