Josh Wink’s whistle-stop tour of Scottish culture… [July 1994]
With his blonde dreadlocks and lilting Philadelphia accent, Josh Wink was always likely to stick out like a sore thumb on the streets of Glasgow, and that’s just what happened when the acid producer ended up working with Limbo Records in 1994, on the classic Thoughts Of A Tranced Love.
As Wink told Generator magazine back in the summer of that year, his work with Limbo, borne out of legendary record store 23rd Precinct, came about somewhat by accident – after a chance encounter at a music conference, and the issuing of a demo that Wink didn’t believe would end up amounting to anything.
“I liked some of the tracks on their label, and felt that I had something suitable for them,” he explained. “I sent it off, and two weeks later got a call from them saying they wanted to release it. It’s never happened like that before.”
And as the Don’t Laugh maestro revealed, the subsequent trip to the banks of the Clyde was a crash course in pub, club and football culture, Scotland-style.
“The nights I went out [in Scotland], I saw a little bit of everything. I was introduced to the ‘handbag’ and ‘high heeled’ thing, and I got to drink a few beers with the Kilmarnock football crew.
“They taught me the rude, incomprehensible (to me, at least) chants that they use against other teams. I also got schooled in Glaswegian phrases like ‘bloody Baltic’ and how to use the word ‘much’ before every word. I heard the phrase ‘much drunkenness’ quite a lot’.”
Within the coming year, Wink was riding high in the charts, not on the back of Thoughts Of A Tranced Love, but with the acid-soaked Higher States of Consciousness.
Given how much the Phily native enjoyed his trip to Glasgow, perhaps Higher States of Deep Fried Mars Bar would have been more apt… 🙂
Article from Generator magazine, summer 1994. Interview by Tim Barr, picture by Brian Sweeney.
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