ON DAYS like today in St Andrews, the town is overwhelmed by the gown. The students aren't actually wearing their gowns but graduation day nears, so the Kate Middleton clones who didn't manage to bag a prince are excitedly planning parties and getting ready for the rest of their lives. Everyone is sensibly dressed by Jack Wills and they seem so polite, poised and, well, grown-up. Nevertheless, these people do constitute a youth tribe.
Compare this scene with the boyhood of Steve Mason – genuine Scottish pop original – which was also played out on these streets 20-odd years ago. "I was a B-Boy," he explains. "My dad worked in a linoleum factory so we always had a nice piece of lino
to get down on." How many first-generation breakdancers were there in St Andrews? Not many, and adherence to the cult required patience and theft.
"Early hip-hop didn't involve rap at all – it was electro. These records were incredibly hard to get, but a friend's big sister worked in London and she'd send up tapes. Then we'd nick batteries for our beatbox from the supermarket round the corner and off we went."
Tentatively, I ask for the names of Mason's early heroes. "Egyptian Lover, Davy DMX – there was a million of these guys." It's a safe bet I won't have heard of the other 999,998 either and now I feel as out of touch as Jack Wills. Mason – dressed in black in defiance of the sun and drinking coke – tries to make me feel better about my ignorance. "I was a tiny wee boy, you know? It amazes me that I was into such exotic stuff." Then he laughs. St Andrews must have been exotic back then – Mason was also a Northern Soul-obsessed scootering mod here – but all these habits required funding. "Once we collected money for Ethiopia and spent it on cider. That got us into a lot of trouble."
Steve Mason laughs? Yes, the man who sang and played guitar in the Beta Band does this now. He also records solo albums and sticks around. Previously, under the guise of King Biscuit Time, he went AWOL with this website sign-off: "I've had enough, over and out – Steve xxxx." These days calling himself Black Affair, he says: "I'm kind of normal now."
The first Black Affair album is Mason's second attempt at a career beyond the Beta Band, who entranced with their folky take on hip-hop and then exploded, with their leader dogged by manic depression. Called Pleasure Pressure Point, it's a dark and sexy record partly inspired by those B-Boy years, and he's confident this one isn't jinxed.
"I threw myself into King Biscuit Time but, looking back, I wasn't in any fit state," he admits.
"The Beta Band had ended and I'd split up with my girlfriend after eight years, so the two most important things in my life were over. There was a delayed reaction."
During his "most mental week", he got blind drunk in Pittenweem and found himself down at the harbour, trying to jump in. "I was in a very bad way – I was almost sectioned twice – and ended up having to undergo some really difficult hypnosis sessions.
"I'd tried therapy before but it hadn't really worked. I can't really tell you how the hypnosis works because when I'm in the zone I don't know what the hell's going on and it's bloody magic. Because I'm a little bit known, people confide in me about their experiences of depression. I always say to them they shouldn't think they're beyond hope – they've just got to find what does it for them. I seem to have become the spokesman for all the loonballs in Scotland."
This is the fourth time I've interviewed Mason but the first where I'm confident he's not going to hit me. A "very dramatic tax problem" has recently emerged for the ex-Betas but even this cannot quite dampen his new-found zest for life, for music and for Black Affair.
"I've just turned down the support slot for Yazoo," he reveals. "Vince Clarke is a legend but he's also a miserable sod and we can't have two of them on the same tour, even though I'm now an ex-miserable sod.
"Most days I jump straight out of bed. But the odd times I feel down I just watch an old episode of The Professionals. Bodie, Doyle and Gordon Jackson – they always cheer me up." v
Pleasure Pressure Point (V2) is out on July 14. Black Affair play The Green Room, Edinburgh, July 12; The Arches, Glasgow, August 9. www.myspace.com/blackaffair
The full article contains 788 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
