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Scars (band)

post-punk band from Edinburgh

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 23, 2025
Entity authorityQ7430523 ↗
Source-derived summary

Scars (originally known as The Scars) were a Scottish post-punk band from Edinburgh, Scotland, and were a part of that city's music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

History

Fronted by Robert King and featuring Paul Research on lead guitar, John Mackie on bass, and Calumn Mackay on drums, the band's first single was in 1979 on Fast Product; "Horrorshow"/"Adult/ery". The band's song "Your Attention Please" appeared as a free gold flexi-disc in the first issue of the London-based style magazine i-D. This song was later included in the band's 1981 (and sole) album Author! Author!. The Scotsman ranked the album number 75 in the list of the top 100 Scottish rock and pop albums of all time. John Peel invited the band to record two of his Sessions, once in February 1980 and another in May 1981.

The group was part of a literary art-punk scene that centred on a pub called the "Tap o' Lauriston" at 80 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh (near Edinburgh College of Art), along with The Fire Engines and The Cubs.

In 1982, Scars supported The Church.

Post break-up

Lemon Jelly used samples of "Horrorshow" in their song "'79 aka The Shouty Track" on the album '64–'95 in 2005. The song was the second single released from that album.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Scars (band)” as post-punk band from Edinburgh. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Scars, band and post-punk.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 1981, 1980, 1982—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Scars, band and post-punk providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Scars (band)”, the useful work is to connect “post-punk band from Edinburgh” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7430523. The Library of Congress control number is no98052229. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1981, 1980 and 1982.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Scars (band)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.