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This Is Memorial Device


DuncanEwart

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Just finished reading "This Is Memorial Device" by David Keenan. I suppose the book's subtitle pretty much explains its subject matter: An Hallucinated Oral History of the Post-Punk Scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge and Environs 1978-1986. For me, it reads less like a novel and much more like a collection of thematically linked short stories- the main theme being the musicians involved in a number of local bands in 1980s Airdrie, particularly one called Memorial Device. There is no linear narrative here- we learn bits and pieces of the story from a host of different characters who were all involved in the scene at the time. I think the "hallucinated" in the subtitle is the key when reading the book: it is unclear just how reliable some of these narrators and their stories are. Chapters 20: "I Thought They Had Cut The Top Of His Head Off and Were Spooning Out His Brains" and 21: "Every Disappointment Was Like Something Awarded You in Heaven" (an interview with an Airdrie punk called Street Hassle who I wish was the main character) are my two favourite sections (and the funniest, in my opinion).

Kilmarnock gets a mention when Memorial Device play "some pure bikers' bar" there. There is incredulity at there being a "poncey French-themed bar in Kilmarnock, that was a f**king joke,seriously, in Kilmarnock? They're f**king barbarians in Kilmarnock, give me a f**king break, they're f**king cannibals in Kilmarnock..."

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