Punk and Post-Punk in the Republic of Ireland: Networks, Migration and the Social History of the Irish Music Industry

PUNK 3 (1) pp. 49–66 Intellect Limited 2014 Punk & Post-Punk Volume 3 Number 1 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/punk.3.1.49_1 Michael Mary Murphy Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology punk and post-punk in the republic of ireland: Networks, migration and the social history of the irish music industry abstract Keywords Was the early punk movement a more geographically and ethnically diverse milieu Punk that some accounts indicate? A number of key figures in the early punk move- Radiators From Space ment were originally from Ireland including the founders of both Chiswick and Boomtown Rats Stiff Records. This invites the question: how did the Republic of Ireland’s music Chiswick Records scene, which included ‘non-punk’ acts like Thin Lizzy, Horslips and Chris de independent labels Burgh interface with the punk and post-punk movement? This article aims to iden- U2 tify the under-acknowledged contributions of people working behind the scenes in emigration the industry. Specifically it examines the links between individuals, bands and music industry history cities. How did these links help artists? I particularly wish to identify how some of the early bands of the punk and post-punk movement received assistance from established acts. The early business of punk indicates a two-way cultural process: Irish entrepreneurs in London helped to advance the punk movement, while Irish acts, including the Radiators from Space and the Boomtown Rats, benefitted from that punk movement. 49 PUNK_3.1_Murphy_49-66.indd 49 7/17/14 4:13:00 PM Michael Mary Murphy iNtroductioN Like many music scenes around the world, the Republic of Ireland responded to the initial punk movement of 1976–1977. Like many music scenes it also had considerable interaction with other music scenes in other countries. For example, two of the bands cited in John Robb’s 2006 book Punk Rock: An Oral History, The Radiators From Space and The Boomtown Rats, formed in Dublin before relocating to London where they signed record deals. This raises some questions. If London is seen as a centre of cultural production, should it also be seen as a city that has been shaped in part by immigrants? Some songs from the punk and post-punk era connote specific places; both the Radiators and the Boomtown Rats referred explicitly to Ireland on many occasions in their work. Thus the punk and post-punk scene could be identified as a space where Irish artists expressed themselves and helped shape opinions of their homeland. As migrants, these musicians participated in a demographic pattern of outflow from Ireland that saw millions of people depart, with Britain and the United States the most frequent destinations. My aim is to show the ways in which music industry migrants from Ireland, both musicians and behind-the-scenes workers helped form the punk and post- punk scene in Britain. There is an important consequence of identifying how Irish members of the music scene played a role in the development of punk and post-punk. It helps decentralize the punk narrative, frequently represented as emanating from New York and London. The participation of Irish entrepreneurs in the punk movement demonstrates that music genres depicted as British, English or London-based are more ethnically and nationally diverse than they appear at first glance. Accounts of the genre in Ireland frequently focus on Northern Ireland for obvious reasons. As the origin of the Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, the Outcasts as well as the Good Vibrations record label, Northern Ireland deserves a prominent place in punk history. It Makes You Want To Spit (2003) by authors Sean O’Neill and Guy Trelford and Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations (2010) by Terri Hooley and Richard Sullivan provide insight into the vibrant Northern Irish music community. By contrast, very little has been written about the punk scene in the Republic of Ireland, although both of the above-mentioned books refer to it briefly. I want to address this gap in the literature, specifically by examining the behind- the-scenes industry workers and entrepreneurs. Therefore my emphasis is not on the artists and their music, even though both deserve fuller analysis. This is particularly important given that acts like the Radiators and the Boomtown Rats wrote explicitly about Ireland. Further work on how the music of the Republic’s punk and post-punk acts reflected Ireland would be very illuminating. My aim is to identify factors that impacted on the development of punk and post-punk in the Republic. Musicians and music genres require support to gain an audience, in particular when the genre represents any form of breach from established industry patterns. This requires identifying the ways punk was shaped by those advocating and opposing it, both from within the industry and in wider society. In particular, I want to place the contribution of Irish-born London-based individuals in the context of both the Irish music industry and the early punk era in Britain. The links between Ireland’s pre-punk rock bands and the new bands of 1976–1977 provided significant benefits for the latter. The new acts also 50 PUNK_3.1_Murphy_49-66.indd 50 7/17/14 4:13:00 PM Punk and Post-Punk in the Republic of Ireland enjoyed the benefits of contact with experienced industry professionals, many of whom received their training with the earlier rock acts. Of particular significance was the input from Irish emigrant entrepreneurs in London who advanced the careers of the new bands. The support and resources made available to punk and post-punk bands from the Republic of Ireland enabled them to achieve faster and more sustained British chart success than their predecessors. These networks are of value in understanding how the cultural industries provide meaningful support for emerging acts. puNK aNd post-puNK There appears to be a consensus that the period 1976 to 1984 constitutes an historical boundary in which to study popular music genres. Russ Bestley (2012: 41) identified the punk movement between the years 1976 and 1984 as ‘a distinct period in the development of youth culture in Britain’. Another major chronicler of the era’s music, Simon Reynolds (2006), defined the years following the initial 1976 and 1977 punk movement, the period 1978–1984, as an era constituting ‘post-punk’. I am using Reynolds’ classification of acts as ‘post-punk’. Accepting the combined era of punk and post-punk as a ‘distinct period’ for music consumers and producers in Britain invites compar- ative analysis with other national territories. This parameter certainly provides an opportunity to examine the Irish popular music industry. The theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘field’ concept of cultural production (2003) identifies this combination of genre and era as constituting a distinctive field of popular music activity in which artists and genres compete for positions, prestige and resources. I wish to examine the constitu- tion of the punk and post-punk field in the Republic of Ireland. In particular I want to analyse how significant music entrepreneurs, industry personnel and record labels shaped the field. I hope this case-study of cultural flows between Dublin and London illustrates the multiple interactions between centre and periphery in the global entertainment industries. the world of puNK: Music culture as a Global flow Recent scholarly work on punk places the punk movement in a global context. The comprehensive work, The Art of Punk by Russ Bestley and Alex Ogg (2013), includes acts from Northern Ireland and the Republic as well as Europe, Australasia, North America, Latin America and Asia. This approach enables punk to be theorized as an element of global cultural flows, and not just as a centre-to-periphery transmission. It is also consistent with Dave Laing’s (1985) call for a geographically inclusive narrative to explain musical diffusion; the input of cultural producers and consumers outside England needs to be addressed: ‘What did Scots, Welsh, Irish and North American people have to do with the process?’ (Laing 1985: vi). The Irish case provides an illustration of how local producers and consumers engage with popular music and its genres. The production and consump- tion of culture, punk and post-punk in this instance, is influenced by social and industrial factors including the media, the government, and gate-keepers such as established musicians and industry figures. Popular music movements need to be understood simultaneously at global and local level because, for example, punk and its successor ‘post-punk’ are subject to local decoding variations. To some musicians from the Irish Republic, punk and post-punk provided an opportunity to represent a sense of place and identity via their 51 PUNK_3.1_Murphy_49-66.indd 51 7/17/14 4:13:00 PM Michael Mary Murphy 1. Leo Keohane’s (2013) music. This applied even to artists who left the country. For example, the study of the expression found its use in Britain Boomtown Rats’ first British chart topping single ‘Rat Trap’ was identifi- was generally to ably located in Dublin. ‘The Five Lamps Boys’ of the lyric refers to a land- identify Irish trouble- mark in an area of the inner city, while the punks mentioned in the song makers. It was a 1 popular term in Ireland are equated with ‘corner boys’ a distinctly Irish expression. One of their from the 1920s to the songs, D.U.N. L.A.O.G.H.A.I.R.E was an acerbic put-down of their home- 1970s. suburb. Even more emphasis was placed on Dublin in the work of the 2. All British music chart Radiators From Space.

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