August 2 Loud music ban for tartan shops

on Tuesday 2 August 2011
In the summer of 2009 you couldn't open a paper in Glasgow without reading of the argument between Bernard 'Banjo' Bolland and Tommy West. Blowup Banjo and WST1, the two greatest Scottish musicologists, the poster boys of  B Boy science in the early eighties. They argued in public, on twitter, on the television, radio, web chats and phone in's. It'd started when West was named as a supporter of the campaign to ban loud music in shops that sell tartan and Banjo, when asked for a comment called the campaign retrogressive and parochial.

They traded insults and arguments for weeks, each larger and more ridiculous than the previous,West claimed tartan was organic and took on the form of the environment it was subjected to, so loud music would shorten and weaken the fibres, Banjo countered by saying if anything rock music would strengthen the fabric and if West really thought loud music was dangerous then maybe he shouldn't have spent the summer in NYC in 1979.

Eventually, as with all things, the public grew tired of the story, another came along and the campaign dissolved. Banjo released a series of mix cds to critical acclaim and West earned a healthy kick back from the the Scottish Tartan Commision.

The two men still drink together, their lino burnt foreheads replaced by liver spotted hands and the boogaloo of life keeps spinning.

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