Radiators/Cait info heading into Croke Park
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:17 pm
The Evening Herald , Dublin .
June 23 '05
High Fidelity - Eamonn Carr
Calt O’Riordan plays with the Radiators In the electric run-up to Croke Park’s big headline act
LAST summer saw the return of seminal Dublin punk band the Radiators.
There were a couple of changes to the line-up that had once blazed a trail the Boom-town Rats later followed.
This time around, the bass guitar of Cait O’Riordan anchored the fanciful creative flights of Dublin’s new-wave kingpins Phil Chevron and Steve Rapid.
More recently, O’Riordan has been in the studio with the band recording material for their new EP.
Tonight she’ll be with them in Whelans. Tomorrow the group is on the bill with U2 at Croke Park.
O’Riordan, who also has time for her first band, the Pogues, is now a fully-fledged Radiator from Space.
“I moved to Dublin city just over two years ago,” she says.
“Steve called and said, ‘Philip is thinking about getting the Radiators back together, and I suggested you as the bass player.’ I didn’t think of myself as a musician because it had been so long — 15 years at least — since I’d left the Pogues. But I said, ‘I still have a bass guitar, so let’s give it a try.’”
BLAST
The early rehearsals were a blast. Now Cait just wants to rock.
“I’d love it if we were touring and working all the time,” she says. “The EP came out nicely. Now they’re talking about doing an album.”
It was said that Cait spent years living in the foothills of the Wicklow mountains with former partner Elvis Costello.
“There was a house up by the Blue Light pub,” she says. “It was a base. I was very much living on the periphery of someone else’s life. We weren’t there very much. We spent more time in America. I thought I lived in New York. I didn’t have contact with anybody. Very occasionally we’d go to the city if there was a gig on.”
Cait was born and raised in London, but her parents were from Lahinch. Dublin is now her home. She was a steward at this year’s St Patrick’s parade. “It was a big thing for me to move to Dublin and be walking everywhere and making friends,” she says. “I had no friends or family. Thank God for Dublin.”
Her work with the Pogues has been released in remastered form, and Cait is thrilled with the response. The band recently received a Mojo magazine award that was satisfying, but Cait is even more excited by the news that her idol Tom Waits is also a fan.
“He named Rum Sodomy and the Lash in his list of favourite albums — that’s wonderful,” she says. “Of all the thousands of albums Tom Waits has heard, we’re a special one.”
FAZED
Cait won’t be fazed by the crowd in Croke Park tomorrow. “I played Glastonbury with the Pogues to 70,000 people,” she reminds me.
“Oh, and I’ve got a new frock. It’s so important to have the right frock.”
As she heads off to rehearsal, Cait makes an appeal.
“I need someone, maybe a Dublin -hurler, to take me to a hurling match and explain the finer points of the game,” she says. “I’m sick of watching it on the telly.”
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Cait's new recording with the Rads , The Summer Season ep ,is available via this link
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 4740341877
