Since Yes­ter­day: The Untold Sto­ry of Scotland’s Girl Bands – first-look review

As a young girl grow­ing up in the ​‘90s, Car­la J Eas­t­on aspired to be in an all-girl band, but not know­ing where to look for a girl­band to idolise in her native Scot­land, her idols came to her in ani­mat­ed form instead, through the pro­tag­o­nists of Amer­i­can car­toon Jem and the Holo­grams. The ques­tion that aris­es ear­ly on in her voiceover is a per­ti­nent one: Who do we choose to remember? 

Tak­ing us on a lin­ear voy­age through the Scot­tish music scene and the bands whose lega­cies were doomed to the niche cat­e­go­ry large­ly due to their gen­der, Eas­t­on and Blair Young’s doc­u­men­tary traces the his­to­ries of Scot­tish women pio­neers, ask­ing why they’re not cel­e­brat­ed, let alone remem­bered, while high­light­ing their unique rela­tion­ship to Scot­land as well as the pol­i­tics dic­tat­ing their futures with­in a male-dom­i­nat­ed, Lon­don-cen­tric music industry.

Rather than paint­ing the nos­tal­gic, idyl­lic pic­ture that we’ve grown to expect from music docs of this ilk, Eas­t­on and Young inter­view the women behind the bands, whose tes­ti­monies prove that it’s the industry’s inher­ent misog­y­ny that stood between them and their careers. We hear from the likes of Jeanette McKin­ley (who per­formed with her sis­ter Sheila as The McKin­leys in the ​’60s, open­ing for the likes of the Bea­t­les but nev­er get­ting paid for per­form­ing), Sophis­ti­cat­ed Boom Boom (lat­er known as His Lat­est Flame), The Ettes, Lung Leg, Sun­set Gun, the Hedrons – their inter­views mixed with archival footage from gigs, tele­vi­sion per­for­mances, stu­dio record­ing ses­sions and tours. 

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the icon­ic Glaswe­gian duo Straw­ber­ry Switch­blade form a big part of the doc­u­men­tary, as we dis­cov­er that the dark, intro­spec­tive themes in their song­writ­ing were rel­e­gat­ed to the back­seat, with the media much more infat­u­at­ed with their vibrant pol­ka-dot­ted image and sug­ary pop sound. Their bril­liant hit sin­gle after which the film is named, Since Yes­ter­day, led them to become the only Scot­tish group to break into the UK top ten, peak­ing at #5, while Switchblade’s Rose McDowall explains that although the song is com­mon­ly inter­pret­ed as being about heart­break, the duo actu­al­ly intend­ed it to be about nuclear war, the Cold War era’s exis­ten­tial dread, loss of inno­cence and disillusionment.

Reflect­ing on the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of women in music by record labels them­selves, the doc also high­lights the effects of becom­ing a moth­er on women’s careers in music, how labels don’t real­ly know what to do with a girl band espe­cial­ly when it comes to the risk of them becom­ing preg­nant and ​“mess­ing up” a record deal. 

The broad scope, start­ing from the ​’60s and tak­ing us to the ear­ly noughties while also show­ing the DIY grass­roots move­ments being made in the present, means that there’s quite a lot of his­to­ry to pack into a 90 minute run­time, so unfor­tu­nate­ly we don’t get to spend much time with each group and their indi­vid­ual sound. While this is the ulti­mate price to pay for giv­ing each band equal oppor­tu­ni­ty to shine, the effect of quick­ly jump­ing from one band to the oth­er while a young girl fills her bed­room wall with posters can be a bit jar­ring. The film works well regard­less – it’s ener­getic, live­ly and an impact­ful tes­ta­ment to these women’s bold­ness and perseverance.