Punk and the Troubles… August 20, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Irish Politics, Northern Ireland.trackback
Thanks to Garibaldy for this link which makes an interesting point about how punk introduced the Troubles as a political concept to many in the United States. It’s written by Duff McKagan – that Duff McKagan? Apparently so. Good taste that man.
Actually there must be a thesis or two, or at least a magazine article, in the effect of punk – from the North – on perceptions of the conflict south of the border. The Undertones were almost apolitical in that respect, their successor That Petrol Emotion anything but. Stiff Little Fingers were in that respect more intriguing [or intriguing in a different way]… and of course there were many more bands from the North than them… any thoughts.
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Hmm….
SLF were unarguably great for a while, but the ‘troubles’ angle was just a wee bit manufactured at the behest of Gordon Ogilvie and Colin McClelland, and a lot of other Northern bands were suspicious of them, as bands like Rudi and the Outcasts tried, not to avoid talking about the situation, but to show that you could create a viable alternative. The view wasn’t that it’s all too complicated for us to talk about so we’re just going to play pop music, it was much more that the simple act of playing music and creating a culture around it was in itself more political than the sectarian stalemate than prevailed at the time. It may seem shallow from this remove, but remember what Belfast was like after dark in the seventies – simply making a space (the Harp etc.) where people could go at night was a big -and political – thing.
As for the Undertones not being political – again, hmm……
It’s Going to Happen certainly was, but 18 months or so before ‘Teenage Kicks’, a nascent ‘Tones played a couple of times in Dublin: once at the Punk Fest in Belfield at which a guy was stabbed to death. Their set that night was all covers, I think, mostly Nuggets era stuff, plus a version of ‘Gloria’ – except they spelled it ‘G-L-O-I-R-A’.
I think thats true particularly re SLF – they always struck me as triangulating a position to one side of the politics. And fair enough re Undertones.
But in a way doesn’t that underscore McKagans point? That these bands by being from the North in and of themselves brought the spotlight on it whatever their own specific outlook.
Not so sure about that final point, WBS.
It’d be true if bands other than SLF had actually sung about the Troubles, but with the exception of the Petrols, none of them really did – certainly not Rudi, The Outcasts, Big Self or anyone on the Good Vibrations roster. I’ve a load of old Good Vibes singles and nothing springs to mind as being radically different to the lyrical concerns of their contemporaries in London or Dublin – for example, Shock Treatment’s “Belfast Telegraph”, The Radiators’ “Sunday World” and The Jam’s “News of the World” all pretty much ploughed the same furrow.
OK, SLF built a career on the impact of the Troubles, but even that was more as a reference to the environment in which they grew up. I say this as someone who once loved them to bits, but beyond a vague ” plague on both your houses”, they never really addressed the issues directly. For example, you won’t find H-Blocks or the hunger strikes even mentioned, neither positively nor negatively, and those happened when SLF were at their peak. After they left Belfast, they became products of a different environment – and quite frankly, their music went to shit as a result.
It’s probably about 25 years since I last saw them, more since I bought a new release of theirs, but I’d absolutely hate to think they’re still trundling “Suspect Device” around the punk nostalgia cabaret circuit. There’s definitely more longevity in songs about chocolate and girls!
Having said that about SLF, I have to say, I saw them play 4 times* in a week in Dublin in late ’78, a few months before Inflammable Material came out, and for a while after that, me and my mates were sure they were the best band in the world.
* Trinity, Belfield, a lunchtime in Bolton St (or Kevin St?) and McGonagles – SUs were more than just politically vanguardist back then.
It’s funny, a mate of mine whose parents had dragged him south in 69-70 due to the violence was a mad fan of SLF. He and they were very very anti Provo.
Not sure that mans anything though!
One thing about them was their imagery. Absolutely brilliant. Still think the singles are great.
Btw saw the undertones MOS recnt line up some years ago and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.
It’s funny – I was well away from the North at the time, but Inflammable Material was one of the few records I owned, and I never really worked out their position re the Troubles.
I can’t listen to SLF now, but early Undertones singles remain timeless.
Saw them on the Friday night in Morans and they were great. At one stage Jake broke one of his strings but the band played on to great effect as he restringed and retuned. This caused a great buzz. Saw them again on the Sunday night in McGonagles and the same thing happened at exactly the same part of their set! Well rehearsed or what? Dublin musically was still in a state of flux in 1978, I am sure some soft rock band with a flute player who wore a cheese cloth shirt supported SLF in McGonagles. Those McGons Sunday night sessions 78-79 were great – Echo & Bunnymen, XTC and the Lurkers were gigs I still remember. Altogether now ‘Shadow, shadow, shadow, shadow ….’
I am sure some soft rock band with a flute player who wore a cheese cloth shirt supported SLF in McGonagles.
Sacre Bleu. Why am I cursed with remembering these useless things? I remember the string break schtick too….
Sorry, I meant ‘Sacre Bleu’ were the name of the band, not me expressing cod Gallic despair at my memory clogged with crap….
Sacre Blue, I thought they were more bluesy than soft rock? But there was a bunch of those bands who gigged at the Baggot Inn. It still sticks in my memory being there and the band on stage introduced ‘Track of My Tears’ as an old Linda Ronstadt number. I must have been desperate for live music in those days. I even went to see Full Circle.
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I forgot to mention this earlier but the first SLF fan I met was the son of an RUC Special Branch detective. I remember him and his mate were also big fans of early Pogues stuff, despite (?) being pretty hard core Unionists.
Henry McDonald’s memoir of being a Sticky-punk-football-hooligan is very good on these things.
That sounds interesting Michael, I’ll have to look it up.
It’s called Colours: Ireland from Bombs to Boom. He does a Hitchens at the end, but it’s still well worth reading.
He used to mention it quite often in his articles. I remember him saying the Belfast punks used to have regular run-Ins with what became Johnny Adair’s crew
Hmmm. Otoh, the Belfast punk I knew told me that ‘Belfast was too scary in them days, so we used to hang out in Bangor’.
I had always wondered about McKagan’s Irish roots. Now partly answered.
You may also be interested to know he just started a “wealth management” firm for music artists. Apparently when he gave up hard drugs and liquor he went to business school and has since been regularly asked for financial advice by his muso buddies.
I saw SLF at Brockwell Park in London in 78, some guy from the NF I assume got up and tried to attack them. My take was that they were fairly political but avoided taking sides in a sectarian sense. Certainly there are criticisms of paramilitaries, Brits and the RUC in Alternative Ulster, if you can get a lyric sheet. Their 2 best songs IMO were the cover of Johnny Was and Barbed Wire Love, brilliant lyrics, throw my leg over Barbed Wire Love… indeed.
I’d agree with you on the SLF high points, the doo wop bit on Barbed Wire Love is also a wonderful thing.
Dr Nightclub, Dublins Radiators From Space were vastly underated. Under Clerys Clock in the atmosphere of the time in the Clerical Free State was a bold statement, not likely to get anything like that from Hewson and co. Also my mate Donal Murphy supplied the Tv’s for the first album cover.
A friend of mine is the nephew of a Radiator, and tells me that his uncle has a tonne of material on the band and the wider punk scene which could easily be turned into a book, but he (the uncle) doesn’t believe there’d be much of a market for it.
Does anyone remember a group called Ruefrex. They had a song called The Wild Colonial Boy which was an indictment of Noraid for supporting the IRA, including, and I’m very much quoting from memory here so could be very wrong, the lines,”Down here where we’re keeping the niggers down it gives me such a thrill to kill from far away.” My memory is that the argument was a bit like that of people who think the support of someone like Peter King totally discredits republicanism. It’s been said here. Ruefrex also had an excellent single called Paid In Full and one called Flowers For All Occasions, which was along the lines of Wasted Life.
Also regarding politics, didn’t Rudi have a song with the line, ‘SS RUC’ in the chorus. They also had a terrific single called When I Was Dead.
As regards the big two bands there seems to be a kind of line lately from mainstream rock journos that Oglivie’s Daily Express connections means that SLF were some kind of MI5 propaganda operation. I exaggerate slightly but not much.
There’s also a tendency to play up the idea of The Undertones having a political element to their lyrics, something I think the band themselves encouraged when members joined TPE who were far more politically conscious. I’m not even convinced about It’s Gonna Happen, the argument that the chorus is about the hunger strikes and the verse is about something else strikes me as specious. Two great bands in any event. And I wonder if there’s any hope of Shellshock Rock ever making it on to DVD, I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows it as a legend or by the odd clip from it turning up on other programmes.
Lyrics….
Well I’m the Emerald Isle`s own son,
I was born on Stateside, Wisconsin
And your troubles sound like Hollywood,
They sound real good to me
The rush to be Irish now is on,
The queue is standing ten miles long
And would be green men stand in line,
To swap their stories tall
Well I have traced my past right back,
I`ve even checked and double checked
And I`m as sure as ever now
That I`m a leprechaun
And I know that if I get my chance,
That I can jig and reel and dance
Well, in between the killing
That`s what all us Irish do
And now a word from our sponsor;
“eat up all your TV dinner,
open up your wallet wide,
and let your green be seen
A people cannot live that way
Or so the songs and leaflets say
And all this time we`re trying hard,
To keep the niggers down
What with collection time and all,
With charities, functions and balls
It really gives me quite a thrill,
To kill from far away.
Well, I almost got the lyric right.
Ruefrex were bigged up by Henry McDonald and the WP for a while and I think they may have mentioned the WP in a Hot Press interview around the time of this. Of course the above song and lyrics are a completely stereotypical rant about what Irish-Americans and NORAID were supposed to be like. NORAID didn’t have many branches in Wisconsin for a start, and In New York the likes of Jessie Jackson and David Dinkins graced their platforms. None of which would matter if the song was any good.
If you rearrange this a piece of prose you’ve got your very own Newton Emerson column.
It may be a “completely stereotypical rant” but the actual description of Irish American Republicanism isn’t a million miles away from sentiments Bernadette Devlin expressed after her own encounter with that milieu.
Sometimes stereotypes are grounded in a certain reality. Irish Americans by and large didn’t know a great deal about the ins and outs of the Troubles and Irish politics. And the story of the Irish in America and issues of race is more than a little problematic.
SLF as an MI5 operation, interesting. The anti-paramilitary sentiment in the lyrics of Inflammable Material certainly had an effect on me at that tender age, and then leading into the period of the hunger strikes. Unfortunately they went downhill for me after that first album, and any interviews I’ve seen or heard with Jake Burns over the years left me with an impression that the politics was a bit of a vehicle for progressing his rock career, riding a wave. Maybe I’m wrong there, it’s just an incidental impression. Was good to see yer man the drummer standing for the PBPA in the NI assembly elections a couple of months back (http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/leaflet-from-brian-faloon-people-before-profit-belfast-south-2011-assembly-elections/). Maybe my cynicism about them is misplaced. Anyhow at the time I thought they were fantastic. Someone give that MI5 operative an MBE for services to music.
The lyrics are like something which would have won the Hot Press Letter of the Week in 1985. It is indeed a stereotypical rant. Then again at the same time one could read U2 interviews in which they explained to the world at large that there was no political dimension to what was going on in the North and that it was all a turf war between gangsters for control of protection rackets. Which is more or less a direct quote.
Wait, what mainstream rock journalists have been peddling the line that SLF were an MI5 operation? That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
I did say I was exaggerating. And I don’t have the articles to hand, which perhaps means I shouldn’t have cited them.
However, again employing my imperfect memory, I remember more than one Irish broadsheet article more or less dismissing SLF as British dupes on account of the Oglivie connection. And another, rather strangely, pouring cold water on the idea of Shellshock Rock era new wave as crossing sectarian boundaries on the basis that one member of the Outcasts subsequently joined the British Army.
MI5 might be pushing it a bit but the line that there was something dubious about SLF’s political stance has been aired more than once. It is daft and I wouldn’t have a lot of time for it myself.
Interesting stuff Eamonn. I mean, stupid, but interesting.
On a side note, I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that Northern punk bands with members from a Protestant background (like SLF or Ruefrex) would be politicised in an anti-sectarian but very much non-republican way.
And while I’m here Henry Rollins is in Galway tonight. And so am I, is he worth going to see?
Sacre Bleu had a single which was pretty good called Broken Promises. Wasn’t their lead singer called Ak Kenney.
Rollins used to be great crack live, but it’s 15 odd years since I’ve seen him, so caveats all round. He used to have a great U2 riff, which chiefly involved calling Bono ‘Bubble Butt’ repeatedly – not remotely funny written down, I know – you had to be there etc.
I’m leaning towards going but I’mslightly put off by the fact that the gigs clock in around the three hour mark,which is great if it’s good but a bit of a hoor if it’s not.
Incidentally, and this really is incidentally, I saw Evan Parker down in Kilkenny a couple of weeks ago. Nice to see that even in this jaded age there is still a form of music which can cause people to storm out, voicing their displeasure out loud at having this unholy noise inflicted on them. He was great in other words.
Oh man…
I wanted to go to that, and the Jaki Liebezeit/ Philip Jeck thing too, but ended up stuck up here working. There’s a great quote from Evan in a Wire interview from years ago where, talking about politics and music, he says something to the effect that musicians always have a bit of an inferiority complex and think they should be the ones learning from the politicos, whereas actually it ought to be the other way around: musicians can communicate with each other instantly across language and cultural barriers, they can form instant communities, they’re good at cooperative effort, and that the actual practice of making honest music is the most communist thing on earth……. something along those lines anyway.
I wanted to go to the Liebezeit/Jeck thing too but work ruled that one out for me. Parker was magnificent and, though I’m sure this is me being desperately literal and everything, I felt the whole Fire Music element in his music seemed extraordinarily appropriate on the evening that Hackney, where he has a residency, was the epicentre of the London riots.
The first time I saw him must be almost 25 years ago now. I had the odd experience of coming at jazz backwards in a way. I lived down the road from the Plough in Stockwell which was a key venue for all those for all those free jazz/improv lads. So I heard them and, out of that Ayler, Shepp, Coleman, Ascension era Coltrane etc. before I heard any other jazz.
It was funny to watch people leave in a huff though, and not just sidle out but do that whole, ‘who does he think he is,’ number. Though overall the reaction was very good. He played with Barry Guywho did tremendous things with the bass. Olivia O’Leary, in the seat next to me, seemed to dig it.
By the way speaking of The Wire there’sa nice piece in the current issue on the improv scene in Cork which, to my shame, I knew nothing about at all.
That’s why I wish I was a musician rather than a writer because of that ability to transcend language, also the whole notion of being able to sit and do your thing right there at the drop of a hat. Speaking of those connections, I recently saw a documentary by Peter Greenaway about John Cage and who was performing with Cage in New York doing a piece based on Finnegans Wake, but Seamus Tansey, our local postman when I was a boy and also one of the finest traditional flute players of all-time.
I know people like Parker and Guy and the late Derek Bailey resist(ed) being referred to as Jazz musicians at all, but I think the thing I prefer about all those people is the very slight residual jazzy grit in there – I find it harder to get on with younger Brit improv. music which often seems to come from a more conceptual place (huge generalisation – and probably a bit ignorant too).
Caught Keith Rowe and Lol Coxhill at the i&e weekend in the Ireland Institute earlier in the year, and Coxhill especially was great, and – again me being literal – you could see/ hear the ghost of Bechet through all the dissonance. I saw Coxhill in a tent in Glastonbury in ’79, solo in the sunshine and that was my intro to improv – it was (a word I have to very careful with….) transcendent.
‘Irish Americans by and large didn’t know a great deal about the ins and outs of the Troubles and Irish politics.’
The 40 million or so who claim some Irish heritage or the 5,000 or so members of NORAID in the 1980s? To be contrary: someone in NORAID probably knew more about Ireland than the average Irish American. The point is the majority of Irish Americans never contributed any money to NORAID, never paid any great attention to Irish politics and certainly never voted in American elections on the basis of a candidate’s view on the North. Hence David Dinkins was endorsed by NORAID in 1989 and 1993 for mayor of New York, but got very few Irish votes. The song is about a strawman, ‘the right-wing Irish American racist who gave money to the Provos but was too thick to know that they claimed to be socialists in Ireland.’
They did exist, but the story was a bit more complicated that that. Any, yeah, I remember Ruefrex and the cover of that single had a little drummer boy on it, with a green, white and orange background.
Someone in NORAID was undoubtedly likely to know more about Ireland than the average Irish American, but (a) that doesn’t necessarily say much, and (b) they were likely to have a very particular slant on things, one shared only by a small percentage of the Irish population.
It’s not “a strawman” if, as you say yourself, the kind of person ridiculed by the song did in fact exist. And they did.
It’s also worth noting that the Boston busing controversy in the 1970s centred on the heartland of Irish America – not that there is any evidence that Provisional sympathisers were more likely to be racist than other Irish Americans, mind you.
Whether or not south Boston was the ‘heartland’ of Irish America in the 1970s is open to question. Could something as diffuse and vast as ‘Irish America’ have a heartland? South Boston was one of the very few remaining largely Irish working-class enclaves, of the type that had once been present in every American city but were almost dead by the 1970s. It was always regarded as an insular area, with high rates of poverty and crime. There were similar reactions to busing in other American cities, among other white ethnic groups.
And yes NORAID supporters in Boston were involved, although in the early 70s most NORAID members were Irish immigrants, not Irish Americans. Irish Americans didn’t join in many numbers until after the hunger-strikes.
Arguably some in NORAID had a better if perhaps flawed idea than most in the South.
One wonders about that. A better appreciation of nationalist concerns, quite possibly. A better handle on unionist concerns and on the way the violence played out, I wouldn’t be so sure (only if it was turning the news over when another shooting or bombing in the north came on).
Well I did say ‘flawed’, but in terms of interest in the North people might be surprised by the dePth of it amongst Irish Americans. A good friend of mine has run an Irish based site catering to the US with news from NI… Very very large audience, albeit one which has diminished with the ebbing of violence and relative political calm. Does that mean they were or are up on nuances, certainly not but the interest seems to me to have been greater than that generally in the South.
By the way great discussion but my Internet is gone and I’m having to use a phone which constrAins serious comments.
Coincidentally an episode of Law and Order from about 1990 entitled The Troubles was on today. In it, a Lebanonese drug dealer who traffics arms to the provos (who buy them funded by Syrian drug money) is killed, possibly by the Provos. It’s seems possible it was inspired by Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games. Most jarring aspect was the repeated references to people being members of “the Sinn Féin”.
I think the joke was that the NORAID delegation visited the North once a year; most southerners never went there at all…
Just while we’re on the subject of Irish-Americans, a bitter attack on Boston College by Niall O’Dowd over the whole subpoena issue for their archives.
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/boston-college-played-major-role-in-witch-hunt-against-gerry-adams—–hired-anti-adams-researchers-to-lead-oral-history-project-128291948.html
Although not punk , I always had a soft spot for Andy White who came on the scene in the early to mid 80s.
‘Religious Persuasion’, and ‘Rave on Andy White’ had plenty of political songs specifically related to the North.