\n Stepping out of her Glasgow flat that afternoon, Jane recognised Shelley and said hello. He told her he was in town to play with The Raincoats, and Jane remembers going \u201cBERSERK!\u201d She asked for tickets to the gig, and Steve did her one better \u2014 he got her in touch with Gina and Ana, who then invited Lung Leg to open for them that night. Lung Leg had zero time to practice but would never turn down such an offer.\n<\/p>\n
\n The band\u2019s guitarist Annie Spandex had learned violin in her first all-girl band We Are the Men because she\u2019d been inspired by The Raincoats, and she was naturally ecstatic to share a stage with her idols. At the end of that Cathouse gig, The Raincoats welcomed Lung Leg up on stage to sing \u201cFairytale in the Supermarket\u201d with them. \u201cIt was the best thing that could ever happen,\u201d Annie exclaims. \u201cNot only had The Raincoats reformed, but we were actually on stage singing with them!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Members of The Pastels were also in the audience that night. Katrina Mitchell handwrote a letter to The Raincoats the following week, inviting them to participate in an upcoming Pastels-curated art exhibition at Glasgow Art School titled \u201cFlightpaths to Each Other.\u201d Katrina admiringly asked the band about placing some of their album art alongside artists such as Lung Leg, Orange Juice, Daniel Johnston, Stereolab, Galaxie 500, and many more. In her note to The Raincoats, Katrina added, \u201cIt was really great to see the Raincoats in Glasgow \u2014 it was my favourite show of the year so far, + it\u2019ll take a bit of beating!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Author Audrey Golden (Image: A Golden)\n<\/p>\n
\n Stephen Pastel and Annabel Wright (\u201cAggi\u201d in The Pastels) also found a sense of artistic inventiveness from The Raincoats. \u201cThis notion that everything you\u2019re doing as a musician is in the service of a total art performance \u2014 that\u2019s the central inspiration The Pastels drew from The Raincoats,\u201d Stephen explains. \u201cWe tried to have a totality approach: The art would be the music, us as people, and even the clothes we wore. We wanted everything to be connected.\u201d Annabel adds that they also taught The Pastels to blur the line between \u201cmusic performance and art-with-a-capital-A.\u201d For Annabel, The Raincoats\u2019 songs take on the form of \u201cbrush strokes,\u201d and \u201cnot just any band could do that,\u201d she says.\n<\/p>\n
\n Lung Leg would go on to open for The Raincoats at venues across the UK in the \u201990s, and even when they were headlining their own gigs, they were known for always doing an encore cover of The Raincoats’ hit “Fairytale in the Supermarket.” Their connection to the resurrected Raincoats also tethered Lung Leg to other Riot Grrrl bands who\u2019d likewise been inspired by those experimental and expressive sounds, including Bikini Kill. And it was that connection, Jane and Annie muse, that brought their Glasgow band to the attention of American indie label darlings Kill Rock Stars and K Records.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Raincoats\u2019 reach also extended well into the outskirts of Glasgow. They influenced indie rock band bis, formed in East Renfrewshire in the mid-90s, who would also share a bill with them during that decade. Much to the surprise of drummer and keyboardist Amanda MacKinnon (aka \u201cManda Rin\u201d), the feminist punk trailblazers from London opened for bis, rather than vice versa, at a handful of Scotland dates in 1996. \u201cThey supported us\u2026gulp!\u201d Manda remarks.\n<\/p>\n
\n The book is out now (Image: White Rabbit) When Lung Leg reformed in 2021 for a sold-out Glasgow show, they drew Raincoats fans (like Jon Slade of fellow UK Riot Grrrl band Huggy Bear) who were tickled to be treated, once again, to their cover of “Fairytale.\u201d In many ways, it was a shared affinity for The Raincoats that would bring all of these artists back together in 2025 for an inspired collaboration.\n<\/p>\n
\n This October, Lung Leg will release their first new music in decades, a collaboration with \u201cthe Huggy Bear boys,\u201d Jane and Annie explain, and Annabel Wright. Jon Slade and Chris Rowley of Huggy Bear formed a new band for the sheer purpose of supporting Lung Leg on an innovative split 7-inch single, and Annabel\u2019s colourful and kinetic brush strokes are the visual center of the sleeve. The sleeve design is based on live sketches of Lung Leg, composed by Annabel\u2019s hand, during the recording of the music. The riotous Glasgow indie music scene is alive and well, and its ties to The Raincoats endure.\n<\/p>\n
\n This September, upon release of the first comprehensive biography of the experimental punk pioneers, Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (White Rabbit, 31 July 2025), The Raincoats will appear together again in Glasgow. Just as they\u2019ve catalysed artists in Glasgow over the years, it\u2019s also a place where they too find inspiration and influence. Indeed, they\u2019ve mused, if they lived anywhere other than London, it would be Glasgow. And that comes as no surprise to the artists who call Glasgow home. \u201cIt\u2019s a really special place,\u201d says Annie Spandex, smiling knowingly.\n<\/p>\n
\n Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats is out now published by White Rabbit\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNow this is such a great Glasgow story,\u201d Jane Mckeown of Riot Grrrl band Lung Leg told me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-350863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115042355990413073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}