Hit The North

Marvin Gaye thought that taxes, death and trouble were the extent of life’s certainties, but chances are if he’d hung around in some of Belfast’s indie dungeons, there is another, equally galling, truth he may have stumbled across – namely that gifted musicians in the orbit of this town, no matter how promising a hand they hold, never, ever manage to take home the pot.

Lack of confidence, negligible label interest, startling naivety, recurrent misfortune, creative rigor mortis, and sheer, self-defeating, Lazyitis have all played a crucial role, but this is neither the time nor the place to offer any kind of diagnostic (never mind prescriptive) guidance. I’m merely acknowledging, dear reader, that at this stage of the New Year, and given previous form, any bold predictions on my part concerning the prospects of a fresh batch of Nordy talent should be treated with as much suspicion as a Northern Bank fifty pound note.

So, I’m not going to bother.

I’ve no idea if any of those mentioned below will achieve much more than a rousing ovation in Katy Daly’s; I’m not even going to assume that their ambitions are trained on scaling peaks higher than that. Instead, with TV proving so crap these days, take this as a nod in the general direction of folk who could provide some diversion over the next 12 months.

Martin Corrigan will continue in his role as Belfast’s shock-haired Zelig. Not only will he attempt to run a club night in every bar in town, he will also crop up with disturbing regularity on radio stations throughout the nation and beyond. His band (and isn’t it ironic that, even though they operate under the frontman’s name, Corrigan are a collection of some of the most promising individual talents around) have improved beyond all recognition since ‘How To Hang Off A Rope’. Recent live appearances have been muscular and brooding, rather than (as was previously their wont) contrived and shrill. Early demos of the material that will make up their forthcoming second album show a band virtually unrecognisable from its earlier incarnation. A new single is due anon on Jimmy Devlin’s No Dancing label. Phil Kieran, whose own record is eagerly anticipated all across the land, has also hijacked Martin for a forthcoming track. I’ve seen the future, baby, it’s Fermanagh.
Driving By Night, meanwhile, find themselves at an interesting junction. In a previous incarnation their big hearted, melodic rock promised much but was ultimately let down by the band’s fatal tendency to default to paint by numbers indie. Nowadays, beaten up a bit, and with a vocalist capable of making the contents of a cocktail menu sound emotive, they are very close to becoming the real deal. Iron out the colourless interludes and their second act may prove dramatic.
A younger group cut from much the same cloth are Edgeweather. Since the release of their prodigious first single ‘Make A Mockery’, things have been pretty quiet. Good cheer comes with news that they have been working with Paul Wilkinson of The Amazing Pilots on new material which should surface within the next few weeks.
Well connected delinquents, Acidtone will hope to get enough time off school in 2005 to perfect their bite-size Rage Against The Machine impression (or Fuck you, I won’t do my eleven plus!) and Contraband will concentrate on being noisy. Very noisy.
Fighting With Wire, Clone Quartet, Panda Kopanda, Lafaro and Eve’s Majesty will all be making claims on our attention (if not our affection), while Eamonn McNamee, fresh from a bout of intra-band blood-letting, has been taking to the wilds of Ulster with nothing but the early Beatles songbook and some Ballymena attitude to keep him company. He’ll no doubt make his presence felt.
As for my earlier point about crap TV, an honourable exception should be the second series of ATL TV. Many of those mentioned above will probably make an appearance, however, here’s hoping they get a good night’s sleep beforehand. On last year’s series, Ulster’s collected finest were so pasty faced and apparently blighted by conjunctivitis, they made Tom Verlaine look like Antonio Banderas. Fingers crossed – 2005 may be the year spray tan hits indie Belfast.