Stephen McRobbie has been running around like a madman. "We've had a couple of people off sick in the shop, but we've got through it. We lived to tell the tale. It was actually the best day's taking of the month – we were enjoying that," he tells me.
He has been working in Monorail music, of course, the record shop he founded in 2003 in a railway arch in King's Court, which has become a central hub of Glasgow's independent music scene.
Working alongside him on one of the manic days is Eilidh, one half of SAY-Award winners Sacred Paws, who will also be playing the Maryhill Community Centre stage this weekend alongside Stephen's band The Pastels, as part of the Great Western Festival.
"We've been talking about sharing equipment and I think we're both very much looking forward to the weekend. When we knew we were going to curate the Maryhill Community Centre Hall space, Sacred Paws were the first band we asked. We really wanted them to play with us."
This weekend's festival is bringing together local and global acts to play in various venues around the city's west end, in a celebration of the eclectic, diverse and growing music community in Glasgow. It really is doing what Monorail, and The Pastels, have done all along.
Described once as '"one of the most misrepresented cult groups of their era", The Pastels are synonymous with the Glasgow music scene in all its shapes and forms. Formed in 1981, they didn't move to London to make their name, allowing the recording industry to come to them instead. And it worked: the band may have gone through multiple members and reincarnations, but so too have they gone through multiple releases and decades.
"I think that things have changed since the 1980s," says Stephen. "We felt we were the first group that stayed in the city, and didn't move to London. It was very ambitious. Groups that we were friends with moved down because they felt they had to, because everything was there. The scene never really got started.
"Gradually things have changed, and other people stayed in the city too. Teenage Fanclub staying was significant, so was Mogwai staying.
"The need to move to London started to disappear. It's such an expensive city –for young people putting bands together it's not that appealing. Nowadays I think the opposite is happening, people moving from London to Glasgow because it's more affordable, a bit of a creative environment. I don't know why", he laughs, "maybe it's the weather."
One such band is the aforementioned Sacred Paws, who made Glasgow their base at the end of last year.
"I think Glasgow is one of the greatest music cities in the world" says Stephen. "That was one of the reasons we opened the shop – it's really important for a music city to have a good record shop, to be a hub. The scene feels stable now, and it's important to have that connected and interwoven music in a city, I think.
"Everyone who works there plays, and we're always looking for the next big thing. It's a passion".
Stephen, who has been playing (or rather, pioneering) such a scene for the last 30 years, must have seen many things come and go. What was it that stopped The Pastels being just another forgotten indie band?
"We don't think long term" says Stephen. "If we stopped, I would still feel that we've done quite a lot. I like being creative, finding different ways of reflecting things.
"We aren't the same group that we were when we started and the music doesn't sound the same, but it reflects who is in the group.
"The music we made more recently was influenced by a break we took, where we found a new way of working that was good for us, in a way that made us want to carry on.
"I never think we'll be around for another ten years, but you surprise yourself. You want to feel proud of what you've achieved, and not undo it by becoming worse than you were. The challenge is always to make it seem better than before."
The Pastels' longevity suggests that Stephen and the band's other members are doing exactly that.
See Facebook or Twitter for Great Western Festival
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here