Playlist: St. Patrick's Day 2
- jamesgeraghty
- 16 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Well, St. Patrick's Day has rolled around again, so what have we got for you this time?
We did one a few years back that focused on bands with Patrick / Pat / Patricia's in - you can relive that one here. We also have featured Ireland in one of our Geography themed playlists - here. So, this time we have gone back to find some more Irish bands for you - and managed to (mostly) present you with ones we haven't used before.
So, Happy St. Patrick's Day - enjoy your day, and the tunes....
1. Therapy?: Screamager
Larne's Therapy? hit the big time with 1992 album Troublegum. Lead singer, songwriter and guitarist, Andy Cairns had written the riff for Screamager on the bass when he was about 16, and had been used as an outro on an early demo. The title for the song came when watching the Smash Hit Awards and he noted all the teenage girls were screaming at host, Phillip Schofield. The music for it was inspired by fellow Ulster bands like Stiff Little Fingers and The Undertones, crossed with a bit of The Ramones, to give it a pop-punk feel.
Screamager (official music video)
2. A House: Call Me Blue
This Dublin band honed their skills on the local circuit of legendary venues like McGonagle's and getting airplay on Dave Fanning's RTE radio show. By the late 1980s they had signed with Blanco y Negro and got themselves a session on the John Peel Show, before debut album On Our Big Fat Merry-Go-Round came out in 1988. They got a tour support slot with Aussie band the Go-Betweens and hit the US College chart with Call Me Blue. You may listen to this one and wonder, how on Earth did this tune pass me by - a bit of a banger!
Call Me Blue (official music video)
3. My Bloody Valentine: When You Sleep
Loveless is generally seen as the creative peak of My Bloody Valentine, and perhaps the defining moment of the so-called shoegaze movement. It really should be, as it took the band two and a half long years, spread across sessions at nineteen different studios and a number of engineers, before it was finally completed and released in September 1991. The promotional single When You Sleep is a great example of this lengthy process; the drums were laid down in September 1989, the guitars added that December, the bass in April 1990 - the lyrics and vocals... they didn't come until sometime in 1991.
When You Sleep (official music video)
4. The Cranberries: Linger
The Cranberries are the focus of one of my great musical regrets; in the summer of 1993, still yet to hit the full height of their fame, they headlined the second stage at the Feile festival in Thurles, Tipperary, that I was at with my best mate Andy. Their appearance clashed with someone on the main stage we wanted to see and we missed them - by the end of the year, they were mega. They had formed in Limerick in 1989 as The Cranberry Saw Us, before changing their name the following year upon the arrival of Dolores O'Riordan. They got to record Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? in Dublin with the much in demand Stephen Street. Linger eventually got massive airplay on US college radio, and by late 1993 (it had been released in February) it had reached 8 on the Billboard chart. This song still lifts you up - so hard to believe it's been almost a decade since we lost her.
Linger (live in Paris, 1999)
5. Thin Lizzy: Waiting For An Alibi
As well being headed by one of the great Irish musicians and songwriters of the 1970s (Phil Lynott), they also included at various times, some of the best blues-rock guitarists of the age. Through the band came Eric Bell, Brian Robertson, Scott Gorham, Midge Ure, Snowy White, and for one album, Gary Moore. Waiting For An Alibi is a single from that one record to include Moore, Black Rose: A Rock Legend. This Top 10 hit boasts both Gorham and Moore on guitars.
Waiting For An Alibi (live at Sydney Opera House, 1978)
6. Gary Moore & Phil Lynott: Out In The Fields
When people bang on about Clapton, Page and Beck as the great British guitarists - they really should have paid more attention to Gary Moore, another guitarist truly deserving the 'great' epithet. Moore started out in Skid Row (no, not that one) in the 1960s, with Phil Lynott, who he would team up with for a while a decade later in Thin Lizzy. He is perhaps best known, from a solo perspective, for Parisienne Walkways, but he recorded some other great blues rock tunes along the way - like this, another collaboration with Lynott from 1985s Run For Cover.
Out In The Fields (official music video)
7. Fontaines D.C.: Boys In The Better Land
Fontaines D.C. was formed by students at the private music university, BIMM Dublin, in 2014. The band took their name from Johnny Fontane, a character in The Godfather, adding the D.C, when they found out there was an L.A. band with the same name. Once signed to Partisan Records, 2019 debut LP Dogrel was an instant critical success, garnering them a Mercury Music Prize nomination. Boys In The Better Land is one of their earliest singles, originally coming out early in 2018.
Boys In The Better Land (live on KEXP, 2018)
8. Sinead O'Connor: Mandinka
Sinead O'Connor was a hugely talented artist, and while she frequently gained headlines for her often troubled life, we must never forget how great she was. Several years before Prince gave her Nothing Compares 2 U, Mandinka, named after the West African tribe, gave her an early breakthrough on her first record, The Lion And The Cobra (title taken from Psalm 91), which she recorded whilst heavily pregnant with her first child.
Mandinka (live on Letterman, 1988)
9. Bap Kennedy: On The Mighty Ocean Alcohol
The late Martin 'Bap' Kennedy was a hugely under-appreciated songwriter from Belfast. I knew him mostly from his excellent 1990s band Energy Orchard, but he went to a much respected solo career, collaborating with artists like Steve Earle, Van Morrison and Mark Knopfler. On his sixth solo record, The Big Picture, Kennedy was joined by James Walbourne (The Pretenders) on guitar, includes the song Milky Way co-written with Morrison, and On The Mighty Ocean Alcohol, there are guest vocals by fellow Irish singer Shane MacGowan.
On The Mighty Ocean Alcohol (audio only)
10. The Frank & Walters: After All
The Frank and Walters got their name from two eccentric characters in their native Cork. Based around the brothers, Paul and Niall Linehan, they signed with Setanta in 1991 and then Go! Discs, where they were set up with Edwyn Collins to produce the Happy Busman EP and then debut LP, Trains, Boats and Planes. From that came brief success with a UK Top 20 hit with the cheery anthem, After All.
After All (audio only)
11. Ash: Girl From Mars
You feel old and untalented when a band releases an album dedicated to the year of their birth. 1977 was the debut record for Downpatrick's Ash, and being recorded in 1995, puts them at 18 at that time. Tim Wheeler had actually written Girl From Mars when he was 16; their first contract, with Infectious Records, had to be signed by their parents, as they were only 17 at the time. When the song came out and crashed into the UK charts, they got a spot on the coveted Top of the Pops show, appearing just two weeks after finishing their A-Level exams.
Girl From Mars (official music video - UK version)
12 U2:
I couldn't pass up to put some early U2 in here. They are often derided, but look beyond Bono's (medically prescribed) sunglasses, and you will find they released some of the truly classic albums of the 1980s. In fact, I have argued before, you will be hard pressed to find a better trilogy of post-punk records than Boy, October and War! When you look at live performances from those early days, just admire the power, the passion and the pure joy they have in playing their music.
I Will Follow (live on the Old Grey Whistle Test, 1981)
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