On the radio show tonight: a co-present with Bap Kennedy and Brenda Kennedy, the Johnny Cash and June Carter of the NI twang set. They'll be playing tracks from their respective albums, talking about the space race and chosing tunes from The Stylisitcs, The Byrds and yes, Art Garfunkel.
Next week we finally get aroud to plotting the connection between Shakespeare and rock. It really is a fascinating trip. And the blog will be resting for a short while. Be careful out there...
It was the summer of 1979, as I recall. The night that my band, the absurdly-titled Acme Music made their debut at the Harp Bar on Belfast's Hill Street. We had rocked the youth club circuit and a few church halls. I think we had already featured at Clonduff Community Centre where they paid for your talent in cider bottles. But the Harp Bar was the big deal. It was where the grandees of punk lived. It was also a temendously snobby joint and if you hadn't been in the first few skirmishes of the punk wars, you were considered a vulgar intruder. Which wasn't very punk rock at all...
So we gave it our best and a few people clapped, perhaps ironically. Many of our fans had been too scared to turn up, such was the Harp's reputation. But we negotiated the stripper on the stairway and hauled a pitiful PA system up there with us. We may have played a Ramones song and we didn't look too concerned when a stray beer glass went whistling though the air. That's my pal Alan Giddings on guitar - the Mick Jones to my Joe Strummer delusion. In the background is drummer Ian Hanna. He was a pet food merchandiser, and so we travelled in style, supine on boxes of Biffo dog food. We smelt of offal, gelatine and unquenchable teen spirit.
As I write this, Ruby Murray still holds the record for the most records in the pop charts - five - at the same time. Her moment was March 1955, a month in which she sold over 650 000 records. Her chart performance has not been bettered since - not by Elvis, The Beatles, Madonna, Springsteen or Kylie. we've always been rather proud that a gal from the Donegal Road, Belfast could have delivered this.
But guess what - Michael Jackson is likely to have a raft of tunes in the Top 20. Possibly more than five and maybe even the entire chart. Such is the nature of the download age that we don't have to wait for the records to get pressed, shipped and registered. We was robbed.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~15~RS~)
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