SONGS FROM BILL'S DANCEHALL

[philipchevron]

PHILIP CHEVRON SONGS FROM BILL'S DANCEHALL



First released as a 12" Vinyl EP in 1981, B&J Music/Seaisland Sound Project (Japan) will release Songs From Bill's Dancehall by Philip Chevron on CD for the first time on its 25th Anniversary on November 11, 2006.

Back then, Philip Chevron (born Dublin, 1957) had just disbanded his legendary Irish punk band The Radiators From Space and it would be 3 more years before he would join his next group The Pogues. Now, in 2006, The Pogues have just completed a hugely successful tour of Japan and the Radiators will release their long-awaited new album later this month.

But before he became such a central figure in Irish rock music, the young Philip Chevron was already deeply involved in the literary and theatre scene in his native Dublin, Ireland, operating mainly out of the city's Project Arts Centre, home at the time to such future Irish luminaries as Liam Neeson, Gavin Friday, Jim Sheridan, Gabriel Byrne, Ciaran Hinds, Neil Jordan, Peter Sheridan and Gerard Mannix Flynn. Philip began as an apprentice to the late Agnes Bernelle, a Berlin-born actor, singer and director who made her home first in England and then in Ireland as a refugee from Hitler's Germany. Philip assisted Agnes in her productions of plays by Heinrich Boll, Frank Wedekind, Gunther Grass, Saul Bellow and others, most in their very first Dublin stagings, and performed in her version of Aristophanes' Lysistrata (1976) for which he also wrote and directed the music.

Bernelle was also, since the late 1950s, one of Europe's prime interpreters of the songs of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill and it was this aspect of her work that was her greatest influence on and inspiration to the teenage Philip Chevron. In 1976, Philip produced her first album of these songs and later, himself and Elvis Costello brought Agnes to a wider international audience with her legendary Father's Lying Dead On The Ironing Board album (1985), which Philip produced and Elvis financed. In 1981, Philip released Songs From Bill's Dancehall, his own youthful collection of songs from Brecht and Weill's Happy End, the musical they wrote in 1929 just after their biggest hit The Threepenny Opera. This was Chevron's first solo record, after two influential albums, TV Tube Heart (1977) and Ghostown (1979) with Dublin punk rockers The Radiators From Space. In 1983, Elvis Costello produced Philip's second solo record, a single of "The Captains And The Kings" (1983), from Irish writer Brendan Behan's play The Hostage. Soon after this, Chevron joined The Pogues and Elvis produced the second Pogues album Rum, Sodomy And The Lash (1985). The Pogues went on to achieve worldwide fame with albums like If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988), Peace And Love (1989), Hell's Ditch (1990) and Waiting For Herb (1993). They split up finally in 1996 but the full classic line up regrouped in 2001 and have continued to tour, including visits to Japan in 2005 and 2006. Meanwhile, The Radiators From Space have also reformed and have a new album Trouble Pilgrim released on October 20, 2006.

Meanwhile, Philip Chevron has continued to work in the theatre whenever time allows. Along with playwright Jim Sheridan (who later became an Oscar-winning director and screen-writer) he wrote the musical The Ha'penny Place which starred Agnes Bernelle in its Dublin production in 1979. Also that year, Agnes co-starred with The Radiators in Black Champagne in London's West End. Philip was musical director for Kathy Burke's production of Behan's The Quare Fellow in Britain in 2004 and his contribution to Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant Of Inishmore was heard this year at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway. Among many other theatre credits, Philip was delighted to return to Dublin's Project Arts Centre in 2005 to be musical director for Songs In Her Suitcase, a puppet play about the extraordinary life of Agnes Bernelle, who had died in 2002. Chevron's Legends Of Dead Soldiers was a one-man show of Brecht material, including all the songs from Bill's Dancehall. Philip performed this show as a famously controversial opening act to radical Irish band Moving Hearts (with Christy Moore) in Dublin in 1981, proving that Brecht had lost none of his capacity to stir up trouble!

Songs From Bill's Dancehall has, over the years, become something of a collector's item among Pogues and Radiators fans but this is the first time the recording has been made available on CD, remastered by Chevron's long-term collaborator Nick Robbins. It is released with a new booklet, designed by U2 art director Steve Averill and containing elements of the original 1981 artwork and a new sleeve note frpm Philip Chevron himself.


B& J Music/S.S.P SSP-2001

[firehazard]

Thanks, Mr C. Never managed to get hold of the vinyl edition. Looking forward to the cd.

[Shaz]

Excellent! My vinyl copy has been carefully packed away for a couple of years, as my turntable is now too temperamental to trust.

[milesago]

So who was behind Mosa Records and what else did they release?
I've never come across anything else on the label.

-milesago

[johnfoyle]

Phil : can you suggest a 'net link for ordering this ?

[philipchevron]

Phil : can you suggest a 'net link for ordering this ?

Not yet

[TAL]

"Philip performed this show as a famously controversial opening act to radical Irish band Moving Hearts (with Christy Moore) in Dublin in 1981, proving that Brecht had lost none of his capacity to stir up trouble! "


Did you get a chance to join them on stage for a song or two?

[howmuch!!?]

http://www.gemm.com/item/PHILIP--CHEVRO ... 820639739/

[johnfoyle]

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.htm ... AKSSP-2001


Songs From Bill's Dance Hall
PHILIP CHEVRON

* Catalog No.: DAKSSP-2001
* Format: CD
* Number of discs (or other units): 1
* Release Date: 2006/11/11
* Price: 1800yen (US$ 15.69/ 1890yen Tax incl.)
* F.S. Points: 54 points
* Item weight: 120 g

* Availability:
Usually ships within 2-4 weeks

[CraigBatty]

Thank you very much JohnFoyle. I shall purchase a copy forthwith... fifthwith, even. As soon as the bank a/c stops haemorrhaging. In the 'New' Year, probably. Cheers for the heads-up.

[philipchevron]

"Philip performed this show as a famously controversial opening act to radical Irish band Moving Hearts (with Christy Moore) in Dublin in 1981, proving that Brecht had lost none of his capacity to stir up trouble! "


Did you get a chance to join them on stage for a song or two?

They weren't a get-up-and-join-the-band kind of group although oddly enough, that's kinda how they came together in the first place, out of the weekly Christy Moore and Friends gig in Dorset Street in Dublin. Christy was singing "Faithful Departed" at these sessions before it became a Moving Hearts staple. Christy did reprimand his audience at the Stadium in 1981, by way of introducing the song (which he still sometimes sings, 25 years later) that earlier they had behaved like a shower of bowsies to the song's writer, but that he [I, that is] was delighted with their response as it reflected the poor reaction those songs had had in 1929 when Brecht wrote them. The Moving Hearts audience could sometimes be a bit less right-on than they liked to suppose themselves, and I think this genuinely disappointed Christy, as he had personally asked for me to perform on these two shows at the National Stadium in Dublin.

In particular, the audience hated Brecht's "Legend Of The Dead Soldier" *, perhaps misinterpreting the point of the song in a climate where soldiers (i.e British soldiers) were in any event reviled. In this song, as the war drags on and on and cannon fodder becomes scarce, the Army Medical Board starts to exhume dead soldiers, pronounce them fit for service and send them back to the war. However grotesque the scenario, I can't help reflecting how, in 2006, American soldiers with missing limbs would be returning to another long-running War, some voluntarily, some not so, but all representing the defiantly gung-ho culture of the US military.

The real support act on the whole Irish tour, incidentally, was Tokyo Olympics featuring, among others, Paul "Mad Dog" McGuinness, Joey Cashman and Sarge O'Hara and the tour was put together by (gulp) Louis Walsh.

* This song is not on the "Bill's Dancehall" CD, so don't go looking for it there. May I suggest Dave Van Ronk's excellent recording, one of several recorded by habituees of the Greenwich Village set in the late 50s and early 60s.

[Guest]

The real support act on the whole Irish tour, incidentally, was Tokyo Olympics featuring, among others, Paul "Mad Dog" McGuinness, Joey Cashman and Sarge O'Hara and the tour was put together by (gulp) Louis Walsh.

Was Ireland, like, this (puts hands close together) big in the seventies?

[MacRua]

Philip, do you know, by any chance, what happened to other Olympians? Damien Gunn, for example, or Ken Mahon? Are they still in biz?

[philipchevron]

Philip, do you know, by any chance, what happened to other Olympians? Damien Gunn, for example, or Ken Mahon? Are they still in biz?

I haven't seen Damien in years. Brian Seals is a horticulturalist and last I heard, he was in the Botanical Gardens in Glasnevin. Ken Mahon moved back to Dublin too and has made a number of stalled attempts at an acting career. He worked for Shane on and off for a while and was my personal chef on the making of Waiting For Herb when I was having difficulty taking regular meals. He makes a mean Penne, does Ken.

[MacRua]

Have Radiators and TO ever played together? Some festival maybe or just supporting each other?