Old News

December 2009: Another Shop Closure

Cork's only independent music retailer Plugd Records is due to close on the last day of the year. The hope is they'll reopen in new premises in 2010.

December 2009: Two New Books

• Holywood Star: The Life and Times of a Rock & Roll Misadventurer by Eamon Nancarrow is an account of Eamon's adventures in the music business as lead singer for Guilt Edge, No Hot Ashes, Nellie Dean and others. Reputedly highly entertaining though I haven't read it myself. It is available from Amazon.
• Cork Rock by Mark McAvoy details the city's rock & roll history and considers the many quirky bands it produced. Again, I haven't read it myself yet but it looks interesting. Available directly from Mercier Press.

17 November 2009: Freebird Records to close

The recent spate of record shop closures in Dublin contines with latest victim Freebird Records announcing its closure this month. According to the Evening Herald (who managed to turn it into a U2 story --nice one lads-- claiming Freebird made the band's name, by stocking their records perhaps? Hmm.. ) the shop will close on Saturday 28th. This means both branches, the Secret Book & Record Store branch on Wicklow St and the old Comet shop premises on Cope Street. Correction/Update: it seems only the Cope Street branch is closing, the Secret Book & Record Shop part will remain in business.

Freebird has been around since 1978 and I first remember visiting the shop up the rickety stairs on Grafton Street somewhere. It moved several times over the years and I must admit I assumed they'd weather the current storm best and be the last to go, but their second-hand policy was odd [who keeps boxes of records on the floor that are 'not for sale'??] and in truth I hadn't bought anything in there in ages. They are having a 50% off sale until closure. Comet, Smile, Record Collector, Rhythm, Borderline, who's next?

From Freebird's myspace page... "it would seem that the music store as a exciting place and dare we say it, a holy place, is hopelessly out of fashion. Maybe as everything is free and people get fed up having such randomness of 13,000 songs on their walkman just maybe the record store will be an excuse to actually go outside and become a fan of something, you never know pin badges and posters on the walls may be the new in.........we'll see. WE LOVE MUSIC, WE LOVE VINYL, WE LOVE NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO BUY EVERYTHING."

1 October 2009: Blaze X, Rudi, Tinopeners reissues

New York reissue specialists Sing Sing Records have reissued several Irish punk singles including The Tinopeners, Blaze X and the first two by Rudi ("Big Time" and "I Spy"). These can be ordered directly form the label's website www.singsingrecords.com.

21 September 2009: New Golden Horde site

Check out the new site at www.thegoldenhorde.org.

2 September 2009: New DIY Irish Hardcore Punk Blog

In fact it's been active since February this year but I just discovered it now. Lots of vintage and more recent punk and hardcore downloads. Grab the early Paranoid Visions stuff while you can, and the 1977 fanzines too. Isn't it time someone did a fanzine archive blog? I've got time to PDF some zines but thats about all. Someone else will have to organise this (maybe Loserdom?)

Meanwhile, check out the blog here.

16 August 2009: LOOKALIKES one-off reunion gig

Saturday 5th September at the Button Factory in Dublin.

Check the Button Factory site for more details.

9 August 2009: If you're not straying out of doors this eve........

ROGHA JOHN SPILLANE - RADIO NA GAELTACHTA (RTE) - SUNDAY 9TH AUGUST - 9PM

Two hours of eclectic Irish music with sage commentary compiled by John Byrne, including Roger Doyle, Pumpkinhead, Skid Row, Sonny Condell, peridots, Dr.Strangely Strange, Mick Hanly, Supply Demand and Curve, etc.

Also available online for the next 7 days.

4-5 August 2009: More Restructuring.
Through some site restructuring it's possible some old links don't work anymore. Hopefully the structure is now easier to navigate. Comments and criticisms welcome.

1 August 2009: youtube now officially a pain in the arse.
Videos are being removed (or expire) from youtube as fast as I add them to the video channel account, so I've given up on it. Expect administration of the youtube video list to be as bad as with the message board from now on (sorry).

18 June 2009: Popup Annoyance Removed
The webcounter service I was using recently changed hands and the new operators endorse annoying popups, so I've deleted it. If anyone still experiences popup adverts while browsing this site, please let me know ASAP. Between 29 January 2004 and June 2009, the web counter registered 163623 page views, most of those in the past year. Not bad...

Spring 2009: Hot Press Website
Thanks to those who responded to my request. This is now sorted.

+++ STOP TEASING ME YOU BASTARDS+++
I regularly receive offers of stuff which sounds brilliant and incredibly useful but unfortunately far too few people actually follow through on these promises.

So please, if you've offered me something, then get it sorted out! Get it down from the attic and send it to me to the address(es) opposite.

12 January 2009: You Tube video channel
I've created a youtube account to gather together Irish rock videos. The username is irishrockorg and if you look at the favourites you'll find them. The following link should do it: irishrock.org youtube favourites. Of course I have no control over videos being removed, etc.
I realise I could probably do the same for myspace pages but it's such an irritating site!

28 October 2008: Lookalikes CD+DVD
Finally got the The Lookalikes set and it looks fantastic! The CD is a little disappointing as it is not a complete discography and the versions used sound like outtakes/alternate versions to me. But the DVD disc makes it worthwhile. The quality is rough but it's the long lost Campus Rock performance and if you think RTE will ever release this [never mind repeat it] you're deluded! Each package contains 3x stickers (there are 6 variations altogether) and a badge. The CD remastering is very bright as is the fashion these days so turn up the bass during playback is my advice.
Due to a manufacturing error, my copy arrived with the CD disc stuck to the packaging. As the glue is quite soft, I was able to peel it open and the CD came off without causing any damage to either the packaging or the CD. I then carefully rubbed the excess glue off the disc and it now plays perfectly. If your copy arrives this way then I suggest some careful manoeuvering to sort it out. If this doesn't work, then contact http://www.snapsmusic.com.

2 October 2008: RIP Derrick Dalton (Hey Paulette, Mexican Pets, Crumb)

1 October 2008: Site Reorganization
Site reorganization is complete. The 60s/70s side of the site is open. Perhaps a master A-Z Artist Index for the whole site would be a useful now.

Speaking of the Seventies, if you have any unique or obscure material on Skid Row (Brush Shiels band) please get in touch. A massive update is being assembled but we need more photos and other ephemera. Personally I also need the first Song label 45 so start sending them in please. I could also use a copy of Time Machine's "Railroad"/"Going Down, Down, Down" 45 released on Play Records. In fast my need for this disc is severe.

Sept 29th: The Lookalikes CD on the Italian Snaps Music label is just out. I haven't got it yet so I can't comment on it's contents. However, it looks tasty: a CD Rom with an audio part and a multimedia part containing band dicography, history and photos; and a DVD disc containing vintage videos. Only 200 copies have been made so get your skates on: www.snapsmusic.com

July 29: A new label called Beat That Records is looking to release archive material by Irish bands, either reissues of obscurities or previously unreleased material. Any Irish bands with vintage recordings should get in touch.

July 14: Site reorganisation drags on; the 60s/70s side is open soon, a preview is now available; a blog for news/updates is under consideration.

June 7:

From Frank Rynne:

Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival Joujouka, Morocco, 29th July 2008

See site for details.

June 5: Site reorganisation nearing completion; the 60s/70s side will be open soon; a better news/updates section so you can see whats changed on the site will also be available soon. Stay tuned.

May 14: A much needed site overhaul is nearing completion (2 days ago I said it was finished but then I discovered something else to tinker with). The upshot of all this restructuring is that each band now gets it's own page.

This change has been a long time coming. Some of the alphabet pages were getting very big and becoming difficult to maintain. I kept running into problems keeping track of updates. This should now be a lot easier.

There are no broken links thanks to Xenu, but if you spot any continuity errors please let me know.

Oct 10: The Fuze release a retrospective CD this week (Friday October 12th). For more details see fuzesounds.com or click the flyer.

Note this is a PDF file which needs Adobe Acrobat.

Oct 3: The Sweat and Clive Culbertson retrospective CDs are now out on 1977 Records (Japan) on LP and CD and they sound terrific!
See www.1977records.com for more details.

Sept: Mario Panciera's 45 REVOLUTIONS book is out. This lists every punk, mod, powerpop, new wave, NWOBHM and indie single issued in the UK and Ireland between late 1976 and 31.12.1979
It's not cheap but the quality really shows in the finished product. Esssential.
Co-conspirator Steve Mitchell has also started a blog.

Sept 4: Discography releases of The Lookalikes and The Sweat are in the pipeline. With regard to the latter, does anyone have vintage photos of Clive Culbertson and/or The Sweat? There don't seem to be many around. I'll have more news about both these comps shortly.

July 25: Sincere apologies again for taking so long to answer email. I've just finished a backlog that dates back to April. The site has now passed the 50,000 hits marker, measuring since January 2004. Not bad...

May 10: The second edition of Joachim Gaertner's discography of indie labels is out now. They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI contains over 4200 label listings. If like me you used to wonder about the gaps in the Teen Beat discography, then you need this book.

Click the cover for more details.

Mar 20: I apologise to everyone who has emailed me over the past few weeks. What little free time I have has been spent on relocating the site and fixing problems. I've also been busy uploading the backlog of photos and scans I was prevented from using in the past due to space restructions. I intend to tackle the email backlog ASAP.

I've also been busy with Kevin Fitz's Golden Horde site which is now almost complete apart from some backgrounds and looks great (even if I do say so myself!). Kevin has generously loaned me lots of material for this site so helping with the Horde site was the least I could do.

Feb 21: I've added a page of video links here

Jan 19: Garry O'Neill is looking for contributions for a book on Dublin youth culture from the 60s-90s.

Click the flyer for more information including contact details.