EVEN bona fide Scottish superstars like Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub had to pay to get into the last Teardrops gig in Glasgow. The Scream's manager, unused to his name being absent from any show's guest-list, got miffed at being asked to cough up, and went storming off into the night. Like royalty, he was carrying no money.

No such shenanigans from chief Screamie Bobby Gillespie. He happily paid for everyone in his entourage. Afterwards Gillespie said it had been the best gig he'd been to in his life, almost erasing his memory of Primal Scream's own bill-topping appearance the night before at the inaugural T In The Park.

Wow. Evidently some show these Teardrops put on. What kind of band are they?

Teardrops aren't a band. Rather, they're an assembly of young men in their early twenties who promote shows in homage to a brand of music which was almost forgotten before they were born. Their last show, at Glasgow's tiny 13th Note in August, 1994, was also their first, and featured veteran Memphis country-soul songwriter Dan Penn, backed by our own BMX Bandits.

Their second show takes place at the same venue over the forthcoming Easter weekend, and features Alex Chilton, the man Penn discovered as a 16-year-old in the sixties and moulded into the lead singer of the chart-topping Box Tops. Chilton will be backed by another bunch of local luminaries, Teenage Fanclub, a combo who have acknowledged the influence of a subsequent Chilton-led band, Big Star.

In turn, Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream have been the biggest influences on the evolution of Teardrops from being an occasional club night to promoters of living legends. ``We heard a compilation tape of slow, downbeat music that Bobby Gillespie had assembled for Select magazine and decided we wanted a club where you could hear the same type of music . . . vintage Scott Walker tracks and melodramatic sixties southern soul like James Carr's Dark End Of The Street,'' says 22-year-old head-Teardrop Jason MacPhail.

Having read about Penn's crucial role in the evolution of the Stax label in Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, MacPhail and chums tracked him down and signed him up. ``At the age of 55, it was Dan's first trip outside the US. He kept telling us: `You're such young guys to be into this kind of music!' ''

Through Penn, Teardrops contacted Chilton. When he agreed to play two shows at the 13th Note as part of a 10-day busman's holiday in Scotland, Teenage Fanclub readily volunteered to act as his band. Fittingly, the Fanclub's label, Creation, are this month giving a long-overdue official release to Chilton's 26-year-old debut solo album, 1970.

``For the future, we're keen to keep the Memphis-Glasgow connection going, hopefully by bringing Jim Dickinson over,'' says MacPhail. Who's Jim Dickinson? He attained worldwide prominence as a peripatetic player with the Rolling Stones. Additionally, he is a renowned music historian, and appeared on Primal Scream's last album - which was recorded in Memphis, naturally.

More immediately, Teardrops is going to evolve into Delinquency, a club night at Glasgow's Art School. There's no start-up date yet, but Primal Scream are slated to appear as DJs and the club will have a simple theme: ``It's delinquency in music: Jerry Lee Lewis and red-hot techno being mixed up together . . . I can't wait to see the effects on a room full of 19-year-olds.''

Good music: it is, of course, ageless.

n Alex Chilton and Teenage Fanclub appear at Glasgow's 13th Note, Glassford Street, on April 7 and 8.

David Belcher pays homage to the men responsible for reviving forgotten music, comical talent, and organic populism