The golden, noisy era of Irish post-punk

Back in the downbeat 1980s, a generation of musicians inspired by three-chord punk and electronica created something out of nothing. As the best appear on a new collection, veterans recall the scene

COLIN BATEMAN

One-time manager of Bangor band Dogmatic Element, now a best-selling author. His latest novel, Nine Inches, is out in paperback; his next book, The Prisoner of Brenda, is published in the autumn. colinbateman.com

Dogmatic Element track on Strange Passion: Just Friends

“You have to remember I was a frustrated musician, and by that I mean that I had no musical ability at all. Usually, when people say something like that they’re being modest, but I had no ability. I couldn’t even master one of the three chords required by punk. In desperation, I bought a synth but could only ever make it sound like a car alarm going off. I was desperate to be involved in music, though, and the only way I could was to become a manager. What swiftly became apparent was that I was a better musician than I was a manager. For a start, a manager should not be very shy and very quiet. They should not be allergic to phones. They should not go into a huff when venues turn them down. They should not, when a venue fails to pay an agreed fee because no fans turned up, say, ‘Okay, I quite understand’.

“What was my role as manager of Dogmatic Element? Well, I managed to set up some gigs, I attended rehearsals and offered advice in the rare instances I felt I knew what I was talking about. I also financed their first two singles, mostly by selling off my very rare collection of Marvel Comics, which I deeply regret now (not financing the singles, but selling the comics).

“The truth is, however, that the main force behind the band was its founder, main songwriter and (eventually) lead singer, Brendan Monaghan. He had a quite extraordinary passion for the group and was extremely enthusiastic: in reality he did most of the managing. My greatest use was that I was a journalist on the local paper and could get their photo in week after week. There was no infrastructure, but that just meant you had to get creative.

“Did I like the music? They were a lot chunkier live than they sound on record, and I don’t think I would have been involved if I didn’t like the music. Now? Not so much.”

STEVE AVERILL

Longtime participant and observer of Irish music scene from bands Radiators from Space and Modern Heirs to SM Corporation and the regrouped Radiators from Space who play Dublin's Academy on September 8th. Their most recent album, Sound City Beat, is on Chiswick Records. ampvisual.com

SM Corporation tracks on Strange Passion: Accentuate, Fire From Above

“SM Corporation didn’t really exist as a band that played to the public; we met once a week to play for ourselves and record songs. Unlike a lot of electronic bands around at that time, who had a lot of music on reel-to-reel recorders, we worked totally live. That gave us the spontaneity to speed things up and extend things. It was a bit like Tangerine Dream but with a bit more edge to it. We supported the likes of U2 and The Outcasts, among others, but it was exciting. Then we decided to shorten the songs, work on some cover versions, and write more and more original material. Music from Sheffield proved an influence – bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Prag Vec, Clock DVA, Human League – as did early Simple Minds and the New Romantic scene.

“People didn’t really know what electronic music was back then because it didn’t have any antecedents in Irish music. I know that Roger Doyle had been doing his thing, but it was different. The turning point for me was when McCullough Pigott’s imported some analogue synthesizers from Japan, which meant we could afford them, as could other Dublin bands such as DC Nein. So we thought it might be no harm to move in a more dance-oriented direction.

“The only way to really get a gig was as a support act. We never reached the giddy heights of headlining our own gigs. There was a conscious attempt or effort to bring similar post-punk/electronic bands together, but there was never a pulled-together scene. It was a very disparate thing; there were just bands working away, interested in slightly more fragmented sounds, taking punk to another level. And playing synth was very punk in that I was creating sounds without really knowing what I was doing.

“Listening back to the music, I realised that it was better than we gave it credit for. It had artistic merit, and I was surprised how well it sounds. Considering they were all, more or less, recorded in a shed in my parents’ back garden, they’re reasonably good songs, reasonably good performances. We weren’t ambitious enough to become the greatest thing since sliced bread, you did it because you liked the music. No one in Ireland knew what you were doing or where you were going with it, though.”

JAKI McCARRICK

Former lead singer with Choice, and now poet, playwright and fiction writer. Her short story, The Visit (winner of the 2010 Wasafiri Short Fiction Award), is included in The Best British Short Stories 2012. Her debut collection of short stories, Badlands, will be published in 2013 by Seren Books. jakiscloudnine.blogspot.ie

Choice track on Strange Passion: Always in Danger

“The guys that were in Dundalk band NRG were the two founding members of Choice. Brian Dougie McMahon and Ciaran Vernon wanted to go in a more electronic direction around 1980 and that’s how I came into the picture. I was a baby, obviously. I was 15, still in fifth year at secondary school. I was a very reserved, quiet teenager, into music, but whatever was vague in my mind about music burst into focus when I joined Choice. It was a leap for me, because I wasn’t one of the cool people, or anything like that. I was watching Top of the Pops and loving Siouxsie and the Banshees, Debbie Harry, and all of that. I missed punk but got the tail end.

“It was a time where I was making sense of myself; I’d come to Dundalk from London, so there was a split identity thing going on as well. I remember I saw an ad – I still have it – in the Dundalk Democrat asking for an unorthodox singer. I liked the word unorthodox. Anyway, I applied for the gig and got it. I went to the audition with my sister just to make sure. It was in Dougie’s kitchen, I think, and they were lovely about it. I can’t remember what I sang. We got on as a band, which was more than me being an incredibly singer, which I wasn’t.

“For me, it was an artistic awakening, absolutely formative. People have often said to me that I was so young, but everybody was supportive – my family, in particular – so it was a wonderful adventure.

“What ended it was the time we lived in. It was the 1980s in Ireland and we wanted to get out of the country, but that’s another story. That time was the end of optimism for many people, and that was a pity because Choice won an RTÉ band award on a show called Youngline, which was about finding new bands. We went onto RTÉ a few times after that, and we won a Battle of the Bands contest in Trinity. We very definitely had an aesthetic to work towards, things we wanted to do, and we kind of knew that there was no one else around doing what we were doing.

“We were offered a record deal, which we turned down. Why? I can’t remember, I’ve no idea. We lasted about two years, but that short time looms large in my mind. I’m not sure how we ended. It wasn’t bad, no rows, I just think the time we lived in hijacked the moment. Ultimately? It was a really good experience for me.”

ROGER DOYLE

A member of Aosdana, and one of Ireland's most highly-regarded contemporary composers and electro-acoustic musicians. His latest album, Chalant – Memento Mori, is out on Psychonavigation Records. rogerdoyle.comOperating Theatre tracks on Strange Passion: Austrian, Eighties Rampwalk

“We were a band as well as a theatre group. We were signed to Mother Records but we’d had two singles out on CBS at the start of the 1980s. We were very different to what was out at the time; for instance, we never, ever played a gig as a band.

“From 1983 onwards we did theatre shows, quite experimental stuff, working with writers – we worked on Sebastian Barry’s first play – and then on virtuoso one-woman shows with Operating Theatre’s singer, Olwen Fouéré. The band existed only as a studio entity, and our modus operandi was that we were sick of the kind of theatre where people stood around talking on stage. We wanted music, visuals, to inject a new vision of theatre for Ireland. While that was fermenting, we made these pieces of music.

“I love pop music to bits, always did, even when I was working on abstract instrumental pieces, but I always knew I’d address it.

“I suppose I would have been impressed by the likes of Thomas Dolby and Kate Bush – each of who worked with Fairlight equipment – and Ultravox’s Vienna, which was a huge influence. What made our stuff different, I think, was that I was always interested in odd chords, and I’m very interested in the way that harmony works in pop music. It’s a very unexplored area, and I think Operating Theatre engaged with that.

“We were, I suppose, a quasi-pop band, very much not a part of the rock/pop music world. We had signed to Mother Records, Elena Lopez had replaced Olwen as the singer, we spent a lot of time in the recording studio and had great expectations. They spent a fortune recording songs, such as Queen of no Heart and Spring is Coming with a Strawberry in the Mouth in Windmill Lane, and I thought that, at last, something would happen to push us into the big time. But there was no promotion at all, and the songs sank and disappeared. I got ill from the stress and disappointment of that, because those songs stood up – stand up – to anything.”

Strange Passion is released on Finders Keepers Records