Aztec Camera

Aztec Camera were a Scottish indie pop band around singer-songwriter Roddy Frame ( born January 29, 1964 in East Kilbride, Scotland), composed 1980-1995.

Band History

Aztec Camera were formed in 1980 in Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to the singer and guitarist Roddy Frame belonged to the original occupation of the bassist and drummer Dave Campbell Owens Mulholland; in the frequently changing line-up played in the following years, among other things, the drummer Colin Auld, Patrick Hunt, Stephen Daly ( ex- drummer of Orange Juice ) and David Ruffy (formerly The Ruts ) and guitarist Craig Gannon (formerly The Bluebells ) and Malcolm Ross (formerly Josef K). Roddy Frame was already writing the age of fifteen original songs and played, barely sixteen years old, in the punk band The Forensics.

Glasgow developed after 1980, thanks to bands like Orange Juice and Josef K into a center of post-punk and indie rock. As these two bands also published Aztec Camera their first 7'' single Just Like Gold / We Could Send Letters to the short-lived but hugely influential label Postcard Records and quickly became prominent representatives of the Sound of Young Scotland ( that's the motto of the label ). The seventeen year old frame was soon hailed by the British music press as a child prodigy and his songs are often compared to those of Elvis Costello. An acoustic version of We Could Send Letters appeared on the C81 cassette of the New Musical Express, the first of a series of compilations of NME, which pointed the direction for the indie rock of the 1980s.

In August 1981, appeared Aztec Cameras second single Mattress Of Wire as the last single from Postcard Records at all, then joined the band to the label Rough Trade. In 1983 there the first studio album High Land, Hard Rain. Frame using the traditional rock instruments, occasionally a Hammond organ, and reached back to earlier British rock music. Echoes of the Beatles from Rubber Soul alternated with stylized folk patterns. The plate frame gave good reputation, particularly among musicians. The successor Knife, produced by Mark Knopfler, seemed like all the other four studio albums with WEA Records and was at record buyers, but even more so with the English music press very well received. The album had some success, not least because Van Halen's Jump was released in an acoustic version, even in the United States. The former head of WEA Records was so impressed by Roddy Frame that this advance was given a record contract over 10 albums.

After more moderate record sales, the patience of frame paid off, however. Some singles made it into the UK Top 40 Aztecs Cameras only top - ten hit was the pleasing pop song Somewhere In My Heart, who made it in April 1988 in many European charts. In the U.S., Aztec Camera, however, remained largely unknown.

Since the release of the last album Frestonia 1995, the Scottish Soul unites with beautiful melodies, frame is available as a solo artist on the stage.