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Yes, Ireland has given the world some of the biggest as well as some of the worst in music over the decades and the headline only scrapes the surface.
Here are some of the bands that didn’t sell
four million copies of their ninth album.
Stiff Little Fingers
Originally a Deep Purple covers band, they
saw the light when punk arrived, changing their name to that of a Vibrators
track. The Fingers now sounded as raw and uncompromising as their Belfast
environment with a singer Jake Burns who sounded like his throat was on fire.
The first two singles and the debut album
are as good as anything you’ll hear from the era. ‘Suspect Device’ and its
killer flip, ‘Wasted Life’, was followed by ‘Alternative Ulster’ and an album
Inflammable Material, which was certainly the case.
However, their rock roots couldn’t entirely
leave them: the riff at the start of ‘Suspect Device’ is a direct lift from
American rockers Montrose's ‘Space Station #5’ (true, I’ve listened to both)
and others have suggested they borrowed from the likes of The Wailers and
(other) Irish compatriots.
That matters little, as there’s original
sounds popping out all over Inflammable Material and subsequent releases.
Sadly, one of their best moments, ‘Safe As
Houses’, from the 1981 album Go For It! has largely been forgotten about.
The Divine Comedy
Neil Hannon's witty songs, with their blend
of upbeat poppy tunes and romantic melancholia, have established their own
place in Britpop history, peaking in the late 90s when every student in the
country seemed to know the words to ‘National Express’.
I’ll remind you of some: “On the National
Express there's a jolly hostess/ Selling crisps and tea/ She'll provide you
with drinks and theatrical winks/ For a sky-high fee/ Mini-skirts were in style
when she danced down the aisle/ Back in '63 (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)/ But it's
hard to get by when your arse is the size/ Of a small country.”
Collaborators have come and gone but
Hannon’s talent for clever wordplay and grand orchestral arrangements has
continued, and he’s just released Office Politics, which is worth buying (on
vinyl, naturally) for the cover alone.
My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine have become one of the
most namedropped bands in the world. No one sounds remotely like them.
They formed in Dublin in 1984 around Kevin
Shields and Colm ó Cíosóig, and after burning off their twee indie pretences,
were Creation Records’ stars when they headlined above the House of Love and
caused ripples with Isn’t Anything (1988), the Glider EP (1990), and Loveless
(1991).
Brian Eno claimed the track ‘Soon’
"set a new precedent for pop" and deemed it the vaguest piece of
music ever to get into the charts. Can’t argue with that.
A House
The Dubliners went down the traditional
route of indie/alternative acts and after a series of singles, EPs, and two
albums, signed to Setanta and teamed up with Edwyn Collins. This work produced
perhaps their most memorable moment, the single ‘Endless Art’, where the lyrics
were almost entirely a list of deceased, talented artists, among them Turner,
Warhol, Henry Moore, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Ian Curtis, Sid Vicious and
Mickey Mouse.
The list was entirely composed of men,
causing the predictable kerfuffle, which resulted in ‘More Endless Art’ where
all the talent were women (Emily Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, Woolf, Shelley
etc).
The Undertones
‘Teenage Kicks’ isn’t even their best song.
That honour could belong to ‘Jimmy Jimmy’, ‘You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You
Use It)’, ‘Wednesday Week’, ‘Here Comes the Summer’, or their biggest selling
single, ‘My Perfect Cousin’, which celebrated both Subbuteo and the Human
League.
Hailing from Derry, the Undertones were
Mars Bar-chomping spotty working class teenagers when they kicked off and while
they matured over their six years together, culminating in Top of the Pops
appearances and several great albums, they always had a daft wee laddie
attitude to them.
I must also mention That Petrol Emotion
which included the O’Neill brothers but suffice to say that this was the
natural progression to more adult subjects (ie, the situation at the time in
Ireland), and a meatier sound.
Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey had a
No.1 solo hit then retired to be a suit, becoming chief executive of the
British Music Rights.
The Sultans of Ping FC
To get a picture of the Sultans (the name
mocked a Dire Straits single) here’s a sample of lyrics from ‘Where’s Me
Jumper?’ …
“I met a groovy guy, he was arty-farty/ He
said, ‘I know a little Latin: anicus anicae’/ Said, ‘I don't know what it
means’, he said, ‘Neither do I’/ Eat natural foods, bathe twice daily/ Fill
your nostrils up with gravy/ Don't drink tea and don't drink coffee/ Cover your
chin in Yorkshire toffee”.
A Cork version of Half Man Half Biscuit
with better tunes and songs called ‘Riot at the Sheepdog Trials’, ‘Eamonn Andrews (This Is Your Life)’, ‘Kick Me with Your Leather Boots’, ‘Back in a Tracksuit’, and the
album, Casual Sex in the Cineplex. They dropped the “FC”, then dropped “Of
Pings” to become just the Sultans (yawn).
The Stars of Heaven
Stars of Heaven played melodic,
guitar-based rock which combined elements of country, Britpop and psych. An
unusual mix that was influenced by the Byrds, Gram Parsons and the Velvet
Underground, but one that worked well, with John Peel frequently playing their
songs on his show. They signed to Rough Trade and someone at MTV Europe clearly
liked them too.
I obtained their second album Speak Slowly
(1988) in a bargain bin knowing nothing of the band at the time, but it proved
to be an essential purchase. They were a band not of its time: the 1980s wasn’t
a time to be playing stripped-down, guitar-based rock music so their audience
was, sadly, limited.
The Pogues
If you’ve ever listened to the radio over
Christmas you’ll be familiar with the following lyrics: “You scumbag, you
maggot/ You cheap lousy faggot/ Happy Christmas, your arse/ I pray God it’s our
last.”
Suitably, Shane MacGowan’s caustic lyrics
were sung by Kirsty MacColl as a woman down on her luck and at the end of her
tether.
Putting ‘Fairytale of New York’ aside, The
Pogues were one of the illuminating lights of the 1980s, alongside The Smiths,
New Order, and Half Man Half Biscuit.
They were part Irish, part Londoners,
formed in 1982 as Pogue Mahone (aka “Kiss my arse”) but if you really need me
to tell you anything about the band you haven’t been paying attention.
Rudi / The Outcasts
Grouped together because they were both
punk bands, performed in the same era, and were on the same label, Terry
Hooley’s Good Vibrations.
Rudi predated the Fingers by a good couple
of years, but were initially a glam rock act. The arrival of the first Ramones
album soon sorted them out.
In April 1978 the quartet released its
finest moment, ‘Big Time’, which received promising reviews and quickly sold
out.
Things were looking good until the police
division the SPG moved in to clear the punks out of Clapham in London where
they were now based, arresting both Ronnie Matthews and Graham “Grimmy”
Marshall, on driving offences, jailing them for a week before they were ordered
to return to Northern Ireland - or face a six-month jail sentence.
They released three more singles before
splitting.
The Outcasts’ birth came about around the
same time as SLF with three brothers, Greg, Martin, and Colin Cowan, and Colin
Getgood.
Debut single ‘You're A Disease’ was
followed later in 1978 by the poppier ‘Another Teenage Rebel’.
On a shared EP with fellow local acts,
Rudi, Spider, and The Idiots, they contributed ‘The Cops Are Comin'’ about
killing a girlfriend and having sex with the corpse. Yep.
They did release an album, Self Conscious
Over You on Good Vibrations in 1979 which was more mainstream than the singles.
Fatima Mansions
An art rock group formed in 1988 by Cork
singer/keyboardist Cathal Coughlan, taking their name from the infamous flats
in Dublin.
The band’s lone foray into the world’s
attention was their version (needless to say, a somewhat different take) of Bryan
Adams' ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, which was one half of a double
A-side with the Manic Street Preachers' version of ‘Suicide is Painless’.
They opened a European leg of U2's Zoo TV
Tour in 1992, and almost started a riot when Coughlan insulted the Pope. In
Milan. Released a brilliant single ‘Blues For Ceausescu’ about the dead
Romanian dictator.
Honourable mentions: The Frank and Walters,
Into Paradise, the Boomtown Rats, Microdisney, The Pale, Schtum, the Virgin
Prunes, The Chieftains, Sweeney’s Men, Andy White, the Saw Doctors, The
Cranberries and Christy Moore.
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