REVOLVER:THROW A few pints of cider down Selena Gomez and no doubt she'd join you in a chorus of Self Conscious Over You. Youngsters may want to look that song up on their YouTube, but all you need to know is that it's probably the best Irish single of all time.

Poke Selena a bit more and you might get a bit of The Moondogs classic Who's Going to Tell Mary?, followed by an animated discussion about the relative merits of Rudi and The Starjets.

I may have the wrong Selena here. I may even have the wrong Gomez. But when it was announced that the lovely Selena Gomez (star of the TV movies Another Cinderella Storyand Princess Protection Programme) was to host this year's European MTV Awards in Belfast on November 6th, I just presumed it was her informed knowledge of the local music scene that got her the gig.

I’ve just checked, though, and it turns out Selena is from Grand Prairie, Texas and is just 19 years of age. So perhaps she wasn’t the Selena Gomez who used to drink in the Harp and the Pound.

You should know the score with the MTV awards by now. They pull up with their big juggernaut — decant the singing and dancing girls, put down a red carpet, rope off most every area available, and throw their global musical party for the watching millions.

Back up a minute here, MTV. This is Belfast you’re alighting on – the most important Irish musical city in terms of not just quantity but quality, and a place whose ridiculously good musical heritage needs to get a look-in on the night itself. And I’m not talking about Snow Patrol doing a turn to promote their new single.

The burst of musical activity that took place in Belfast during the 1970s was a phenomenon. In a city experiencing the biggest displacement of population of any European city since the second World War (due to the political situation), there emerged a punk/ new wave parade of talent that, in its own way, matched what would later happen in Manchester at the end of the 1980s.

Galvanised by an utter rejection of the sectarian insanity around them, Rudi, Protex, The Outcasts, The Starjets Big Self, The Male Caucasians, The Bankrobbers and Ruefrex all posted memorable musical moments and would have been more richly rewarded for their efforts if any record labels had bothered to go on a scouting mission to the then- benighted city.

You know about the one who got away (The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers). But as some indication of how rich the musical scene at the time was, consider the case of Derry's Moondogs. Their debut album was produced by Todd Rundgren (hot off Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell)and Moondogs had gotten a lot further than the Boomtown Rats or U2 ever did by scoring their own British TV series. But the support just wasn't there for them the way it would have been for a London band.

If you consider Belfast’s then- dwindling population, the lack of anything even pretending to be a musical infrastructure, the fact that it was regarded as Afghanistan by the music industry, and the miserable backdrop of murder and mayhem, what the talent in that city achieved is near miraculous.

These days it seems like all you have to do is mutter something about wanting to start up a band and some government-funded quango will throw an instrument into your hands and book rehearsal space for you. Back then, though, you cobbled together everything yourself, and even if you did get any media interest it was only along the style of “but which side are you on?”.

I'm going to bang this over to Mr MTV (yes, there is one and I have his e-mail address) with the request that their big, glitzy award ceremony in Belfast might at least acknowledge this history and heritage. And no, we don't want Teenage Kicksor Alternative Ulsteron the night. The Outcasts have just reformed, so push them out for a blast of S elf Conscious Over Youand we'll all be happy.

MIXED BAG

- In relation to Belfast music, have just been listening to Broken Landby The Adventures. Why was that never a No 1?

- Despite what you may have read, Steve Coogan, Michael Fassbender or Robert Sheehan will not be in the now-filming Terri Hooley biopic. But Dylan Moran has just been added.