Back when I was working with Bird at The Factory studios down in Ringsend, the band next door was 'Rollerskate Skinny' which featured our (PAMF) percussionist Clive Carroll on drums. Kevin Shields, the younger brother of Jimi Shields, fronted My Bloody Valentine, and after the nasty mess they left in their wake, Shields moved to New York to start over. While there he met Patti Smith and the two of them formed an unlikely alliance that stills lasts to this day.
The exponential connections from that relationship alone brought notoriety to both Rollerskate Skinny and MBV, though MBV were already a formidable force of their own previously. I never really dug the sound they were going for, but it was certainly impressive that when I was in our space working clicks under headphones, their guitars were louder than ours were. The din was unbelievable. I expected to find them in a candlelight and moody atmosphere, which would have suited their sound nicely. But no: they had every overhead light in the room switched on full, along with a couple of dozen stage lamps also burning a searing white light that blinded me no matter where in the room I stood. That was also how they performed: they couldn't even see who they were playing to, never mind the size of the hall or arena.
Further down the hall was Whipping Boy, Fergal McKee's battle-tank of a band whose post-Pixie's wall of noise approach could be heard out in the fucking car park, never mind swamping the corridors. This was in the early to mid 90s, a time in Irish music when our confidence was at its peak. We were finally on the map, thanks to U2; and every label in the world was flying in to see production shows put together in the studios rather than the stage. Courting global A&R was easier that way: fly them in, do the show privately, negotiate, party, deal done. It was a very interesting time in Irish music but one I could see wasn't going to last. Irish bands distancing themselves from their core audience wasn't a wise move. But Whipping Boy kept it very real. or as Saul Buckett might say: 'real as fuck..'
Whipping Boy: 'We Don't Need Nobody Else'