For a while now, I had thought that the disappearance of the Degrassi (great band from Edinburgh) website was a temporary glitch. It was a fairly terrible looking website, and perhaps they were changing it. Sadly, that’s not the case: the band have apparently split. To keep things clear in my head, and for the benefit of future generations of the musically inclined, here’s a quick potted history of what happened surrounding that group of musicians.
First, there was Idlewild; another Edinburgh-based indie-rock band who have become progressively more mainstream as the albums have come out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the change seemed fairly natural, but by some accounts it is why Bob Fairfoull, the original bassist, left. The actual departure involved punching someone in the face, but details are somewhat sketchy on that front.
Separately, Degrassi had recently finished their excellent “Terminal Ocean” EP and begun touring the local music scene. I’m not 100% sure what happened, but their bassist at the time left the band and in stepped Bob. The band went onto record “The Form” EP, several pretty decent demos and, earlier this year, released a first single, “Tell Charles I’m On My Way”.
Filling the bass position in Idlewild was former Turn bassist, Gavin Fox, who, along with additional guitarist, Allan Stewart, helped provide a much mellower and folky sound to the traditionally sharp and jagged noise that Roddy and company were putting out.
Jump forward to September this year (as best I can tell) and everything went sour in Degrassi land. A bust-up of unknown reason has caused the band to go their separate ways. Bob and Degrassi singer, Michael Branagh, have formed a new band who have been playing recently (though I missed the show) under the name of Womb. If anyone knows the website (if there is one), do tell. I don’t imagine that name will stick for long since Womb were a band who were around 3-4 years ago, at least, but it’s what we know for now.
To finish, it seems that Gavin Fox has rejoined Turn for their upcoming Irish tour (and possibly new recordings), but will continue with Idlewild at the same time.