Bands I've played in...
OK, this is not a page full of meaningless self promotion crap. I've better shit to be doing with my time...
This is merely the presentation of a few facts about me and the bands I've been in, which if you're interested in recording with me, may be of interest to you.
I'm guessing that the fact that I've been playing/recording/writing tunes for over 10 years will give you an idea of what page I'm on.
OK
Bands I've played with (click on name to read more)
Fingal’s Cave - Sept ’94 – June ’95 (ish)
Veneer – April (ish) 1996 – August (ish) 1997
Moonboot - Late 1998 to April 1999
Tooth - June 1999 to now
Bands I've 'guested' with
Niall Quinn and the Pënnywhores - Drums. 1 gig, the Joey Ramone Cancer foundation benifit tribute night.
22 - Drums, 2 gigs. The 2nd gig was a competition and we came 2nd and won 22 bottles of beer. Anymore 2's here and I'm gonna be dizzy.
Mr Creosote - Bass, 1 gig
Goodnameforaband - Guitar, voice, and drums. Many gigs. Played AMC noisefest, and supported Jet Plane Landing.
Askeaton school play band, the Rock Nativity, guitar. Twas great fun, but the 'music' Eughhgghgugghgh.
Bandog - bass, 2 songs (cos Mike, their bassist, hurt his fingy)
Giveamanakick - guitar, 1 song
Barberskum - Played 1 gig, me on bass, with Wayne on guitar, Frank on vocals and guitar and Niall Quinn on drums.
Captain Stoobing - Guitar/bass, 1 gig. Won a band competition on Kurt Cobain's 1st anniversary with 3 mates I wanted to be in a band with but they went off and became capitalist dildo suckers. For one night we ruled, having only had 1 practice session, we played a gig doing the following songs; Dinosaur Jr - Budge, Wedding Present - My Favourite Dress, Sebadoh - Soul and Fire, Nirvana - School, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, Radiohead - Creep. A good night.
Jesus and Brutus - Guitar/bass/voice. A band with my current gal, with her then boy friend and our mutual pal duck on drums. Another boredom distraction project during college. Did covers of the following; My Bloody Valentine - Soon, Portishead - Glory Box, The Cardigans - Lovefool, Nirvana - Drain You, Placebo - Come Home, The Breeders - Cannonball, Alanis Morisette - Forgiven, U2 - Running to stand still and ended with a performance for bass and tape with spliced movie shit and Stone Rosesque loops which made everyone think we were wierd and made them leave. It was a 24 music marathon. At 4.45AM Tooth played, it was the first time I ever saw them. I was in love. We were in the studio a few months later. I still can't resist Liam's beats.
Arts Block Fiasco - The university arts block in attempting to make the mindless students feel more welcome, had us play some music. I played piano and guitar. Played a sad version of "we are family". ehehrhhghghgheh
Trans Am vocoder crowd announcer - This doesn't really count, but when Trans Am played, correction ROCKED Limerick, (with the amazing The Fucking Champs and Baseball Fury), they used their keyboard vocoder thing lots. After they finished playing, they walked off stage. The time came, as the night was ending, to announce the next AMC gig coming up. With a light bulb flashin on the top of my head, I asked the keyboard guy if I could use his toy to announce the next gig. He said go for it.
Oh what fun we all had as I spoke into the mic while playing 'The Entertainer' (Scott Joplin) telling of the next amc gig. Much laughter and ovaltine was had by all.
Fingal’s
Cave
- Sept ’94 – June ’95 (ish)
Members
of band (varied a bit) – Darren Hurley – guitar, drums, me – guitar, bass,
keyboard, vocals, Ronnie Duignan – bass, drums, Nancy Serrano – Vocals,
Flute, Denise McQuaid – Flute , Stephen Childs – violin, Kevin Brew –
Vocals, Keyboard, personality
The
first band I ever recorded with was Fingal’s Cave, an only OK slightly over
ambitious rather unoriginal but groovy reggae band.
It was mainly my buddy Darren’s brain child.
He’d smoked all kinds of wonderful stuff, and said to me the autumn of
’94 (after returning from an innocence shattering summer of work in the US),
“Man, I want you to play keyboards in my band.
Now no sloppy shit, it has to be precise.
This is REGGAE MAN!”
I
said yes, on condition that I could play a bit of guitar too...
Anyway, we formed the band, wrote some tunes, and decided to have a go at
recording something. This was the
first time I experienced the recording vibe...
We
borrowed a friend’s 4-track (Kev B), and got to work in Darren’s legendary
shed, with a few crappy mics, his pearl export, a $20 bass, my Yamaha PSR393 (piece
of shit) keyboard, his mexican strat, and the amazing Nancy Serrano (now the
love of my life) on classical flute.
We
RECORDED bass and drums onto 3 tracks. Bounced
all them to 1 track. Then filled
the newly cleared 3 tracks with vocals, guitar, keyboard, flute and extra crap
(i.e. with a bit more bouncing around). Then
we MIXED the sounds we had recorded onto a master cassette tape.
Note, all tapes referred to here were crappy normal cassette tapes.
The cock roach of the recorded medium.
Anyway
the mixing part truly blew my mind. The
arranging of the recorded parts amongst the finished sound.
Enough thump on the drums, enough definition and mouldy delay on the
guitar, enough lowness on my vocals which I want nobody to hear the words of
etc.
I'm hooked!
Veneer
– April (ish) 1996 – August (ish) 1997
Ger
Lane – Vocals, guitar, keyboard, Me – Organ, guitar, keyboard, backing
vocals, Colm Ward – Bass, backing vocals, Shane Feighery – Drums, backing
vocals.
As
I was washing the hellish University of Limerick Mechanical Engineering degree
experience from my hair, I hooked up with Veneer in 1996.
I went to secondary school with the drummer, Shane, and was dieing to
play any music in any band at all.
So
they and I hooked up. Main recording experiences with Veneer:
Recording
of ‘Popular One’ single – Dennis Allen Studios (i.e. the guy who wrote
‘Limerick you’re a lady’. A 16-track analog studio, with good separation room, and tops
ride the faders mixing method.
Recording
here truly smashed my recording hymen, whereas previous 4-track experiences
merely sniffed around the edges, so to speak.
It
was the first time, after laying down seperate drum, bass, keyboard and guitar
parts for these songs, and listening to the music coming back at you through the
speakers, that it felt like “FUCKING WOW!
THAT’S US? FUCK!
WE SOUND, .... DECENT!”
A
sort of smashing of an illusion, that a well rehearsed band playing a well
worked tune, recorded well in a decent recording studio, can end up sounding
just as good as any music you’ve ever heard on the radio...
A peak at the emperor’s new clothes...
So it’s true! Prince and
Duran Duran aren’t made of magic golden sugar coated dust!
Or something...
So
with hymen well and truly broken, and my own personal dissatisfaction growing
within this band, cos it was a bit of a dictatorship in terms of songwriting,
which can be fine (eg beach boys, Babybird, FR David etc), but for me it wasn’t
enjoyable, I started to hope while going to practice, that practice would be
called off cos someone didn’t turn up, and then I’d get to record some ideas
on the 4 track (sorry guys, but that’s how it was).
The
gear in Veneer land was tops. A
tascam casette 4 track machine, with sm58s, a ludwig drumkit, telecasters and
semi-solid epiphoney stuff, my new strat, and the most fab organ (can’t
remember the make, but it used to belong to Mike Dwane of previous Limerick
great band ‘The Tear Collectors’). All
music requiring a good drummer, most of the recordings I made during these times
were foul cos I was only learning how to drum.
Well I could play beats fine, but learning how to arrange a song, knowing
how to play as a drummer to a song that is only in my head, was tough to get
right.
The
way I’d record was:
1
– Lay down a drum track (from the song memorised in my head).
Rarely do more than one take.
2
– Lay down a bass part, discover that the song is missing a bar or 2 or that
there’s a fuckup on the take at 2 mins 38 seconds.
Say "fuck it anyway", and decided to finish it off anyway to see what it
sounds like.
3
– Bounce 2 tracks of drums (kick and overhead) and bass to 1 track.
4
– Record guitar, ac guitar, keyboard, vocals or whatever else on the remaining
tracks.
If
I didn’t have any songs ready to record I’d just record a cover version of
something. I recall recording
“Total Eclipse of the heart” without trying to figure out the chords for it
beforehand. Just did the drums, a
sloppy bass, and then the rest of the bits. Sometimes interesting results.
Results
of these several 100 hours of recording voyages were.
1
– I’ve decided that each recording is a sonic voyage.
With a band, or moreso with me (making each part up as I’m recording it
almost), the recording process is a voyage through lands that meet questions,
and the answers you choose to these questions take you to different places.
But the good part is there is no wrong answers.
Some answers will end you up in the ‘Tom Waits watered desert mud flap
cat astrophic elipse folding’ netherregions, and other answers will lead you
to ‘shiny Nik Kershaw no hiss at all this song just writes itself’ land.
Usually
I ended up in the former.
2
– New strings and drum skins and all that do mean a better sound, but I never
had the arse or the money to be bothered investing in that stuff.
3
– Compression makes stuff sound louder! Guhh...
Other
cool stuff with Veneer,
-
Recording with
a dude in Galway for free after he saw us play in UCG bar.
He said he was off to the states and he needed to beef up his recording
CV with some projects and that he’d do us for free.
He showed us the ace recording approach of “Look if there’s a fuck up
in the take, let’s do it again, rather than having to wet ourselves during the
mix with so much shit to worry about while riding the faders."
-
This is indeed
a good way of doing things, but recording over a mistake can remove the magic
from a recording. I usually leave
in mistakes and take them out at the end if I don’t like them.
Often the shit ‘you couldn’t have done if you tried’ ends up
sounding most magical, cos you didn’t try!
It was an accident!
-
Recording with
Fergal (can’t remember second name) in Curragh Chase studios.
Some of the shit we did there made me think twice about being unhappy in
Veneer. Some of it sounded really
good. I always said, for some
reason, the best I can
hope for in this band is to achieve a recording as good as REM’s ‘Perfect
Circle’ (off ‘Murmur’). One
tune ‘Narrow’ did so. But some
of the other shit which I thought ruled, was axed by the other 3 guys.
On the strength of such decisions, the end of my time with Veneer was
nigh.
-
Coming
3rd in the ******** (fuck
off beer company, no free advertising here)
green energy weekend bollox thing in Dublin, we were the only non-Dublin band to
make it into the final. I hate band
competitions. But it was a nice,
‘could have won it if we wanted to’ sort of pat on the back of our sacks.
But my heart wasn’t really into it.
I remember Uaneen Fitzsimmons (blessings, RIP) coming down to the
dressing room of the Temple Bar Music Centre saying “ye were great guys”,
and I couldn’t hand on heart really agree with her.
We were only OK, and competitions still are bullshit.
Moonboot - Late 1998 to April 1999
OK, Moonboot. How to write about this band....
Well immediately the phrase 'bucket of acid' comes to mind. A litre of genius trapped inside a pint bottle full of rusty gold plated nails.
Moonboot was a fully fledged unit before I joined. The line up was made up as follows,
Dave Magnier - Bass, tinwhistle, Graham Conway - Keyboards, Ray Murphy - Drums, backing vocals, Ed Daly - Guitar, Vocals
As tight as you like, having existed in a previous realm as 'Slinky', easily the best covers band in town, Moonboot were formed in late 1997 (says Mark hazarding a guess). The bands on the scene at the time were a very young Tooth, Medic, The Hitchers, Figment and (the great) Cirrus Minor to name but a few.
These were the days before the AMC, and to get a gig bands had to approach venues themselves, and not just simply wait for the AMC to plant a support slot in their laps...
Moonboot's polished sound and top musicianship got sometimes lost on a crowd who weren't always there to listen to a band but were moreso just up for a mosh. I recall seeing Tooth and Moonboot playing together upstairs in Costelloe's once. A bit like seeing my future. But twas certainly a game of 2 halves. Moonboot laid down their smoove tunes on the earlier part of the evening, and got the audience grooving and thinking. Then Tooth played, blew everyone's ears off and made the place go insane. But sure isn't variety the spice of life!
Anyway, Moonboot and I hooked up to record their first demo in the UL studio. It was my first attempt at recording a band, so the 8 tracks were, 3 drum tracks, 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 keyboard, 1 vocal, and 1 for backing vocals and cat strangling.
The demo recorded consisted of these songs; Forever Now, Too Late, Spagetti Western, and I see you. Despite the crap drum sound, which Ray and I dispute, the mixes were very much a case of "push up the faders and there's the song". Well almost. So well crafted and rehearsed were these guys, that it all sat real well.
Memories of that session;
Forever Now - "The stars are a light shining through holes in the sky"
Hearing Eddie sing 'Too Late'. Says I to he afterwards, "Fuck man, you're a good singer. A bit like Jim Morrison, d'you know what I mean like." "Jesus, nice one," says he back to me.
Fiddling with the mix of 'Forever now' and wrestling with it and going a bit insane (as it was my first ever recording job), and then a class mate Donnacha Jr O'Maidin walks into the studio and whispers into my ear "hey Mark, you should try using those compression buttons, they make it sound all nice." So I gave it a go, and magically the red sea of clashyness parted in the sound, and it started to sit better. I'm sure if I stuck at it, without using the compression button, I could have made it sound sweet, but fuck it, whatever works.
Vocal extras from Ray on 'forever now'. Mad soaring theremintastic sounding siren type star trek black babe soundtrack singing, really gave it that extra %s to push it into platinum selling single coutry.... or something...
Recording of hidden track "the sound of my brain melting" where the polish was put away and the 'pin cushion heroin junky 1 good vein left weston bats' came out to play. A bucket of acid of a recording, consisting of an intial groove laid down by ed on drums and ray on bass, then with an over dub of the lads just going insane around the one mic, tin whistles, roaring, screaming, laughing, the odd word, sounding like a paedophile priestess's ex husband got one parking ticket too many. I always thought this was the real lads. Totally hilarious, totally insane, totally whizz kid. It's nowhere near being called a song. More like sonic art. An all bets are off sound collage after the initial spoken word intro of "this is the sound of my brain melting! Oooooh" Whoever has heard this track knows what I mean.
Mark Joins Moonboot; So the dynamic of me joining this band was a bit like being on the rebound. Graham wanting to explore his electronica hardon that wouldn't quit, left on amicable terms to form Sub-Zero (now signed to Junior Sanchez's NYC based label).
I had just left Veneer. I wasn't really ready for a 'relationship' just yet. But Moonboot in search of a keyboardist, bought me a drink at the bar and said, "but we're not that kind of band." But I insisted, "what kind of slut do you take me for?" "But honey, of course your ass doesn't look big in that..." etc
Bla bla. So we signed a prenuptual agreement where by I was satisfied that if I was joining that what I was bringing to the table would get 25% custody of the kids. In other words, I didn't want to join if it was a 1 songwriter only type of band. I think that was around Nov or Dec of 1998
So with a big professional head on us, we entered into a full on creative streak, renting a practice space in Limerick Boatclub (easily the best place to make music on earth, with the river shannon flowing around both sides of the building, sitting as it does in the middle of Sarsfield bridge). 4 or 5 days a week we'd rehearse here. All of us were unemployed, and not ashamed of being artists, no matter how much the "go away and get a fucking job would you" Celtic tiger roared in our faces.
It was also a period of considerable health for us. Every day we'd buy dinner at the dunnes stores salad bar. Vitamin and iron fueled rock and roll, that was us.
The tunes we came up with were definitley a new Moonboot. I was sorry to see the old one go, but my style just aint like Graham's. With me, they got a keyboard player with guitar player bonus features. Although we worked on songs that we wrote at home and brought to the rehearsal room, the moment of creation of some of the best stuff came from totally the bottom of the bucket of acid.
The Birth of BUS PASS; Bus Pass came about when Dave was fucking around on my keyboard while I munched an extra healthy salad sandwich. Dave stuck a plectrum in the 'minus' button of the sound selection button, making it jump between each sound type at the rate of 5 per second. Apart from sounding cool, this '5 different timbres per second' sound rubbed my music technology brain in all the right ways...
Playing a big power chord with his left hand and playing 2 stupid answering notes with his right hand, the riff was born. We all looked at each other and giggled, "that sounds cool". Ray jumped on drums. With Dave at the bridge, I sat my Ensign ass down at the keyboard. It turned into an over and back thing between A and F major. That night ed took it home and added the Emajor and gmajor shapely bits. Needing a 'middle 8' to break the attention, we pasted a complete trip hop load of nonsense in the middle. Ed wrote the lyrics, born out of all kinds of shit, including a lot of the jokes that were making us tick at the time. Bus Pass was born. And because it's a great song and is the ultimate tribute to the god of 'buckets of acid', and without any of the lads permission I'm going to write the lyrics up here cos I think they are great...
Verse 1
Tonight I gonna whip the fairies right out of my head.
Drink a bottle of fire and be smoking burnt tires
With toilet cleaner speed and a needle in my eye.
Go to the races with a feather in my cap
Make my self a little drink with old christmas ham.
(Chorus) Cos a coward dies a thousand times
And there flies in my eyes and fire in the skies
But I'm alright, I'll be alright. I'm alright, I'll be alright
Protect my naked body with a broken brolly
Apocalypse pants and a stolen bus pass.
Verse 2
Cos I've been burned out and inside
There's a crack in my mind and the sky's gonna rain balls of
Fire when the black hole appears tonight and
Nostradamus is waiting outside
NOSTRADAMUS!
next line is different in the 2 versions we recorded of it. Here's the first version, followed by the second...
1; Oooahooo, he's a right scary fiend!
2; Mr Nostradamus, LEEEAVE MEE ALOOOONNNNNE!
Repeat chorus
Acid al infinitum...
Dunno if it reads as well as it plays. If we ever get our finger out of our ass and have our people sort out the paper work, there may exist some day a best of Moonboot, posthumously glorifying the band that nobody ever got at the time.
In my time with Moonboot, apart from a few German movie porn soundtracks tunes and a few unfinished sympathies, we recorded 10 tunes in the UL studio. These songs were Sogeyes, Bus Pass, Hour Till June, Blowbird, The Holy Hijacker, Swing Low (judas iscariot), The Drinkin song, Forcefeed, Crowicide.
A few trivia notes about these songs.
The Holy Hijacker: A story which was on the news at the time of our existance made us laugh so much that we dedicated a song to it.
There was a guy, an underwater Irish guy who controlled the sea. He got on a plane one day and decided to hijack it. Surely the guy was a terrorist who hated freedom loving nations I hear you say. No. His demand was not Isreali withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories, it was not US acknowledgement the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, it was not 3rd world debt cancellation.
His demand was to know the 3rd secret of Fatima! What the fuck is that? Well, long ago, the virgin Mary appeared to some heads (or something) and gave the world 3 secrets. I think it happened in Fatima. Well the first 2 have been released by the catholic church, but the 3rd hasn't. I dunno what the first 2 are. But apparently one Pope did have a look and read the 3rd secret, and after he read it his face went white and he collapsed and nearly died etc.
It seems, the 3rd secret is some nasty shit. Does the world have a bad ending awaiting it? Surely not. Anyway, this guy, who we christened the Holy Hijacker, hijacked a plane in desparation to find out the 3rd secret. Ah sure fair fucks to him for taking direct action.
The song itself was an instrumental sounding like Black Flag and Red Snapper doing the cover of a James Bond Flick that went straight to video...
Blowbird - The title of this song stems from 2 ideas; And it is also a bit of a rip off of 'Blackbird' but don't tell Macca that!
1 - Receiving head on a bed. At the window of the bedroom a little bird lands and starts to sing beautifully. Receiver of the head asks himself "Can life get any better?"
2 - At the Willy Clancy festival in Milltown Malbay in Co Clare (2nd week of July, 9day insane trad music festival, after Glastonbury usually), we met 2 gents from Kerry. They liked to have a good time. We did as the Romans did when in miltown, untill about 6AM. As the sun rose beautifully from the sloping Clare rugged countryside, one of the Kerry gents lit up a joint. As he tugged away, he smiled and savoured this moment of perfection. He paused for a moment and said "Jaysus, d'you know what? I'd fuckin love it now if a little robin came along and landed on my joint!"
I laughed for about 10 minutes. Nothing to do with the fact that I myself was out of my head of course. It was what he said, the delivery of it, the thought of a robin actually landing on his joint and him happily puffing away, the happiest man on earth. All his life, he was only waiting for that moment to arrive. But the robin never came. Ah well. The thought counted.
Both of these birds are blowbirds. Blowbird. Aw yeah!
Bus Pass - One person had a bus pass for a sore leg that they had. This person shared the bus pass with other persons, to get all the persons asses in and out from Charleville or some such town.
Hour till June - It's an hour till June from NOW.
The drinking song - "We go mad from drink and we know it. Guinness. Scrumpy Jack. Carling. Buckfast. Cailc milk. Tia Maria. Vodka and red bullshit."
The guitar solos by me and Ed were laid down separately for this song. Without listening to each other's ideas, we wanked separately. Afterwards when we turned up both tracks and listened to them side by side it was unbelievable. They clicked so well, even though they were totally differently vibey. It were as though god and satan walked through the room while we recorded it.
Sogeyes - I ripped off Beethoven's 'moonlight sonata' for the intro to this piece. So sue me Ludwig. Copying is the sincerest form of flattery, don't they say...
Swing low - "But he didn't mind he just said "fuck it! I'm gonna steal a bus and drive it off a cliff." Swing low, Judas Iscariot, Swing low."
Crowicide - "...burn this hangmans's rope into a strand of light that I can hold onto..."
Forcefeed - "Force feed me my own shit."
I played 4 gigs with this band. Then we split up cos there were Acid planes landing in our airports too much. Maybe the intense hard work just burnt us all out.
But it was OK, cos a month later Tooth asked me to join there band!
OK, Tooth. How to write about this band...
Well apart from not having as many 'o's in their title as Moonboot, I settled in quick enough.
For a long time I had wanted to be in a band like Tooth. I felt too lucky. A year previously I said to myself, the 2 bands I'd like to play with the most in Limerick were Tooth and Moonboot. Don't look know, 2 out of 2. Moonboot ending wasn't my idea. It was a consensus based closing for business decision. Lives evolving.
Tooth's practice space was more perfect than I could have imagined. The shittiest dampest manky carpet clad cigarette burned shithole at the bottom of Shane's garden.
Before I go on, here's a picture of Tooth in full flight, taken by my gal Nancy Serrano (who has taken lots of tooth pics but never gotten any credit for it) at Knockrockstock 1999 (I think). It speaks more than any words I can ever type...
We sounded like shit (no soundcheck), we were drunk, we just got out of a car which had drove for 4.5 hours all the way from Limerick, and though this picture is bright, this venue was pitch black. It was midnight. And it was one of the most fuckrockin gigs we ever did. Every one just went mad, including us.
We practiced lots, wrote lots of tunes, hit the road, played Limerick, Cork, Galway, Knockrockery, Longford, Monaghan, Dublin, Belfast.
We recorded 'That Corporate Emotion' and sold all 500 copies of it which we pressed up. Well we gave one or 2 away also.
We nearly supported Fugazi. We played the best (3rd last) show of our lives at the High Stool in Limerick in June 2002. We played our last gig in Cork in July 2003. We got drunk, Ray broke 1 glass, and many of us were kicked out of the hotel and slept in cars. Rock and roll ending to a non rock and roll ending band. bla bla whatever...
I'm off to the pub. Here's some shit Fionn typed earlier for the launch gig of "That Corporate Emotion".
Cavity
Search
Tooth
Launch Fecal Special
OK.
Happy days are here again. Everyone
here tonight gets to go home afterwards and stick on at FULL BLAST at 4 in the
morning the new Tooth CD. And sure
why not?
So what goes into
a Cavity Search special about Tooth. Well,
we are unmodestly assuming some of you might be interested in how the fuck we
got to this position... If not tear this up now and go to the bar.
If not then draw near.......
Liam met Steve in
Ard Scoil playing guitar in a classroom which surprisingly is an activity which
is encouraged at this school. Rock
on Ard Scoil (and all the ard scoil wankers).
In Muchin's you lucky to the
key to the piano room. Anyway, on
that day, Shane happened to be in the next room jamming with another boy (called
Paul). The 3 hit it off and a 4th boy called Cian made up the
ensemble then known as Nero who practiced in Shane's bedroom. They played their first gig in Costelloes back in 1996 with
the Plastic Egyptians (where are they now?).
Finding out that there was another bunch usnig the
name Nero, they picked the next word in the dictionary of words that mean not
that much. Thus Tooth was born.
Tooth played
another few gigs, listened to loud bands like Soundgarden, Sleep, Helmet, Kyuss
and Boyzone, wrote a wad of tunes and after saving up some, went into Xeric
Studios (RIP) in September of 1997 to record the demo that became known as 'Sunday
Songs'
Recording 'Sunday Songs' - This happened in 2 days with (ex-Radar now Novocaine
bass player) Fergal O'Neill on engineering duties. It began with 'Headache' the then showpiece of Tooth's riff
factory which still gets a run in gigs these days. The other 3 songs were Q, Locust, RPM most of which are now
in the bin, for some reason, but will surely get a run over in the 2040 reunion
wheelchair Tooth tour of the Pacific Rim. Overall
the deom was impressive as a first outing in a studio.
It was sent to NME, Metal Hammer and hot press where it met with good
responses (not that that matters a fuck).
After that it was back to the gigs/swatting for the
leaving/practicing. In April '98
Tooth played a 24 hour charity band marathon thing in UL, one of the only
worthwhile events run by UL music soc who subsequently got sanctioned for the
damage caused to the surrounding video games during the night in the student
centre. Another act on the night
was 'Jesus and Brutus' a band which existed for exactly one week and featured
Mark on guitar/singing a load of quickly fucked together covers.
The reasons for the existance of that band was to quench the thirst of
musical activity that existed in the music tech. cource in UL
This thirst was not only quenched but got funky with torrential Niagra
shit when Mark saw Tooth. Was it
Cian wearing his 'fun to be a punk rock loser' shirt and looking like an evil
big eyebrow bastard but then turning out to be a gentleman when you talk to him?
Was it Stephen with his 'I can play guitar with my head below my knees
and subsequently redefine shoe gazing as we know it? Was it Liam who did that look up at the ceiling when singing
hypnosis thing on the sleep deprived onlookers? Was it Shane, being spotty and long haired behind the drums
giving it loads and breaking a stick or 2?
No it was when
they played headache and the main riff made the 3 left hands of the 3 right
handed boys playing their axes move in synch which reminded Mark of Take That so
much that he whimpered with delight and threw his undies (albeit wet with sweat)
at the stage.
The following
September Tooth went into the studio in UL with Mark to record 'Frowno'.
Recording 'Frowno' - Mark doesn't really know what he's doing.
A class mate advises him just before recording begins 'Jesus, I'd use
more than 3 mics on the drums for this metal band if I were you.'
OK. Tooth are saved from a
crappy drum sound. Mark asks the
lads to play a tune live in the studio to get the levels right and to make him
look as if he know what he's talking about.
They run through Perfect Teeth. Wow.
(note: I realise self praise laws are being broken left and right here,
but fuck it, this is a story worth telling).
The tunes that get recorded are 'Corona', 'Last
Time' (at 8 minutes long, it was a bitch to mix, i.e. fuck up one fader level
and it's back to the start again), 'Perfect Teeth', and 'Cyanide Sweetener'.
Notable events -
·
Stephen putting acoustic guitar down over the start of last time you can
barely make it out though on the final mix, Shane suggesting putting a triangle
sound in the stop bit of last time which arose much debate but produced the
classic line from Paul T 'why are ye even talking about it'.
The triangle didn't make it onto the final recording.
·
Liam standing behind a screen and mark looking over it without him
knowing to watch him do the scream at the end of Perfect Teeth to see that he
doesn't damage the expensive mic.
·
The tape machine chewing up the tape nearly ending the existance of
Cyanide. We breathe deeply.
Hours of work down the drain. But
the tape behaves itself long enough to mix the fucker.
The mix ends up OK. Mark
plays a low organ note on some of it.
·
3 days later. Bouncing new
baby demo.
A launch in the warehouse happens later with free
pints of guinness for the first 50 and a free demo tape for everyone there. Support on the night comes from Medic. A great night of rock and roll ends with a lights on version
of Lucifer Glue sniffer after the bouncers fuck a load of people out for moshing.
Forgive them, they know not why they are monkeys.
The clock ticks on.
Tooth rock on. Mark gives
Tooth a ring. 'Lads it's my last
week in the studio. Do you want to
do another demo?' A reluctant yes. They wonder what tunes to do. The finished product ends up with 2 of Tooth's best tunes and
another 2(for one reason or another) bin bound.
Recording 'Some songs' - The tunes that go down are 'First', 'Thursday',
'Mud Song' and 'Lucifer Gluesniffer'. The recordings are disturbed by lecturers expressing their
'Ah no not these loud bastards again!' Cian
alerts Mark "There's a man at the door of the studio giving out and
shouting at me!' Mark tells the
angry man, 'Do you realise who this band is?
This is Tooth and your interrupting their flow of artistic mojo, man!
Are you out of your beeping mind?' The
angry man retreats humbly to his little office.
The recordings push on.
First features some new funky moves.
Vibrato guitar breaks, electronified bass drum during the middle 12 and
the real time turning up of the distortion level on Liam's RAT pedal from the
middle 12 into the last chorus for that boiling over dynamic effect.
On the chorus of First, Cian leaves out the note on
the top chord. The lads aren't sure
about it. 'That's not what you
usually play, is it?' 'It is.' We listen back. Cian
says 'I think that's cool!' It is
cool. It stays.
Thursday is a bitch to record being so long and the
middle bit, having to count the clicks to see how many times the circular riff
gets played. It's another 8 minuter.
Loads of fun to mix. At the
end of day 4 baby demo number 2 exists. The
only song of the 4 to make it onto 'Some Songs' is First.
Also on 'Some Songs' is 'Headache' and 'Cyanide Sweetener'. These 3 tunes give the best cross-section of Tooth's sound.
At gigs, the self burned off 1 by 1 CDs sell like luke warm cakes, i.e. a
fair few folks take the risk and buy it.
For one last time Mark records Tooth around March
'99 for the ULSU unplugged album. The
lads throw together an acoustic version of First.
Arrive out to the studio very drunk.
The track is recorded amd mixed in about 5 hours.
Ride, snare, guitar, guitar, bass, 3 vocal tracks.
Vocal harmony ideas are tried out, to fill out the chorus.
Mark says 'Liam keep doing what your doing, Cian you stay up and Stephen
hold the lower note.' We listen
back. Sounds like cellos. Happiness
in the nappiness.
For reasons that
are nobody's business, Cian and the other 3 members of Tooth agree to seperate.
Shortly afterwards, Mark's then ensemble Moonboot kick the bucket with
both feet. Mark joins Tooth in June
'99. Like a black swan to white
water.
After a fair bit
of practicing and gigs in Costelloe's / Baker Place, Tooth decide to organise a
tour. Shane books a load of gigs
with anyone who will have us. The tour sees stops in Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway,
Monaghan, Kilkenny and of course Roscommon and Longford.
The 6 gigs in 8 days with Seany, Dave and Richard selflessly joining in
on car driving duties turns into the best crack and the best way to seeing this
fair Isle of ours in the month of August. Going
to a town, playing to a crowd you've never met before and tem suddenly giving
you flowers at the end of the gig takes some beating.
Highlights of that tour include
·
The man who danced the splits while in front of us in the Monaghan gig.
Surely he's a Russian gymnast?
·
Drinking in the branches of an apple tree out the back of Batty O'Brien's
at Knockrockstock '99, Roscommon. Liam
getting a twig shoved down his throat.
·
The breakfast the morning after the Sally Longs gig in Galway.
Mark experiences total peace with his rashers and eggs and tea and toast.
He tries to start 'the church of the full Irish breakfast' but then
doesn't bother.
·
The wanker sound engineer in the TBMC who put a pitch changer on Liam's
vocals after we went over time by 2 minutes.
We have the tape to prove it. What
a monkey.
·
Seeing/getting to know Puget Sound at Batty O'Brien's.
Shane joining them onstage to play crash cymbal.
·
The Warehouse gig at the end of it all.
Playing our hearts out. Stephen
abusing the bouncers at the end for throwing people out 'You make playing here
every time such a pleasure. Come in
here and take a bow!'
In November '99
the AMC is born to Con Cremin, Ray Murphy and Liam Marley.
The first gig happens in Costelloe's.
Tooth play first and leg it down to Cork to play with Earthtone 9 in the
Phoenix in Cork. A mad gig.
The Cork crowd show us how it's done.
Every music liking kid in town metaller/punk/student are in the moshpit.
Ten Point Rule get the place hopping.
An explosion of a band. Really
powerful live show. We've got to
get them up to Limerick again. Cork's
best kept secret. Tooth next.
Then Earthtone 9. Afterwards
we all swap Tooth CDs. A week later
Earthtone 9 email expressing interest in releasing tunes of ours on a new label
they are thinking of setting up. This
raises a few eyebrows at home. Still
stewing is that idea. Might happen
yet.
Then in December, Mark finally finishes 'Nobody
gives a fuck so why should we' compilation for charity.
It features 6 Limerick bands Ember, Medic, Triskil, Barberskum, Moonboot,
and Tooth. A launch gig happens in
Costelloe's. 3 Tooth tunes on it
are 'First' acoustic, 'Cyanide Sweetener' and previously unreleased 'Thursday'.
The reviews are good. But
the CD is a limited edition affair. Good
crack though. Triskil's last gig. Went
out with a bang including on the floor pile up at the end of 'Killing in the
name of'.
Between people working, studying, heading off for 6
weeks etc. the Tooth work rate decreases a little bit.
In April they manage to squeeze gigs in in Dublin, Kilkenny, Ballymahon
and Knockroghery. Mad gigs in the
midlands once again. Both gigs
supported by then Antihero (now Nerdlinger).
Knockroghery gig goes nuclear when playing Thursday.
Shoes end up in the piano. Mark
meets kid in jax afterwards washing blood off their recently cut bass thumb and
smashed nose respectively. Memories
eh?
Realising the
importance of the old recorded medium, Tooth hook up with buddy Seanie Sean and
begin recording what will become 'That Corporate Emotion'.
Recording 'That Corporate Emotion'
- This really dragged on a bit. Without
the 'get the fucker finished' pressure of the old days, the slow mode crept into
these recordings. It was
originally going to be a split 7" with Medic.
But Medic find it hard to get recording done.
Tooth rethink the whole thing anyway as £500/£1000 is a lot of money to
be forking out on such projects. We
hear of a place in Dublin that is doing 500 CDs for £500.
We decide on the CD option. By
the time we finish the £500 offer is gone.
It's now £1000. We decide
to persevere with the fucker. Spend
time on getting the mixes right. A
few bits of info on 'TCE'
·
Stick in 'Corona' live despite its slightly embarrasing screamy bit at
the end, captures the vibe of that tour of last year.
·
Liam's vocal take on 'Obscene groove machine' is carried out behind a
curtain. We now reckon satan joined
him in front of the mic for those takes.
·
Mark's scream on 'Arbogast' is a take one scream, there was to be no take
2.
·
We had a cool phone thing (like a DMFT dial tone) worked out for the end
of Generation Swine but we forgot to put it in. DOH!
·
Stephen played some guitar through a small 15W mini Marshall amp,
something that wont be happening at gigs.
·
Shane thought up the name 'that corporate emotion' because he's a
corporate rock whore.
·
We will be charging £4 for it at gigs, £5 in record shops.
We hope this is an OK price. Money
sucks farts, but we have debts to pay...
·
Mark makes shit of the inlay sleeve by putting in 'Recorded by Seanie
Sean Harrold, Mark O'Connor and ourselves'.
This pisses the lads off a bit ranging from 'what is this 3 + 1
situation' to 'it could have been worded a bit better'.
Mark apologises in person and on the website guestbook.
And it's all A OK now.
Words of thanks:
Richard Bourke:
Richard is the man. The 5th
Tooth. He is the wind beneathe our
wings, the car under our ass, the gigabyte amongst our website, the guitar
collector amongst our collection of guitars, the man who does the sound at AMC
gigs. We'd be pretty fucked without
him. He has unselfishly shared his
resources with us while also putting up with our shit.
He's quite a guy. He's
gorgeous!
Seanie Sean
Harrold: Seanie is the man.
No better man to swing a cat in a studio, to go way and get bombed with,
to have the same first name twice. No
greater love hath a man for a band than to give up the use of his only studio
for a ridiculous length of time and get fuck all out of it except a good record.
Your the man.
Mike Divine:
The man who puts kerd into Husker Du.
When we dug as deep into our 11th hour pockets and still fell short, the
bank of Mike was open to unselfishly supplement our CD while going without food
himself for a week.
Dave Marley: Hither
tither how oft whence whitherforth thereafter wherefore but go at once.
Dave is the man. He knows all the words to the Primus tunes and is great at
saying 'Aaaeauaaegh' like a
contrary old man. He also drove us
around Ireland a bit and knows his shit. And
we know his shit too and it is a pleasure to know it.
Our families:
For showing no interest whatsoever in our music and failing to understand
what sort of tree we're barking up at all at all OR for always being supportive
and letting us use the shed (as the case may be).
Our lovers:
We love you for now, untill we get really famous and something better
comes along.
The AMC: For
using our gear at loads of gigs and not paying us too much money for it.
That's a joke by the way. We
are happy to lend our gear if it decides whether a rock and roll band coming to
town or not.
To all Djs:
Who have fuck all amps and shit to carry around except their needles and
their vinyl. Isn't it weird the way
you get paid crazy large sums of money to play someone else's music and people
playing original music make fuck all? Whatever
be the case, please stop saying that the days of the musicians/guitarists are
over. The computer is an exciting
little machine but it will never make good music on its own. Keep the head.
End of cavity search
Resulting family tree from these projects...
So what happened since? Did bambi die?
Tooth: I'm doing my own solo shit, Stephen is in Giveamanakick (with Lala from Calzino Fiasco), Liam is playing bass with Mr Creosote and drums with The Poke, Shane is in Galway/Palestine (at time of writing) pursuing the worthwhile area of Human Rights law and probably doing better work than any rocker on earth...
Moonboot - Ray, Ed and Dave are joined by a 4th dude (and cos I'm shit with names I can't remember his) in 'The Jeckyll Brothers'. Graham is with Sub Zero.
Veneer - As far as I know they are still together playing approximately 3 gigs per year. I tell them to turn up the productivity level on their output every time I meet them...
Fingal's Cave - Darren dropped the drums and guitar and fell in love with Irish trad music. He now tours the world playing trad on fiddle and bozouki. Dunno about the rest...