Pat Shortt’s Music for D’Telly

A great piece by Colm O’Callaghan for The Blackpool Sentinel today tipped us off to a new music show in the RTE schedule. Like us Colm is a fan of Dave Heffernan and used watch ‘Anything Goes‘ religiously of a Saturday morning – for the music segment.

Ten years after the Des Bishop hosted ‘Reverb’, RTE television is once again dipping it’s toe into the music archives.

The multi-talented Pat Shortt raids the RTÉ music archives to unearth the most popular, rarely seen and occasionally wacky music and music-related items from over 60 years of programme making.

We know Pat has musical chops so fingers crossed he doesn’t play this one for laughs. Pat Shortt’s Music for D’Telly kicks off on RTE1 Friday, October 30th November 6th at 8.30pm. The series is directed and produced by Dave Heffernan.

For what it’s worth we’d love to see someone like Colm let loose on the RTE archive to dig out some of the treasures we know are there. Maybe time for the ‘No Disco‘ approach once again?

Update: Pat was on the Late Late show last week promoting the series, watch on the RTE player here:

Update #2: RTE promo

No Disco (1993-2003)

A great piece by Colm O’Callaghan for The Blackpool Sentinel, ‘This is No Disco‘ prompted us to create a playlist of interviews and sessions from the much missed RTE TV show. ‘No Disco‘ was a no budget TV show produced by RTE Cork and presented by, in turn Donal Dineen, Uaneen Fitzsimons and Leagues O’Toole. While VHS is not our forte we have in the past managed to dig out a number of ‘No Disco’ recordings e.g. The Divine Comedy, The Harvest Ministers. Colm’s loose talk of mythical sessions by The Revenants, Edwyn Collins and John Hegarty mean another trip to the dreaded attic awaits.

While on the subject of ‘No Disco’, producer Rory Cobbe was interviewed by Ray Wingnut for the first ‘An Ciaróg Eile’ podcast (skip to 29 min mark)..

Curious Broadcast (2012)

Comment: Other Voices Live Webcast and the RTE Player

I hate to criticize, especially when something innovative is being undertaken but I must admit to being slightly frustrated by the recent live webcasts of ‘Other Voices’ by our national broadcaster. This matter first arose back in December when I was excited to read that RTE was webcasting the popular music series. ‘Other Voices‘ for those who don’t know is a TV music series recorded over a number of nights in the town of Dingle in Co. Kerry. In early years tickets were sold for the very limited capacity event but in recent years these were only given to journalists and media outlets to be raffled online. Thanks to the wonderful introduction of Saorview many households our own included now lay claim to the possession of a “Smart TV” so yours truly was quite excited to hear news of an imminent webcast. Non musical family members suitably dispatched the music fans of the house settled in for a musical feast. And that was where the woes began..

The RTE Player was launched but ‘Other Voices’ was nowhere to be seen. ‘Live’, ‘Latest’, ‘Entertainment’ none professed any knowledge of that evening’s musical event. A visit to the search dialog also yielded no joy. Fear not, this Smart TV has a web browser – off to the RTE website we go. There finally was ‘Other Voices’ and the prize was in sight. Unfortunately as soon as the link was followed the we were greeted with a note that “A more recent version of Adobe Flash Player is required to play this media”.

Now on your computer this error message is quite benign and a quick download will resolve but on a Smart TV or tablet this message will send a shiver down your spine for it is an error to which there is no easy solution. Fortunately in this instance there was a happy ending to the tale.. by a stroke of luck the UK newspaper The Guardian was also streaming ‘Other Voices’ and once the correct website address was found we were happily in business..

Now why you might ask am I complaining about something that happened 2 months ago. Well this weekend ‘Other Voices’ made a return visit to Derry. That city first hosted the show in 2013 as part of their City Of Culture celebrations and once again RTE promised to webcast the event live. Yours truly being the intrepid curmudgeon that he is decided to investigate if matters had improved..

RTE Player – no mention
RTE Webcast – not compatible with Smart TV
Guardian stream – working perfectly

So if anyone at RTE is listening – please consider those of us with “smart” TVs next time round..

Borderline (1986-1988)

Borderline was a “young people’s show” on RTÉ Television from 1986-1988. The show’s presenters were Aonghus McAnally, Majella Nolan, Ronan Johnston, Eithne Hand and Maria Doyle. As part of their 50 years celebrations RTE has posted one complete show online. The show in question (1/3/1988) coincided with The Stag Hotpress Awards. Winners who popped into studio to chat and/or perform include Rory Gallagher, Mary Coughlan, Something Happens (‘Burn Clear’), Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. Also performing on the show were The Sugar Rays (‘House In Order’) and The Stars Of Heaven (’28’).

Fanning Sessions Archive curated Borderline playlist on YouTube. See also ‘Anything Goes‘, Visual Eyes.

Scary Eire (1993 Session)

I’ve been on the lookout for this session for a while but watching the fallout from RTE TV’s ‘Ireland’s Rappers‘ was the spur to look again, a comment on the Irish Times ‘On The Record’ blog by Stevie Grainger rang true:

“I’ll never forget the buzz i got listening to the “Truncheon Song” by Scary Eire on the Dave Fanning show in the early 90s”

One more search and there it was. The audio quality is not the best but I think you’ll get the picture. If anyone has the remaining two session tracks or indeed a higher quality version of please get in touch.

Formed in 1990 Scary Eire were a pioneering Irish hip hop outfit featuring Dada Sloosh, DJ Mek, Mr Browne and RiRa. In 2007 they released a compilation ‘The Scary Era’.

More reading: ‘Beats, Bodhráns and Bloody Mayhem – the story of Scary Éire‘ [state.ie]

Truncheon Song (1993)

On March 19th Dan Hegarty played two tracks from the 1993 Fanning session which he said was not easy to track down. Unfortunately I was not prepared so had to listen back to the show on the RTE player and only caught one track. Thankfully Ian Wilson has announced that Dan will rebroadcast the entire session on Easter Monday so tune in or check back here after that date.

Hold Yer Whisht (1993)

Forget Me Nots (On The Waterfront)

Formed in 1990 in Dublin Forget Me Nots were Michelle Burrows (vocals, guitar), Eithne Flynn (vocals, guitar), Maurice McGrath (guitar), Mark Walsh (bass) and Justin Healy (drums). Justin was previously with The Golden Horde and The Glee Club. The band released singles ‘2 Fay Ray’ (1991), ‘Trouble’ (1992), ‘Soap Singer’s Beat’ (1992) and album ‘Hullabaloo’ (1992). While well received, the album didn’t achieve the level of success expected and following one further single ‘So Good’ (1993) parted company with Sony/Colombia Records. The quartet went on to release ‘Five O’Clock’ train in 1994 before calling it a day. This footage was recorded for the RTE programme ‘On The Waterfront‘ in 1992.

Anything Goes (1980 – 1986)

‘Anything Goes’ was a “young people’s show on RTÉ Television as part of development of young people’s programming”. First broadcast on 4 October 1980 it continued for 6 years. Presenters on the show were Kathy Parke, Aonghus McAnally, Mary FitzGerald, David Heffernan and Mary Frances Calayco. I will add to the list of musical acts who performed as I find them.

Anything Goes YouTube playlist

In Tua Nua – ‘Coming Through‘ (1984)
The Babysnakes – ‘Fade‘ (1985)
The Crack – ‘When The Time Comes‘ (1981)
Cruella De Ville (1983)
The End – ‘That Warm Feeling’ (1981)
Soon – ‘In A Nutshell’ (198?)
G Squad – (1985)
Tokyo Olympics (1981)
Driveshaft (198x)
Porcelyn Tears (198x)
The Sussed (198x)
The Atrix – ‘I Wonder Why‘ (1981)
The Stars Of Heaven – ‘Every Other Day‘ (1985)
Montage – ‘When I Close My Eyes‘
to be continued..