Teenage Kicks
Looking for my teenage kicks, I ventured out to socialise with my mates and the other sex in pubs and dance halls. Borderland was the dance hall where I heard my first live show bands, but it was at home where I first heard them on the record player. We went to see Big Tom and the Mainliners, The Freshmen, Miami, and The Memories. I remember The Indians well, their distinctive outfits! According to the Irish-Showbands website, as of 29 March 2017 there has been 991 showbands in Ireland. The Clipper Carlton show band was from Strabane, my home town, and are credited with starting the whole showband craze in the 1950s. In the mid-fifties, the showbands started touring England during Ireland’s - off season - Lent. In September, 1958, the band made their first trip to the United States, becoming one of the biggest acts in Ireland. Trialling various formats the band produced a show and ventured into cabaret, dressing up and impersonating the stars of the day. The history of the show band era – 30 years from the late 40’s to the early 70’s with most acts travelling across Ireland playing in the hundreds of ballrooms and parochial halls in most parishes in the country. People could dance 7 nights, if they wished. The film, the Ballroom of Romance, based on a short story by William Trevor, charts the life of a girl in stultifying 1950’s Ireland trying to find love in the local dance hall. Buy the books here
On Sunday evenings, during the 70’s, my friends and I went to the other side of the Inishowen Peninsula to Buncrana to hear Irish Folk music in the form of Plantxy, Clannad, The Bothy Band, Aleagh Folk and various other traditional musicians and singers. It helped that the ‘Free State’, as we used to call the Republic of Ireland, in our younger days allowed the purchase of alcohol, in contrast to the closure of pubs in the North.
The Undertones is a seminal punk rock band from Derry, Northern Ireland. I heard them first in the late 1970s, in a notorious grungy bar – The Casbah. Indeed, Casbah Rock was written about it. Their music, as exemplified by their stunning Teenage Kicks, did not reflect the violence all around them but the teenage angst of pimples, girlfriends and having a good time with their mates. As one young Casbah patron quipped; ‘Five pints of Smithwicks, ten Embassy Regal, The Undertones at the Casbah and no girlfriend – heaven’.
I loved rock music, and went to see the Derry rock bands like King Rat and Toe Jam who often played at the ‘dive’, The Casbah. I first dated my wife-to-be at a Toe Jam session in a Donegal hotel. Horslips, a celtic-rock supergroup, the fusion of rock and traditional Irish was inspirational to me. They formed in 1970 and retired in 1980 for an extended period. By another co-incidence, they reformed first in Derry at an exhibition of their early memorabilia. The name originated from a spoonerism on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse which became “The Four Poxmen of The Horslypse”.
Thursday night at 7.30, Top of the Pops on BBC1 was a must for any teenager. We all continued to watch it into our twenties. at the college. In November 1979, it got its largest audience of 19 million due to ITV, the other main station being on strike. The radio countdown of the charts was played on a Tuesday lunchtime, another must. During my secondary school days, we listened in my friend, Liam’s house. A bit more sophisticated form of musical performance was on The Old Grey Whistle Test, which aired on BBC2 from the 1970s to 1988, in a late-night slot. It was a favourite of mine, presented by whispering Bob Harris, because of his quiet voice and laid-back style. The show focused on albums, rather than chart hits that were covered by Top of the Pops. It was more rock-hippie orientated but that belittles the eclectic mix of the performers. De La Salle college was centred at Hopwood Hall, outside of Middleton, Manchester and was the ancestral country home of the landed gentry of Hopwood who had held it from the 12th century. In the old hall was the Sunday night disco, another must, 10CC’s hit single, I Am Not In Love, was played first and repeated often.
Van Morrison broke out of his working-class roots in the Belfast of the 1950s and the 1960s. His early musical influences were his father’s record collection, his mother’s singing, the Orange bands, and the local music scene. With a few hit records, ‘Gloria’ - an iconic Van Morrison song and according to Gerald Dawe, his biographer, was an anti-establishment anthem of the 1960s - the first punk record! Morrison’s breakout was happening - influenced initially by the blues of his father’s collection; Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and John Lee Hooker. George Jones, a well-known Northern Irish showband performer, played with Van Morrison in the Monarchs. Jones remarked in Dawe’s book that Morrison “wrote poetry. It was deep... most of us didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“There was music there in the Derry air. Like a language that we all could understand.” The city is a city of song and musical talent. Unfortunately, my wife and I did not inherit that talent though my daughter did. Despite the Troubles continuing in Derry and Northern Ireland, we still socialised with a group of friends, entertaining ourselves in the local pubs and music venues of Derry and Donegal. Read about Van Morrison here. More music info here. Teen hotos here. Buy the books here
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© Hugh Vaughan 2023
Below the Undertones at the old Casbah
