~Black Skull Corp. of Fife and Drums~ Established October 10th, 1980Glasgow

A brief history of the Black Skull Corp of Fife and Drums Glasgow from its formation and up to the present day.........

The band was formed in the southside of Glasgow in October 1980, going by the name of "The Crown Defenders"by the present bandmaster and some of our current band members. When the band was formed, there were only two members who could play instruments, the bandmaster and band corporal (some swear nothing much has changed since then!), The rest of the new founding members were young local boys and girls with no musical experience of any kind, who had never held a flute or drum never mind played one. With no money or instruments, the task to get these kids instruments and teach them how to play them was underway. With a lot of hard work, dedication and some full- on fundraising, it wasn't long before everyone had an instrument, but actually playing them was to be a different matter. All the learner members on flutes were taught using the simple ABC method. The Drummers were taught the basic rudiments, but had to learn to play tunes by ear as there was no simple music notation of any form for them to use. After about 4 or 5 months things started to progress, the band was playing simple selections basically but to an adequate level. In May of 1981 the band had taken its first engagement with Finlay Drive District Glasgow ( sadly no longer there ). The bands' highlight of their first year was the engagement they took in SandyRow,Belfast for the 12th July celebrations.

Name change

After the season's engagements had finished the band started to raise funds again for new uniforms for the next year's engagements. In September of 1981, the band had changed its name to Black Skull, a name that some people joked and laughed about at the time , but now some would say we have never looked back since, and the rest is history as they say.

The most asked question about the band is where does the name come from?

Back in July of '81, the band had painted an emblem on its bass drum as most bands did at the time, it just happened to be a skull painted black wearing a bandsman's hat and a cigarette hanging from its mouth ( now that's another story ).

At the 1981 Glasgow main demonstration a band called the Orange & Blue from Ulster came over to take part in the parade. Our bandmaster got talking to some of the members from the band and asked whereabouts in Ulster they came from. When he was told they came from a village called blackscull (spelt with a C and not a K as we do) he thought they were pulling his leg as our bass drum had just been painted with the new emblem on it ( a black skull wearing a balmoral ). After a bit of research about the village and some deliberation the band adopted the name of BLACK SKULL. And that's how the name came about.

The Blue Suits

In 1983 the band by now was firmly known by its new name and had raised money once again to purchase new uniforms, flutes & drums. We hoped to create a new era in the band scene at that time, but not for just changing to new pucker suits. The aim was to foster a new "head to toe" look, coupled with a level of decorum and discipline to equiponderate this new look.

Nowadays most bands take it for granted when purchasing a new uniform, but back in '83, bands of our standing didn't have uniforms like the bands of today, so when Black Skull appeared with this modern new look and audacious apprise,it set them apart from other bands at the time. The new uniforms, personalised drums and a different style of music seemed to enrage and enrapture our peers in the other bands in equal measure, but it wasn't long before other bands joined the metamorphosis and followed suit. (If you pardon the pun!) There was also a big up surge in people wanting to join bands during this period and a lot of bands benefitted from this at the time, as we did ourselves.

Music Tutition

By 1990 the band was trying its hand at playing some counter melody music, mostly in our military march compositions, with an occasional jig and reel thrown in, as you can hear from our early recordings. The musical resource was very basic but enjoyable at the time.The band tried in vain time after time to move ourselves forward musically but where we hailed from there was no philanthropists or any one handing out violins or bursaries and no one within the musical community was willing to help the band out, most of all from the amateur bands. Faced with this mirthfulness, the bandmaster did what he always had to do to extricate the band from these present difficulites, namely learn what we needed by himself and then teach and cascade this knowledge to the rest of the band. One propulsive turning point for the band was the day Big Davie ( a lad from Londonderry joined the band. By now our bandmaster had a very basic knowledge of music, but Davie had a good education musically and played with bands who consumed music extrovertly. Big Davie offered to graciously help the bandmaster quell his musical hunger and better furnish his understanding of music. With this achieved and cascaded to the other band members the compulsion for change was commensurable .

The move to Corp of drums music

I n 1994 our band master, a great admirer of The Guards corps of drums, decided to metamorphose Black Skull down another avenue to become a Corps of Fife and Drums. We had already been playing some part music for a few years now and it seemed a natural evolutionary step to take if we wanted to play a better range of music. There was no chance of us going down the amateur band road(not that we could have at the time), but this was the next best thing. It took a couple of years to become competent with the new instruments and music but confidence was building as was a new found genuine enthusiasm to play all the new music we had taken on.