Today’s post was prompted by Abstract Analogue who posted a March 22nd 1990 Hot Press interview by Tony Clayton-Lea with The Would Be’s. From Kingscourt, Co. Cavan, The Would Be’s were Julie McDonnell (vocals), Mattie Finnegan (guitar), Paul Finnegan (guitar), Eamonn Finnegan (bass), Pascal Smith (drums), Aidine O’Reilly (trombone, sax,, violin). Eileen Gogan, most recently to be found performing with Microdisney at the National Concert Hall, also fronted the band for a number of years. Serendipitously the band met at the launch of Tony’s ‘101 Irish Records You Must Hear Before You Die‘ and decided to give it another go. They subsequently released ‘Beautiful Mess‘ in 2013 and performed around the country. The remaining session tracks were ‘All This Rubbish’, ‘Funny Ha Ha’, ‘My Radio Sounds Different In The Dark’.
Barely two months after the release of their debut EP, Kilkenny’s finest Engine Alley achieved another milestone when Ireland’s premier music magazine Hot Press dedicated a full page to the band. As part of RTE’s TV50 celebrations the band’s entire TV career can now be viewed on YouTube.
As pointed out by @cvodb The Radiators set was released in 1988 on World Aids Day as ‘Dollar For Your Dreams’ on Comet Records. More details on the Irish Rock page. Caroline has also posted Gavin Friday’s setlist here.
The latest episode of ‘Pimp my iPod‘ looks at labels one of whom, Setanta released the debut album from The Divine Comedy in 1990. Neil Hannon has I believe since distanced himself from the album but I just came across this review in an old issue of Hot Press and I know of at least one reader who will be interested.
Hot Press magazine has just celebrated it’s 800th issue and to commemorate RTE1 is showing a documentary ‘Hot Press: The Write Stuff‘ on Tuesday 1st Feb at 10.15pm.
Their hair was once shoulder-length and what’s left of it now is mostly grey. Two of them are still following the same path they started down in the late Seventies, in a country of soaring unemployment and inflation, where contraception was illegal and divorce was banned. Others of them are now household names, as writers, journalists and commentators. Back then, they were young, unknown and there was no obvious outlet for their talents. So they set about doing it for themselves: in 1977, Niall Stokes and Mairin Sheehy founded Hot Press.
It was a music magazine and it became more – a political and cultural rallying-point for alternative points of view of all kinds. Its writers, designers and production staff tapped phones, biked cheques from bank to bank and drove in relays to the Kerry train to catch the printers, after long nights of putting the magazine together fuelled by coffee so thick a Turk could trot on it. They became a family, a haven of mutual support and, like many families, a place too for dysfunction and, for some of them, excess.
Long before the internet, they created a community which stretched from Ballaghadareen to Bundoran, from Enniscorthy to Skibbereen, united by the music and by their writers’ and readers’ different visions of an Ireland in which they could feel at home, in which they could be free to be themselves. And their contribution to the success of that movement has also, in the way of things, made them part of a new establishment. But at the exceptionally advanced age – for an Irish magazine – of 34, Hot Press is still here, still looking out for new voices, fresh writing talents, music that needs to be listened to.
The documentary Hot Press: The Write Stuff tells the tumultous story of those early years, through the memories of its writers including Declan Lynch, Liam Mackey, Peter Murphy and John Waters, of its founders Niall Stokes and Mairin Sheehy, and of Harry Browne, Dave Fanning, Bob Geldof, Jackie Hayden and Michael D. Higgins. It’s a story about music and politics, about principles and ambitions, above all a story about being young and just going for it.
In the absence of an official RTE Fanning Session archive consider this blog a humble starting point. Any musical submissions would be gratefully accepted as are any corrections or recollections... click on the pic to send an email or even better comment on the post in question. We are interested in anything recorded from irish radio or TV in the 1980s and 90s.
