The Medusa Fora

Let us praise great men again, and this time buy their records
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Sunday Independent, October 8, 2006
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THE strangest thing has happened: an Irish band has made a really fine album.

You know one of those albums with about 12 songs on them, and about five of them are pretty good, and three of them are not too bad, and the rest are just noise? Well, it's not one of them.

This one, called Trouble Pilgrim, has 14 tracks ranging in quality from the good to the very, very good. You have to ask yourself, how long is it since you heard one of them?

And stranger still, the band in question - the Radiators From Space - for the last 25 years, was presumed dead.

Indeed, the circumstances surrounding that death tell us much about how things were done in Ireland, a long time ago. It tells us about success, and about failure, and how our understanding of these twin impostors has changed over the years.

It involves in particular a full-page ad that was taken out in Hot Press magazine to promote the band's second album, the legendary Ghostown. The follow-up to the seminal Irish punk album TV Tube Heart, the glories of Ghostown were also its undoing. It crossed too many boundaries for some, not least the reviewer in the NME- who urinated all over it - at a time when an NME review could genuinely make or break a band.

Irish reviewers declared it a masterpiece - and, sure enough, the material which was mainly written by Pete Holidai and Philip Chevron was rich enough to be covered eventually by artistes as diverse as Agnes Bernelle and Christy Moore.

But sales were poor, and so the aforementioned full-page ad appeared in Hot Press, declaring that this masterpiece had sold a mere 455 copies.

There was an unspoken challenge . . . this album has sold 455 copies, and what are you going to do about it?

It was a brave try, I guess, appealing to the innate Irish virtues of fair play and common decency and good taste. A grave miscarriage of justice was taking place here, but now that the Irish people were made aware of the situation, they would surely respond. With their deep love of the arts in general, they would see that this was a defining moment, and they would buy Ghostown in large quantities, not just because it was great, but because it was the right thing to do.

Previous generations had seen the early struggles of commercially unsuccessful artists such as Joyce and Kavanagh, and not only had they done nothing to help them, at times they had gone to considerable lengths to hinder them.

Now, in 1979, it would surely be different?

Alas, it was not to be.

And in retrospect, the Radiators had done exactly the opposite to what so many of their successors would do. They had made an outstanding album, and publicly declared it a failure, at least in commercial terms. Further on up the road, men would make horrible albums, and declare themselves successful in every way.

Before the CDs had left the warehouse, these men of the 1990s would be on the Late Late congratulating themselves on another triumph. They'd be thinking that people like to buy into success, so you can't be telling them that the album sold 12 copies last week, and that was a relatively good week.

No, you have to come on like you're already a massive international superstar, even if, as they say in the trade, you can't get arrested. It's the same basic psychology which dictates that books are "bestsellers" before they've actually been written.

As the Radiators had demonstrated, in showbusiness the truth is a fine thing, but unfortunately it doesn't work. The Irish people had been invited to buy into failure, and they declined.

Failure, at least, in commercial terms. The fact that the album was an astounding artistic success made no difference at all.

And in the years that followed, these attitudes hardened among the Irish. While the ex-Radiators were making their way in the world, with Philip Chevron joining the Pogues, and Stephen Rapid designing for U2 (he also suggested that they call themselves U2) and Pete Holidai teaching in the rock school in Ballyfermot, increasingly the only form of success which got any respect was financial success.

Not that the boybands were going to have much in the way of artistic success anyway, but for a long time there you could have your head bitten off for even suggesting that there might be a distinction between the two concepts - that you could make a bad record, and still get rich.

THEN the other week Louis Walsh said something which might have sounded extraordinary a couple of years aso, though it was really nothing but the bleeding obvious. He said that Daniel O'Donnell is very successful, but you don't have to be that talented to be successful. Thank you, Louis.

As men like Ronan Collins and music lovers in general discovered to their cost, there was a time when that kind of talk could get you monstered. But those days are apparently coming to an end.

And in a strange echo of former days, the Radiators From Space emerge once more from the wilderness with a brilliant collection, a startling achievement, second time around.

The first time, Ireland was lurching towards the end of the showband era, a time when men rolled in money for singing the songs of other men . . . ah, the echoes are chilling, just chilling.

So perhaps we have finally come through another dark age in Irish pop, and we are ready once more to praise great men. And even, at a stretch, to buy their records.

'Trouble Pilgrim', by the Radiators From Space, is released on October 20

Declan Lynch

Nice review, Philip. Thanks for posting it. I'm looking forward to buying the album even MORE now. Hope the tour's progressing nicely. Ádh mór oraibh agus slán abhaile.

Great review, hope I can get my hands on a copy before the Point

IRISH TIMES FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2006

THE RADIATORS - BACK ON THE BOIL - by Brian Boyd


The Radiators fell from the top of the punk tree and hit a few branches on the way down when their second album failed to spark the fervour of their safety-pinned followers. Now, Ghostown is regarded as one of the greatest Irish albums of all time. Bloodied, greying, but unbowed, they're back with their third album, which they hope will hook in a few more fans, singer Philip Chevron tells Brian Boyd

CTOBER 31st, 1978, The Electric Ballroom, London: the support act, a new band from Belfast, Stiff Little Fingers, are having a stormer - their scratchy punk sound finding much favour with the safety-pin and bondage-trouser audience. The headline act, The Radiators (who have just dropped the "From Space" suffix from their name) take to the stage to preview songs from their second album which will be released shortly. The Radiators have considerable punk credibility due to their previous TV Tube Heart album, but these new songs owe more to Sean O'Casey and James Joyce than the UK Subs. They are singing songs about their moribund home city and its fractious religious/political past. The audience, still revved up by SLF's set, react with disinterest bordering on hostility. "This isn't punk" is one of the kinder remarks.

Singer and guitarist Philip Chevron remembers the gig as a pivotal moment not just for the band but for the whole punk movement: "Previous to that gig we had done about 80 shows in six months, but then removed ourselves from touring for about six months to record the album that would be Ghostown," he says. "From our TV Tube Heart album we still had the audience to headline the Electric Ballroom, but during the six months we spent in the studio everything had changed. The initial wave of people on the punk scene were accepting of experimentation, but now punk had just become associated with bands such as Sham 69. The audience that night were all wearing the visual symbols of punk, that undercurrent that was there of rebellion or revolt or whatever just wasn't in evidence anymore. It was clear from the first few numbers that we just weren't ramalama enough, these were people who related to the songs on TV Tube Heart but just didn't get Ghostown. We sort of stopped gigging after that show."

Now rightly regarded as one of the greatest Irish albums of all time, the album ruined the band. It had been recorded with legendary Bowie/Bolan producer Tony Visconti and was an audacious musical statement that, as Chevron wryly observes, "fell between the cracks". The singles Million Dollar Hero and Kitty Ricketts were near hits, but record company politics put paid to any momentum the album was threatening to gather.

"We were on the Chiswick label, which was run by two Irish guys," says Chevron. "When we were trying to get the album out, they were in the middle of signing a licensing deal with EMI and certain acts became priorities and others didn't. You needed radio success to be a priority band and we weren't getting that. A lot of the reaction at the time was the album was 'too Irish', which wouldn't be a problem now partly because of what The Pogues have managed to do. I know Shane McGowan got the album and I can hear a direct link between the Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn and our Song Of The Faithful Departed. In fact, Shane told me much later that he thought The Radiators were going to become The Pogues with their next album. But there wasn't a next album."

One of the other problems with Ghostown was Nick Kent, or rather a lack of Nick Kent. "I really hoped he would review the album for the NME," says Chevron. "I knew he definitely got what we were trying to do with the album and if he really liked something, the review would be be important. But the NME gave it to someone else to review and that reviewer dragged up all this old enmity that existed between The Radiators and the NME. Overall the reviews were good, but they were misguided. One review said the album was 'a teenage pop classic', which is being damned by misguided praise. Over the years, it has been reissued a few times and the reviews are always 'this is a classic, it always was', but it wasn't regarded that way when it was first released."

After a farewell Irish tour, The Radiators broke up with the proviso that they would possibly reconvene at some later date. Chevron went on to join The Pogues and, while the band did reconvene briefly for a benefit gig in Dublin in 1987, it wasn't until they played a Joe Strummer benefit show in 2003 that there was serious talk of reforming and recording a new album.

"One of the main things there was Cait O'Riordan [ who was the early bass player in The Pogues] joined the band," says Chevron. "I hadn't seen her in about 18 years and she brought something new to the line-up, a sort of punk energy. We played a few shows just to see how we felt about the band getting together again. We had a new drummer, Johnny Bonnie, and between him and Cait there was a new motor to the band. Steve Averill [ aka Rapid], an original member, was also back and we started working on new material.

"We didn't want to have the Ghostown albatross around our neck, we wanted to record songs that would shake off what that album was about. It was all very unforced and the new songs seemed to stand up in their own right."

O'Riordan has now moved on to other projects and the current Radiators line-up is Chevron, co-songwriter Pete Holidai, Steve Averill, Johnny Bonnie and Jesse Booth. "We got talking about music and we found that there was common ground in our appreciation of American 1960s garage rock bands," he says. "Back when we started, we had the New York Dolls, Velvets and Bowie influences, but there was a big garage rock thing there too. I always thought that that was what separated us from the British punk bands in the early days. We came from a tradition which had a love/hate relationship with folk music - a bit like the Americans with country music. There were always other coordinates with The Radiators - the folk music, the danceband scene and that big connection with garage rock. All that Lenny Kaye Nuggets stuff, that would have spoken to us more than the obvious punk reference points. We have the same roots - that same direct approach, that same organ sound which is why the new album is a garage rock album. It's raw and direct, with no orchestras and no string sessions. It's not a quote unquote sophisticated album."

The album, Trouble Pilgrim, again a Chevron/Holidai collaboration, is a revelation. It sounds, as Chevron admits, like the Radiators album that should have come between TV Tube Heart and Ghostown. Only one song on the album, the stand-out track Huguenot, has any thematic connection with Ghostown. "It's a song about how different Dublin is now from back then and I didn't want it to be about how awful the Celtic Tiger is and all of that, so instead it's about the Irish dilemma with immigration and the paradox of how the country relied on emigration for so long. I myself am from Huguenot stock - the Huguenots were the original immigrant group and they were welcomed and embraced when they arrived. They were mainly tradespeople - they helped to build Dublin. The song deals with that knee-jerk racism you get today, all those racist manners and remarks. But then, the Irish abroad always had a history of racism. What is going on now I thought I had seen the last of in London during the 1970s and 1980s. And seeing the Irish go through this is acutely painful."

Elsewhere there is the beautifully hook-laden Heaven and the show band-inflected Tell Me Why. "We never thought about releasing a single, but I suppose if we did it would be Heaven," he says. "This was never going to be an album that we were going to hawk around the labels, it would have been very hard to get interest in a new album by an ancient punk band. We made it ourselves and recorded it at Grouse Lodge Studios in Westmeath.

"So far, it's only been released in Ireland but we hope to 'roll it out', as they say, in other countries. We're trying to get a bit of interest going in Japan, Europe and the US, but there won't be a big marketing campaign behind it. It'll be the sort of album people pick up on themselves. I think it turned out better than even we expected. I'm not sure about its immediate impact, but then again we never made an immediate impact before."

He doesn't feel that the album will only appeal to Radiators fans, something borne out by the band's live experiences over the past few years.

"We played the Oxegen festival and the crowd seemed to go for it," he says. "That generation difference in music doesn't exist anymore. You'll find people who are as much into the new Amy Winehouse album as they are some great 60s band. And the other reason we didn't make it for the people who bought TV Tube Heart or Ghostown is that there were never enough of them in the first place. . ."

Trouble Pilgrim is distributed by RMG Chart Entertainment. The Radiators play Whelans, Dublin on November 18th

http://www.ireland.com/theticket/articl ... 15210.html

Good luck for the gig tomorrow, Philip. Really wish I could be there!

The album is fabulous. I listened to it twice through today and am starting to get my thoughts in order about it. The first couple of tracks, if someone had told me it was the 'lost' album between TV Tube Heart and Ghostown, I'd have believed them. Rock 'n' roll and punk blasted out of the speakers at me And then suddenly it felt like the logical 21st century successor to Ghostown, particularly where the lyrics were concerned. The music had lo-fi and garage band echoes in places.

Stand-out tracks for me were the title track, Joe Strummer, A Package From Home and Huguenot (the latter definitely felt like it was Ghostown moving towards 2006).

I agree with the review that said there's not a bad track on it. It feels like the Radiators' adventure has gone in yet another exciting direction. Um, hope there's not going to be a 25-year wait for the next album

I hope you don't skip New York, Phil. I'll assume you guys will be here some time after the New Year -- after all, the album won't be released in America until then. Like the review says, 14 tracks ranging in quality from the good to the very, very good

Behan wrote:I hope you don't skip New York, Phil. I'll assume you guys will be here some time after the New Year -- after all, the album won't be released in America until then. Like the review says, 14 tracks ranging in quality from the good to the very, very good

The Radiators would love to play New York, the East Coast, the West Coast. Austin, whatever. Unfortunately, no one has asked us to yet.

philipchevron wrote:The Radiators would love to play New York, the East Coast, the West Coast. Austin, whatever.

And London?

Christine wrote:

philipchevron wrote:The Radiators would love to play New York, the East Coast, the West Coast. Austin, whatever.

And London?

We're working on that.

and of course Tokyo Mr. Chevron please.. Actually just listening to Trouble Pilgrim as I type.. Couple of great stand-outs already! Joe Strummer has been on replay for the last 30 mins! Grand song

theholyspook wrote:and of course Tokyo Mr. Chevron please.. Actually just listening to Trouble Pilgrim as I type.. Couple of great stand-outs already! Joe Strummer has been on replay for the last 30 mins! Grand song

Very true Kirk, finally got a copy, too!!
Highlights for me are Strummer, 2nd Avenue, Tell me why and the Package

http://wc06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=a ... ftxzrhldae

Only 27 years after Ghostown, the Radiators from Space have finally gotten around to making their third studio album (they were sidetracked by little things, such as breaking up in 1981 and Philip Chevron spending most of the '80s and '90s in the Pogues), and it's good to report that some things haven't changed much over the years. 2006's Trouble Pilgrim inhabits a stylistic middle ground between the group's scrappy debut, TV Tube Heart, and the significantly more ambitious Ghostown. The tunes are smart and Chevron and his bandmates clearly aren't afraid of a good rant, but this is less scrappy old-school punk than tough but tuneful pop/rock with a straightforward guitar attack and a lack of needless frills. For this reunion, Chevron is joined by two of the group's original members, Pete Holidai and Steve Rapid, and a new rhythm section, bassist Jessie Booth and drummer Johnny Bonnie, and the songs on Trouble Pilgrim are equally informed by the heart and the head, dealing with the larger world as well as the most personal concerns. "The Concierge" is a bitter but literate screed against the war in Iraq, "Hinterland" takes a similar look at the battle between Israel and Palestine, and "Joe Strummer" is a rapid-fire homage to the late Clash frontman and his cultural legacy. But elsewhere, "Words" is a quiet meditation on heartbreak and lost faith, "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" tells a moving story of childhood, and "Tell Me Why" is a gloriously hooky love song that ought to be a hit single. If Trouble Pilgrim doesn't sound quite like the way you might remember the Radiators from Space, it strikes an easy balance between their youthful ideals and their maturity in the 21st century, and this is music that's eloquent in its anger and compassionate without sentimentality -- not a bad formula for a bunch of aging punks, and it's good to have them back. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide

Since we're all talking about Trouble Pilgrim, I decided to consult my favorite album review site (formally book), Trouser Press. i know they're glacially slow in adding new material, but I wanted to see what they had to say about the early stuff:

RADIATORS FROM SPACE
TV Tube Heart (UK Chiswick) 1977
RADIATORS
Ghostown (UK Chiswick) 1979 + 1989

London independent label Chiswick discovered these early Irish punk frontiersmen in Dublin; although never a commercial success, the Radiators from Space were a wonderful find. Their recording career, which actually predated the debut vinyl of such first wavers as the Clash and Elvis Costello, evinces talent and intelligence far beyond many of the forgotten bands of that generation.

TV Tube Heart may not have been revolutionary, but energetic delivery of clever and melodic songs about such soon-to-become-hackneyed topics as the music press and club denizens make it a much better survivor of its era than many now hopelessly dated artifacts. From the outset, Radiators from Space showed themselves to be a better breed of punk.

Ghostown, produced by Tony Visconti, is nearly a power pop record with some unsettling flaws damaging another batch of good tunes. One item is almost identical to later Boomtown Rats (although who recorded it first is unclear); there's also a trite '50s homage that seems out of place. Ghostown does have its moments, though, and several tracks have the same wonderful feel as the second Fingerprintz LP. Obviously a band with great untapped potential, the Radiators were a surprisingly sophisticated bunch whose records are worth hearing. (The reissue has new artwork, a different track sequence and two cuts from a 1988 reunion.)

In 1985, singer/guitarist Philip Chevron surfaced in association with Elvis Costello as a producer and performer; he then joined the Pogues.

[Ira Robbins]

For the record, Tony Visconti's work on Ghostown predates his collaboration with the Boomtown Rats by about two years. Geldof could never resist stealing a good idea (he'd tell you this himself) especially if it came from his alleged "rivals".