Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
Well, I think I've run out of superlatives when it comes to writing about the joys of seeing The Undertones play live, so this time I'm just going to limit myself to sharing some photos and videos of yet another fantastic life-affirming night in the company of Derry's finest hit-makers. A packed-out Electric Ballroom was treated to a 32 song set-list crammed full of their perfect Punk pop nuggets that encompassed rarities such as "Emergency Cases" to great songs from the current Paul McLoone line-up including "Thrill Me" and "Dig Yourself Deep" and of course, all those timeless classics like "My Perfect Cousin", "Wednesday Week", "Here Comes The Summer" and "Teenage Kicks"...so, here we go, I hope you enjoy this little taster of a quite wonderful show...
Don't forget our thoroughly entertaining Retrosonic Podcast episodes with Damian O'Neill and Mickey Bradley are still available to listen/stream/download from Spotify, iTunes, Apple Podcasts or direct from our Soundcloud site.
For more news and information on The Undertones, please check out their official web-site here, and don't forget the excellent Undertones Rocking Humdingers Club fan-site and resource on Facebook here. You can find more Retrosonic Podcasts with Damian discussing his solo music and side-projects The Everlasting Yeah and 5 Billion In Diamonds at our Soundcloud archive here.
All photos, videos and Podcasts are copyright Retro Man Blog.
In the latest episode of Retrosonic Podcast we welcome Mickey Bradley, bassist of The Undertones prior to their "Celebrating 45 Years of Teenage Kicks Tour" (or a 'series of weekends away' according to Mickey). We discuss his excellent book "Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone" (Omnibus Press) and he picks some of his favourite songs and music that had an impact on the early days of The Undertones. Sadly, we recorded the episode the day that Seymour Stein passed away, so Mickey pays tribute to his former Sire Records label boss and picks his favourite Sire Records release. Throughout the show, we discover his influences as a bassist, some of his favourite music related books and authors, how he missed Paul Simonon smashing his bass while touring with The Clash, the influence of Lenny Kaye's "Nuggets" compilation and he picks some pivotal early Undertones tracks. We also cover last year's excellent compilation of the best of the current Paul McLoone fronted line-up "Dig What You Need". As you would expect, Mickey is entertaining company so please check out the show by subscribing to Retrosonic Podcast at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iTunes or at our Retro Man Blog You Tube channel. Otherwise, check out the direct link to our SoundCloud site below. The episode is soundtracked by loads of Mickey's superb musical choices...
With many thanks to Michael Bradley, more details on his regular radio show can be found here. "Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone" is available from Omnibus Press and all good bookshops. For news on The Undertones upcoming live dates, please check out their official website here. The Undertones "Rocking Humdingers" Facebook Fan's Group can be found here. Finally, check out the Retrosonic Podcast archives for our episodes with Damian O'Neill, at SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts and iTunes. Retrosonic Podcast has a valid PRS Licence.
R.I.P. Seymour Stein.
The Undertones, Belfast 1978 - Photo by Paul Slattery
The Undertones at Camden Electric Ballroom - Photo Retro Man Blog
The Undertones have always held a special place in my heart ever since I first saw them on Top of The Pops as an impressionable 13-year-old back in 1979. I was too young to fully appreciate the initial Punk Rock explosion – the Sex Pistols had already split up and their record company were releasing cash-in singles such as “Silly Thing” and “C’mon Everybody”. Punk was already pretty mainstream, New Wave I guess it was called then, but it did mean that some superb singles were gate-crashing the Top 40 and we got to see loads of exciting bands on TOTP every Thursday evening. The Undertones might not have had the surly aggression of The Stranglers nor the spikey peroxide cool of Generation X and they certainly didn’t have the sharp black and white Mod stylings of The Jam or the theatrical fantasy look of Adam & The Ants but they really struck a chord with me and my pals. The band members were cheeky, smiling and clearly enjoying themselves on the tele and with their snorkel parkas, V-necked jumpers, floppy fringes and questionable complexions we could really relate to them. Most importantly, especially in guitarist Damian O’Neill’s case, they didn’t look much older than we did. So, in 1980 when we started up our very first band in the school music room, our guitarist Jeff copied the guitar swinging style of Damian rather than the high-octane leaps and poses of Mick Jones and Paul Weller. We also butchered “Teenage Kicks” as an encore at our very first gig in the school gym, a C-90 cassette tape of which still exists under lock and key somewhere in the attic. To cap it all, soon after that gig The Undertones released a superb new single about a cousin called Kevin. Hey, I even had a cousin called Kevin!
The Undertones, Belfast 1978 - Photo by Paul Slattery
John & Damian O'Neill at Camden Electric Ballroom - Photo Retro Man Blog
The band’s second album “Hypnotised” became a firm favourite and even to this day, remains in my “all-time top 10 albums of all time” (as Smashey and Nicey would say). After The Undertones split, the O’Neill brothers were to have a similarly invigorating impact on my life with their new outfit That Petrol Emotion and the blistering 1985 singles “Keen” and “V2”. These were followed a year later by their debut album “Manic Pop Thrill”, the title of which summed up their sound better than anything I could ever think up. On their release, I wrote about these records in my old D.I.Y. cut ‘n’ paste fanzine “Out of Step” – the records were ahead of their time, something that could be said for That Petrol Emotion’s career as a whole I guess. So, let’s fast forward to 2014 and Damian was involved in another pivotal musical moment in my life with the release of "Anima Rising" by a new band called The Everlasting Yeah - who just so happened to be the last line-up of That Petrol Emotion minus singer Steve Mack, who had moved back to the States and now fronts the excellent band Stag. "Anima Rising" must surely rank among the greatest debut albums of all time and I was thrilled to get to meet Damian, along with Raymond Gorman and Ciaran McLaughlin from the band around this time to record our comprehensive and thoroughly entertaining Retrosonic Podcast special about TEY and TPE (as they can handily be abbreviated).
Steve, Raymond, Brendan & Damian (That Petrol Emotion) at Stag gig, Islngton
The Everlasting Yeah, Half Moon Putney - Photo Retro Man Blog
This led to me putting on a show for The Everlasting Yeah at one of my Retro Man Blog nights at The Half Moon in Putney, a wonderful night that will live long in the memory. I also then did two more Podcast episodes with Damian about his career in music, including his superb solo album “Refit, Revise, Reprise” and contributions to 5 Billion in Diamonds, a kind of super-group project created by Garbage drummer and producer Butch Vig, James Grillo and Andy Jenks and also featuring our mutual acquaintance Ebbot Lundberg of The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Damian also discusses how he and Billy Doherty got to produce the excellent New York based Power Pop band Baby Shakes. All throughout these encounters, I think I did a reasonable job of holding myself together and not collapsing to the floor in a blubbering fan-boy wreck. At least I hope I did. In the meantime, hopping back to 2003, I’d seen The Undertones at the Brighton Concorde 2 for the first time since the band had got back together with vocalist Paul McLoone stepping in to fill the shoes of Feargal Sharkey and I was blown away. They’d just released a superb album of all new material called “Get What You Need” and yes, this really was just what I needed.
The Undertones in Brighton, 2003 - Photo Retro Man Blog
The lead single “Thrill Me” gave me goose bumps – it had all the unmistakeable melodies of the classic Undertones with the edgy sonic thrill of That Petrol Emotion. The Undertones were back in my life. They released another mighty fine album called “Dig Yourself Deep” in 2007 that again highlighted the fact that the band were very much of the here and now. Damian and Brian O’Neill’s excellent label Dimple Discs Records have just released “Dig What You Need”, a new compilation of the best of these two albums, re-mixed by Paul Tipler and sequenced by Damian. It also marks the first time on vinyl for the featured tracks and is packed full of great numbers such as “Enough”, “She’s So Sweet” and the brooding “Fight My Corner”, which I always thought sounded like a long lost That Petrol Emotion track. The compilation is not only perfect for those that might have overlooked the Undertones ‘Mark 2’ material but is a must-have for the die-hard fan too. It all sounds so fresh and exciting in a different context, especially when played extremely loud on vinyl.
Soundcheck at Camden Electric Ballroom - Photo Retro Man Blog
And now, rather like one of those annoying backwards and forwards time-travelling dramas, (insert wavy lines and psychedelic music) I find myself in the present day, standing on the side of the stage at the Electric Ballroom in Camden watching The Undertones sound-check. It’s hard not to avoid the lump in the throat, as I think back to myself as that 13-year-old boy transfixed by seeing the band on Top of The Pops. It’s a dream come true to be standing so close to the band that has meant so much to me over the years. The venue starts to fill up and is soon packed to the rafters and there’s barely room to move as the band take the stage and blast straight into “Family Entertainment”. The atmosphere is amazing – there’s such a wonderful vibe as the band speed their way through a career spanning set of almost thirty songs. Paul pulls out all the stops with his high kicks, jumps and Elvis moves – he’s an engaging frontman that has built up a real rapport with the crowd and live, his voice is really something special. Rather like Baz Warne in The Stranglers, Paul has made the position his own on merit – keeping the integrity of the original delivery intact while retaining his own personality. There’s the usual witty on stage banter, mainly from bassist Mickey Bradley as he reads out requests and dedications between songs.
The Undertones at Camden Electric Ballroom - Photo Retro Man Blog
Damian and John’s guitars are immensely powerful, swapping rhythm and lead parts effortlessly and Billy’s drums propel everything along at breakneck speed. Mickey jokes, “that’s a record, the quickest we’ve ever played that” after one song. “Hypnotised” and “Tearproof” are personal favourites and of course, the pick of faultless singles such as “Here Comes The Summer”, “You’ve Got My Number”, ”Jimmy Jimmy” and the inevitable “Teenage Kicks” are certainly hard to beat. It’s not just about the singles though, they treat us to a plethora of excellent album cuts and B-Sides like “I Gotta Getta”, “Jump Boys”, “True Confessions” and of course “Male Model”. The Paul McLoone era songs featured on “Dig What You Need” such as “Thrill Me”, “Oh Please” and “Dig Yourself Deep”, sit perfectly alongside all the familiar classics and I particularly enjoyed “Here Comes The Rain”, which sounded superb tonight.
The Undertones at Camden Electric Ballroom - Photo Retro Man Blog
I think it’s rare to see such a band where the only disappointment is that they don’t include more “new” material in the set. Given the quality of the songs highlighted on “Dig What You Need”, it’s a bit of a shame that they haven’t released any new material since the 2013 Record Store Day single “Much Too Late”. The band seem content to spend more time touring rather than being cooped up in a studio these days and I suppose you can’t blame them. When you get the chance to play live in front of frenzied, adoring crowds around the world, you’re not going to turn down the opportunity I guess. Anyway, after such an abysmal couple of years, it’s hard to put into words how wonderful tonight’s show was. It was so great to experience once again the sheer joy and life-affirming power of timeless music played by a band that still clearly enjoy themselves as much as we, the fans do. The crowd - from the very front of the stage to the bars at the back and to the balconies above - all singing along together, almost drowning out the band…bloody marvellous!
At the time of writing, it was announced that drummer Billy Doherty unfortunately had a medical emergency, which meant a show had to be cancelled at the last minute. However, the band have recruited Kevin Sharkey as a deputy and the rest of the advertised dates should be going ahead as advertised, but please double check with the venues. Our very best wishes to Billy for a speedy recovery. “Dig What You Need” is available now from Dimple Discs Records.
Please check out the following highlighted links...
Retro Man Blog - feature on The Everlasting Yeah at The Half Moon Putney
Retro Man Blog - Good Vibrations movie feature with photos by Paul Slattery
Write Wyatt - Malcolm Wyatt's excellent Blog with lots of Undertones related features
For videos of The Undertones at the Camden Electric Ballroom and more...please check out the Retro Man Blog YouTube channel. Here's a little taster for you...enjoy!
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