The golden sands of Crete and a dreamy lifestyle as a sun-tanned and over-paid teacher, or unglamorous Glasgow tip-toeing warily through the unknown with a bunch of equally anonymous musicians. Now which would you choose?

Derek MacKillop pondered awhile over that decision some two years ago on returning to his native Scotland after a 12-month session bumming carefree around Europe and the Middle East, during which time he was offered the cushy schoolmaster number.

Sauntering off the plane, no doubt glowing unhealthily healthy, he busied his mind with the sundry tasks that lay ahead; seeing a few old faces and tying up some loose ends before flitting back to the Aegean and the waiting blackboard.

A rather serious young man named Lloyd Cole had other ideas for MacKillop, however, and so — eventually — did he. The pair, who'd struck up a friendship at University, met up again to renew their acquaintance that night MacKillop touched down, as he remembers well.

"He'd had a tape played on Radio Clyde and everybody was saying that he needed management," he explains, "but Lloyd said he was waiting for me to come back. We went out and he asked me, there and then. I didn't accept."

But all it took to change his mind was a brief earful of Cole's commotion. "It was only when we sat down in a room and Lloyd played me half a dozen songs that I realised he was completely different from just about everything else — and very special.

"I decided to take up his offer and just throw myself into it. It kind of destroyed everything else I was doing at the time — everything. My social life went to pieces. Managing Lloyd and the band became the only thing I was interested in at all."

But whereas, from the outset, MacKillop was clearly possessed with enthusiasm, belief and commitment, he blatantly lacked experience, contacts and finance. A course in public relations and journalism followed by a bash at a degree in English and politics hardly primed him for his new career. Living 450 miles away from London — very much the core of the record business — didn't score him many points either.

Undeterred, he decided that his initial efforts should be concentrated towards find!ng some cash. "Money was the obvious thing," he concludes, "because we had none. I'd realised straight away that the group was going to be particularly fussy about things like guitars and guitar sounds, so it was important to have some money to get stuff of that kind right and to cut down on other things that could go wrong."

To that end, MacKillop shrewdly negotiated a publishing deal with CBS Songs six months after he took charge of the band's affairs mid-way through '83. With funds filtering through as a result, MacKillop resisted all temptations to try for a record deal and saw that the band used its time tightening up, playing gigs and making demo tapes.

He seems particularly pleased with the strategy. "More and more record company interest was being generated by what we were doing," he reflects, "so, when it came to the crunch and our last demo — with Perfect Skin and Forest Fire — was done, there was just no doubt that we were going to get signed. As far as I was concerned, it was just to who."

Amid the rabble of cheque book waving record company types, Polydor was weeded out. "Polydor, at that point, was not the greatest record company in the world — and probably isn't now — but it was absolutely right for us," MacKillop offers.

Signing with Polydor brought an end to the trial and error tribulations which MacKillop had grown accustomed to. "It was really amusing in the beginning — because I didn't know anything," he admits, "so I just used to come down to London and knock on doors and run past secretaries.

"I'd travel down on the overnight train or bus, never get any sleep, and then arrive at 7 o'clock in the morning. I'd have breakfast somewhere, hang around until 11 o'clock, and then go and try to see someone at a record company."

These days, MacKillop still commutes — and insists his base will remain in Glasgow — but now he can afford to fly. "I still manage to go standbys as much as I can," he confesses, "because I'm very money conscious as I'm a Scot."

Tight budgeting isn't the only characteristic MacKillop has inherited from his homeland; he's typically canny, too. "I seemed to have an idea how to go about things right from the beginning," he says. "It's really strange, it's probably down to Glasgow being the kind of city where everybody seems to know. All the kids have worked out and picked upon how to get deals.

"I suppose you use people, you milk people. Because what I did in the first six to nine months — apart from totally selling the group — was that I did a lot of listening. I would get into situations where people were opening their mouths a lot — and take it all in.

"If you're reasonably bright, and I think that's the key — if you're bright, then you don't find things too difficult when you next encounter a similar situation. It's just a question of learning to play the game. The band only has to do that to a certain extent, but you have to learn very quickly. You must absorb as much information as you can about all aspects of the industry.

"I'm sure that every single manager in the business would have to admit to having done that at certain times — though a lot probably wouldn't care to. The fact is, you have to learn somehow."

The learning process has undoubtedly, out of necessity, been speeded up by the success of Lloyd Lole and The Commotions — and by MacKillop's confident, critical and aware stance. "I suppose I can get uptight, and I want things to happen now, but what actually determines your style of management is probably the style of the group," he says.

"What I have with this group is an undeniable quality of songs. My style was moulded by that; it was, 'whatever you say, whatever criticisms you name — we are still good.' So I was pretty pushy.

"You get more laid-back, but you only do that because you realise that your own persona is more accepted. So you don't need to say certain things any more. At times you have to say a lot less and it's more effective, at others you just have to steam in and get angry — because record companies have hundreds of groups and you have to try and prioritise your own group. You have to fight for that."

MacKillop insists on no slackers in his domain and he's still motivated and fired up enough not to 'trust' anyone else with his business. "I don't like to delegate," he explains. "Nobody else can talk. I could never send somebody into a situation. I always have to go myself. It's basically because I feel I can best represent the interests of the band."

His attitude towards the band is equally clear-cut. "I'm tolerated on every level by the band and I find it very difficult to believe sometimes the way that they will listen to me when I talk about mixes or set order or live work. I think they're incredibly tolerant of how pushy I am with them.

"I seem to be the only person that can manage this group. Maybe that's not the case and maybe I'll be the last to find out if it isn't — but I'm not paranoid about it, and paranoia is something which really exists with managers. I'm not remotely paranoid because if they don't want me to be their manager any more then, who cares? I'll just not do it. I was very much a 'member of the group' manager in the early days, but that's now changed. I'm now the manager who tries to see both sides.

"Why have things changed? Well, I think the band has made mistakes," he says immediately and bluntly. "I think they're wrong quite a lot of the time — I think they're wrong for all the right reasons — but I just think they're wrong. So I tell them. When I think they should do something, I tell them.

"I've met a lot of managers that are maybe, to a certain extent — especially when your artist is special — a little bit scared of their artist. I'm not, and it's because we are like really good friends — and if I can't tell them, then nobody can.

"I'm very critical of the band. It's conceited. I firmly believe that I know why they are brilliant, why they are good, why they can be good and why they can be better. And they listen to me — although sometimes maybe they don't."

At the age of 24, MacKillop is hardly an old campaigner. "I'm conscious of my youth and it works both for me and against me," he comments. "Sometimes I'm introduced to people in the business who take one look at me... you sit down in a meeting and the first thing that's said to you is 'You're terribly young.' It's like an opening shot. You just go, 'Yeah, you're terribly old' or make some other smart-arsed remark.

"But you just have to get over that kind of thing, you have to firmly believe that age is of no relevance if you know what you're doing. And I'm not that hung up about respect, although it's nice to have it. Respect is something which comes through your ability to get things done and people realise that if they phone you up and ask you for something — then it gets done. That's all that matters, really."

Having recently taken on another band — a 'mutant disco' outfit called Flesh which he's signed to London Records — MacKillop's jaunts down to London will increase. "I seem to be moving between record companies, my agent, my lawyer, my accountant and my publisher. So I come down for a week, and it's a week of meetings."

Meanwhile, he doesn't particularly bother his bands with the bafflement of business. "I am protective of the Commotions," he admits, "but, because they're so intelligent, I expose them to as much of the business as possible. I don't expose them to things which will instantly turn them off, but I have tried desperately to educate them to the problems which I encounter.

"That way, when we have a group meeting, they are aware enough to realise that if I'm saying something — then I have considered all the options. I hate the style of management which just closets the group away, and I think that record companies generally don't like it either. It's very healthy for our record company to have physical and mental contact with Lloyd and the group. They can go in there and hang around.

"There's nothing worse than a group becoming successful and then never being seen in their record company — but it's always the case."

For somebody who initially turned down this interview, MacKillop has plenty to say for himself. "I was very reluctant to do this," he says, "because I like the band to do the talking; they are what the whole business is about.

"Interviews are very intangible things, sometimes you feel you want to say something... but it would probably take you coming on the road with us, hanging out and just being around when I'm opening my mouth or in a bad mood or expressing why I think things are going right for you to properly understand what's going on. That way you'd see first-hand what, as a manager, I have to do.

"The interview situation is a bit of a game — and I'm always knocking the band for what they say. And I'm sure the band will all read this and laugh, which is great. They'll give me a hard time about it — but I'll look forward to it."

Go easy on him, lads.