Part 2: The Glory Years - a story of the Railway Club

The Railway Club was a dilapidated two storey drinking establishment located, funnily enough, right behind and to the left of the Railway Station. The downstairs was a spit 'n' sawdust affair for the employees and associates of the rail establishment. The upstairs was was a large, low ceilinged room with an obvious dance floor and - for the later parts of its life - a stage as well. Once upon a time, when I was a younger man, I attended many a pre-pubescent birthday party upstairs in the Railway Club. When we met again toward the end of my teenage life, it was being used as a regular venue for local and "down south" bands, as well as much underground dance music by an independant company of individuals known as faultline. How sadly they are missed.....

In the daylight the Railway Club was empty and unkempt. The walls were draped in clothes and camouflage netting with cheap dirty wood poking out from underneath. The carpets, a dead and grey number, smothered to a non-descript colour from countless a dropped fag end and spilt beer. The one bar in the Railway Club was smaller than the inside of the girls toilets, and this amounted to no end of problems for the hardy drinking population who associated them selves with the place on the weekends. At night time, it was thick and clamy. Ciggie smoke managed to replace most of the oxygen, and music constantly vibrated the residents, be it from the stage or over the PA. The toilets (due to their somewhat sound-proofed walls) were a popular discussion place, a urine-coated coffee house you would meet up with fellow drunks that you hadn't seen since last week and philosophise upon the greatness of the music, the wonder of women and the joys of being alive. In every sense it was a place for the young, a free, uninhibited place where it was okay to have long hair or short hair. It didn't matter what football team you supported or who your favourite band was. It was a place of liberty and expression and was claimed by the young as these places always are.

Being young and into music ourselves we were regular faces in the Railway Club for a long time before we played there. The first time we did play there we were supporting a local Inverness band called The Graduates. We had only been together for around four months and this was to be our fourth ever gig. Needless to say we can't have been very good. Not technically anyhow. I had only been playing the bass since the band sarted and Rory's voice was very derivative, yet to expand to its full potential. But we were good enough for Faultline to ask us back to play again. If I may quote: "aye, yiz are a good wee band ". It seemed as though abundant enthusiasm and a passionate drive solidified us to the Railway Club. It had always been a part of us, now we were a part of it. We became ingrained in the place. This is where we learned our trade. I shalln't bore you with anecdotes and gig related events. The selection of articles we have else where upon this site speak for themselves. For two years we grew and expanded and got smashed within this comfortable bubble, right up until some smart dick got the idea that Inverness no longer needed a venue for up and coming local talent, as well as esablished preformers, and what it really needed was another goddamn shopping mall. So, as all good things do, it came to an end. Lovers of local music trudged back to the Market Bar, the establishment in which local live musicans first appeared in Inverness and where Faultline originally began to flower. And we tailed along, desperate to belong to somewhere again. A residence in the Market was enough to sustain us for a while but after three and a half years together, the cracks were begining to show.