The clothes, the music and the violence were part of your daily diet. As a teenager – though it’s shameful to talk about it with any excitement now – it was really exciting. You weren’t persecuting violence against some guy walking down the street, you were fighting other gangs. But most of the time it was about music and hanging out and learning how to dance.” The same line-up performed a concert on 5 March 2010 at the ABC in Glasgow, with support from The Law and Bruce & Jamie Watson, and lastly a concert on 6 March 2010 at the Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline with support from Beatnic Prestige and Bruce & Jamie Watson. This final concert was to conclude a week of events celebrating the works, past and present, of Richard Jobson as part of The Fifer Festival 2010 on 6 March 2010. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music (Firsted.). Guinness Publishing. p.256. ISBN 0-85112-579-4. Maybe it’s because guitarist and co-songwriter Stuart Adamson went on to form the achingly untrendy (but frequently brilliant) Big Country: not only did this put off the hipsters, but it meant that – unlike the vast majority of punk and new wave bands – a reunion was never on the cards. Neither Adamson nor frontman Richard Jobson having any need or desire to trade on their past. Simpson, Bill (2007). "The Skids by Bill Simpson 2007". Stuart-adamson.co.uk . Retrieved 12 May 2015.

Bill Simpson, Bruce Watson, J.J. Johnson (3), Jamie Watson (6), Mike Baillie, Richard Jobson, Russell Webb, Rusty Egan, Stuart Adamson, Tom Kellican So there was a new thing pulling me away from ska and R&B into a world that was more alienated and lost. I think I was inclined toward that anyway. I was always a little bit ill as a kid – I’m epileptic, but we didn’t know that at the time – and so drifted away from people and spent a lot of time on your own, and that sort of music and my love of cinema merged. Ska was something you really shared with other people whereas Lou Reed is something you can do on your own.” Reissued in 1995 as Sweet Suburbia – The Best of the Skids and in 2005 as Into the Valley – The Best of the Skids We’d gone to Amsterdam and it was such a modern place. Britain during the 70s was still kinda like, post-war, even London – you almost felt like you were still on rations. But Amsterdam felt modern. You had all these Bauhaus buildings and everything – and then you’d go to Germany and it had all been rebuilt and was sparkling and exciting. It made a big impression on me that there was this other place out there that was full of excitement and possibility and much more about the future than the past.”Adamson took his own life on 16 December, 2001, aged 43. Today, his one time partner Jobson is sitting in a members club in Soho, looking far too young and healthy for someone who fronted a second-wave-of-punk band (though, to be fair, he was only 17 when Into The Valley hit the charts). saw the original line-up re-form to celebrate their 40th anniversary with a nationwide U.K. tour. With the dates rejuvenating the group's passion, the band entered the studio to record new material. The resulting fifth album, Burning Cities, was issued at the beginning of 2018. He won’t elaborate, but Jobson’s first film 16 Years Of Alcohol chronicles the growth of a skinhead who falls in love with an art school student and discovers The Stooges and the Velvets. His gang then turn on – and knife– him. (“It was pretty much as it happens in 16 Years…,” he admits. “My fellow gang members stabbed me.”)

One of the people who didn’t forget was U2’s The Edge. Approached with the idea of doing a charity single with to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, he came up with the idea of a cover version of The Skids’ third single The Saints Are Coming (the New Orleans Saints is the name of the American football team whose stadium was used as shelter while the good people of the Big Easy waited in vain for their government to help them). Released in 2006, it topped the charts around the world.

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Skids – 'Songs from a Haunted Ballroom' (Cleopatra Records) – RPM Online". Archived from the original on 20 May 2021 . Retrieved 16 June 2021. Since leaving The Skids, Jobson formed the short-lived Armoury Show, has been a poet, a film critic, a movie director and novelist. Ask him why The Skids have been all forgotten, and he takes some of the blame. In 2007, the band reunited for a handful of gigs and played sporadically before reforming for a 40th anniversary tour in 2017. A new album, Burning Cities , was released in 2018, and an acoustic album, Peaceful Times, in 2019. They still tour to this day. I was into ska and R&B,” says Jobson, “then I got introduced to Alice Cooper through my brother: Love It To Death and an album called Killer. There’s an Alice Cooper fan club convention in my new movie, actually… And then there was Leonard Cohen. One day he gave a copy of the New York Dolls album – and that was it for me really – I just saw something there.