Jamie Sutherland is frontman with Edinburgh band Broken Records who have just released their fifth studio album, The Dreamless Sleep Of The 1990s. The band play a series of Scottish dates this month beginning in Edinburgh on October 19 followed by dates in Dundee, Aberdeen and Stirling.
What’s the last book you read, who is it by and what is it about?
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics by Jonathan Wilson. I’ve been struggling to focus on reading over the last few years – a mixture of post-covid attention span deficit, time limited by small children and work and too many other distractions, so I gave myself some easy reads to get back into it. This book is great. I’m a football tactics geek and to go through the history of how and why the sport looks like it does and the characters that have shaped it is fascinating.
What’s the last film you saw in a cinema?
Dune, the Denis Villeneuve version. I don’t get to the cinema much anymore, but my wife and I made a Christmas date out of going to see this one. I love event cinema, and this had to be seen on the big screen. I’m trying to find time to get to Barbie and Oppenheimer!
What music are you currently listening to a lot and what do you like about it?
I’m listening to a lot of Buck Meek’s new record Haunted Mountain which is beautiful and light and easy to make food/clean up to. I heard Gorecki’s Symphony No.3 while watching Terence Malick’s the Tree Of Life and was immediately transported to my early 1990’s childhood where I remember that being played all the time, and I’ve been quietly obsessed pouring over that. Just a beautiful piece of music.
Recommend a film …
The Grand Budapest Hotel. I watched it again recently, my wife is obsessed with Wes Anderson, and a) it’s a brilliant film and b) I’d forgotten how beautifully sad it is. A love letter to a world that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just so good.
What has been your most formative cultural experience, how did it affect you and what did it make you want to do?
I’ve been thinking more and more recently about watching REM play Glastonbury from the crowd in 1999 when I was 17, one of my all-time favourite bands, and how it made me want to play music/be in band/spend my life in that kind of environment. Every moment of it was magical. I’d always dreamed of being a musician and playing in a band, I was obsessed from a young age, and we were reared on Bob Dylan and a host of other great music. But this was the first time I’d seen the lights, the big crowds and the sheer noise of a headline main stage festival show. I’ve always wanted to know what it “felt” like to be up there, the spectacle of it all. Somehow it managed to work its way into my bones. I can remember every minute of it.
What’s your go-to YouTube video?
I watch an indecent amount of 4-4-2 and Tifo/The Athletic football tactics videos. My guilty pleasure!
Blur or Oasis?
Oasis (first two records)
What boxset haven’t you managed to get around to yet but will when you have the time?
I have friends that have gone through all the series of The West Wing, and when it first came out it flew over my head a little. I wouldn’t mind diving into some nostalgia TV compared to the current US situation, so probably this. See also: The Sopranos and giving Breaking Bad another go. It didn’t do it for me the first time I tried.
What was the most memorable recent theatre show you saw, where was it and what was so good about it?
A Spectacle Of Herself at Summerhall in Fringe 2023. A brilliant piece that manages to reduce and further understanding about issues of patriarchy and identity in such a simple way. This is why the arts are so important, when done well they have a way of cutting to the core of big issues in such a relatable way.
Tetris or Call Of Duty?
CoD
Who or what do you always turn off on the TV?
A certain popular TV baking show.
You’re in a station/airport shop ahead of a journey. What magazine do you grab?
Throughout my life I have been a regular buyer of a Q magazine/Uncut/Mojo. I still look for these (those that are left). I love music, I love good music journalism. I like finding out about my heroes, new and old.
Who’s your favourite comedian?
Dylan Moran – I love his world view - and he makes me laugh (which helps).
Irvine Welsh or Robert Louis Stevenson?
Stevenson
Who’s your favourite actor?
Harrison Ford – the face and voice of my childhood. See also: Kevin Costner for his baseball movies (but only really the baseball movies).
What’s your favourite song ?
Too many to mention, but Pancho Villa by Sun Kil Moon from Ghosts Of The Great Highway is brilliant. It sounds in my head like Steinbeck/Hemingway/Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses – all coloured dust orange and sea/sky blue. It sounds like the American/Mexican border in my head and has an entirely transportative effect on me, which the best music should do.
Who’s your favourite band?
REM. I love the breadth of the back catalogue. I love that they can be serious and pop all at the same time. That being serious-minded isn’t the preserve of the seriously miserable. I love the intelligence musically, and lyrically and I love that they represent the America in my mind growing up that is mythic, mysterious and magical.
What’s your favourite film ?
Local Hero. I love how gentle it is. I love the story and the characters, and I love seeing Scotland on film.
Recommend a TV box-set …
The Bear seasons one and two. Just brilliant TV. Just on the right side of over-the-top. Brilliantly acted and it makes me smile.
Who’s your favourite living author?
I wouldn’t say I have a favourite, but I loved a couple of books by Thomas Seethaler – The Tobacconist and A Whole Life – which were recommended to me by my dad. My go-to for authors is generally early- to mid-20th century writers, anything from pre-World War One to the mid 1960s. I find the period fascinating and the clash of old and new world Europe endlessly interesting. Thomas Seethaler captures a lot of this beautifully.
What have you watched recently that you think was completely over-rated?
White Lotus series two. We started watching it off the back of series one and lasted a couple of episodes. I don’t think it’s necessarily overrated, but we definitely needed a break from the awful-ness and we’ll come back to it. As I get a little older, more experienced, maybe you’re forced to be more hopeful having small kids. I really struggle to see the terrible in people (though I try!). Everyone has the capacity to be brilliant and awful, and this felt like being hit over the head by the terrible a little too much, it got tiring.
Recommend an album …
Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens. He has just release a couple of brilliant new songs and it’s made me go back to this album, one that gets better with every listen. A love letter to his family, his childhood and to difficult relationships that everyone can relate to. And the songs are uniformly moving and beautiful. I find I can listen to it as if I’m watching a great movie, and that is a big plus for me. I can visualise every part of it.
Who was the second best James Bond?
Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye)
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