Venue, Vidi, Vici!

The Venue started out as a home for showbands, but Kerry-born proprietor Dan Dowling had enough sense to see the changes coming. He kept up with the times and now The Venue — with its three floors, three stages and balcony — covers most of the angles; from The Levellers, to The Sawdoctors, to indie bands and dance music.

It’s because of this change that The Venue was keen to bring over a number of up-and coming Irish bands whose music reflected the tastes of the modern Irish emigrant (and the modern English student, of course, too). Dan Dowling laughed when he thought about how things had changed. “The young Irish that’s coming over now, they really know their music,” he said. “You can’t put on any old band.”

The original line-up for the weekend event included Pet Lamb, Emperor Of Ice Cream, Blink, The Pale, The Mary Janes, The Revenants, Whipping Boy, The Big Geraniums and Engine Alley. (Whipping Boy pulled out at the last minute due to ‘contractual difficulties.’)

I talked briefly to all the bands about what they were doing at the moment, what it was like to be an ‘Irish’ band abroad, and what they thought about this sort of showcase event.

Pet Lamb are a band who want to, says vocalist and guitarist Dylan, “marry the perfect pop songs with the perfect hardcore sound; the perfect hardcore ethic.” And indeed it’s as accurate a summation of what they’re about as you’re likely to get.

Last year Pet Lamb released two five-tracks on Blunt Records; Paranoid From The Neck Down and Spent. Both of them embody that central spirit of the pop/hardcore attack, and as the first advised, should be played fucking loud! I asked Dylan whether he felt they had progressed closer to their ideal mix. “We’ve definitely moved on from Paranoid From The Neck Down. The songs are more focused. There’s more emphasis on lyrics and vocal style.”

While Hardcore has really taken off in Ireland over the last couple of years, Dylan emphasised that the last thing he wanted to see was anybody calling it a ‘scene’. “If any group of press, wherever they be from, all collect on one particular city, as soon as they call it a scene, that’s the beginning of the end,” he stated.

Pet Lamb are getting together a compilation of the two EPs for British release in the near future, while on the 20th February the band will be recording a Peel session in London. They play at the Waterford RTC Rag Ball on 16th February, with a nationwide tour planned for March.

Emperor Of Ice Cream are from Cork and have been together for two years. They signed, about a year ago, to Sony, and moved to London about six months ago. They’ve an EP called ‘William’ out at the moment, and a single entitled ‘The Way That you Know Me’, on the way. They will be touring with the Sultans Of Ping, and then embark on their own English and Irish tours.

They describe themselves as, “more or less an indie band. We’re not a Sony band at all really.” They got their name from a Brian Moore book, who they call “a bit of a drug-head.” The reason they picked such a long and weird name was “because when we started off there was all these bands coming on the scene, like Ride, Blur, Moose. And we thought that there was no point in having a one-syllable name like all the other bands, so we’ll have a big huge fucking name so they won’t forget it.” However, they would like to point out that it’s got nothing to do with the Cork thing, which is “a load of bollocks,” as they put it.

Emperor Of Ice Cream decided to move to London to gain experience and to bring their music to a wider audience. “Ireland’s grand but you can get into a rut doing the same gigs all the time,” they explain. “Like if we get a name here, we’ll be known in Ireland. But if you get a name in Ireland, you’re barely known in England.”

Blink, who gave what I considered to be the best performance of the weekend, are buzzing with confidence and looking forward to bringing their brand of vibrant, happy pop to lots of new audiences. Singer and guitarist, Dermot Lambert was not so sure about the ‘Irish’ aspect of the showcase. “It could have actually been done without mentioning ‘Irish’ at all,” he remarked. “I think it’s good for Irish bands not to carry the tag of being Irish, because I actually think — it’s not a disadvantage — but it’s no advantage, so there’s no point in saying it.”

Blink used to be Rex & Dino. So what changed? “With Rex & Dino, we could have gone on forever and it wouldn’t have worked,” he replied “So, we just supplied a few things and called it Blink. The whole thing means something now, whereas with Rex & Dino it was just pop songs. We never now look back on a song and say, ah man, what made us play that?

“People have to be able to dance to your music,” he continued. “It doesn’t mean that you’re becoming a club/dance band. But if people can’t dance to your music, they’re less likely to listen to it.”

People certainly danced to Blink’s music, and if you haven’t yet seen them you’ll get a chance this month when they’ll bgin a nationwide tour. Their album, A Map Of The Universe, will be out in the Spring, and as a matter of interest, nearly all the songs will have the word ‘happy’ in them.

The Pale are a busy band. Just back from a successful gig in Italy, they got a few hours sleep, and were on the plane to London for The Venue event. There will be no let up for the rest of the year, either. A new album is planned, and there will be tours of Australia, mainland Europe, Scandinavia, and the Irish Heineken tour starting this month.

Not exactly what you’d expect from a band who were not so long ago ‘dropped’ by a major. But as far as frontman Matthew Devereux is concerned, “We made exactly the right choice. The band has extended and improved since we left them. We’ve actually begun to do things that we’d never thought we were going to do. We’ve started to roll now. Getting off a major roster was like chains taken off our legs.”

The Pale are not enamoured with the Ireland-Britain-America axis, believing that there are many other routes by which you can create an audience for your music. They believe that moving to London can, for some bands, be a step in the wrong direction. “I never really thought that you have to break the great Lionheart before you can progress,” as Matthew put it.

The Pale’s strange mix of exotic dance rhythms went down a storm at The Venue. After the gig, as I was interviewing them, a female fan was clamouring over my walkman, asking, begging, for just something — anything — to remember them by. “A t-shirt, a drum stick, anything,” she pleaded. “Can I just touch it?” she implored. The drum stick, that was. With fans like that, who needs a major?

With two hundred gigs under their belt last year, The Mary Janes must win the title of the hardest working band in Ireland, if not the world. Two hundred gigs is an average of four gigs a week — some going.

The Mary Janes have been together as a three-piece for about a year and a half. Their fondly remembered drummer left to join a showband, or so they told me. For a while they looked around for a replacement — a monumental and constantly recurring duty for so many bands — but because they were developing such a synergy of style between the three of them, they finally decided that they didn’t need one.

It was unfair that The Mary Janes had to go on so early and play to an empty floor. They were difficult to judge properly because the total lack of atmosphere began to rub off on them after a while. However, they got some superb rhythms going at times, although I always kept hearing a drummer in my head. They’re not saying never again to drums; they’re just not letting it stop them exploring lots of interesting, intricate grooves. They go into the studio in March to record their first single.

This will be a busy year for The Revenants. They have an EP planned for the summer, and are also concentrating on getting material together for a follow-up to their debut, which will probably be out in early 1995. They’re also taking part in the Heineken Rollercoaster tour, with The Pale and The Harvest Ministers.

As with all the other bands, The Revenants were delighted to get the opportunity to play in London before a big audience. “We haven’t actually played London before,” said Stephen, “so this is a first foot in the door if you like. We can now come back to agents and say that we did this particular event, and that things went well.”

However, as the other groups also pointed out, The Revenants don’t want anybody attaching the word ‘scene’ to what’s happening in Ireland. There doesn’t seem to be a scene. As the Venue event showed, every band had a different style. Because of this, such an event can, as Stephen put it, “have its drawbacks. You are lumping a whole lot of disparate bands in together, so things mightn’t always gel.” He was quite happy, although he realised that, “nobody’s going to be fully satisfied with something like this but its good points outweigh its bad points.”

The Big Geraniums, a blend of four Irish, three English and an American, met a few years back while busking in London, and decided to amble over for the Lisdoonvarna Festival. Having missed the Festival by about eight years, they decided to try living the alternative lifestyle in Galway.

However, The Big Geraniums have now given up the raggle taggle to take up the hustle bustle of Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Well, asides from the ready availability of flowers, Amsterdam is also where their manager is based. It also allows easy access to mainland Europe, where they intend to concentrate their touring efforts for the next while.

Another reason for moving abroad is because The Big Geraniums feel that, like The Cranberries, they have been neglected at home. “It’s the same with us in Ireland as well. A lot of the time people don’t know when you’ve got a good thing. So you have to go out and make it somewhere else before you get respect in Ireland. That seems to be the vibe anyway.”

The Engine Alley stage show had changed a lot since the last time I saw it. Gone were the props and the glam image to be replaced by a more straightforward pop setting. Was it a deliberate step back to basics? “It was deliberate to stop being so deliberate about our appearance,” frontman Canice replied.

Right now the priority for Engine Alley is to get back into the studio and record their second album. Their debut, A Sonic Holiday, was only released in the UK in September 1993, a delay they were not particularly happy with. Their sojourn in London seems not to have been an altogether happy experience. An important reason for this, they conceded, was because they had not become an ‘in’ group as far as the mega-powerful British music press were concerned. “I think the position with us is that at the moment we’re not very fashionable,” Canice stated. “When we had a sort of glam image that was putting ourselves in a certain corner and maybe we alienated a few people with that kind of image. But when you find yourself in that sort of position, you just have to keep going and build up your own audience.”

The recession in Britain continues, and live venues are closing down rapidly or else shifting over to danceclubs. And if impending Government legislation goes through, the college circuit might be lost altogether.

New bands also have to contend with the hype factor. The British music press dominates the British music scene. Being a success without their blessing is a difficult task (although The Levellers, among others, did it). On the other hand, getting their blessing can be a curse. Because of the dearth of new talent in Britain at the moment, any band with a modicum of talent is in the lottery for overkill. This can result in a band losing their talent in their inflated egos, or becoming a victim of the infamous backlash effect. And of course, success in Britain is no longer a guarantee of success around the world, as Suede’s experiences in America proved.

The lesson from all this is that Britain is no musical nirvana for Irish bands. However, it is a far, far bigger potential market than Ireland will ever be, and almost every record company worth mentioning has some sort of base there. If an Irish band has got talent and is prepared to work hard and not wait for miracles, Britain can be an important — though not necessarily the first — step towards international success and riches (and sex and drugs . . .).

From this point of view, The Venue event was a great idea. The flights and accommodation were paid for each band, there were crowds of 500 plus at each night’s gigs, and as the organiser of the event, Stephen Brady, explained, there were people from Rough Trade, EMI, Polygram, Sony, Rhythm King Music, Music Disk, the press, and various other promoters and agents there. There was also coverage by Radio One, John Peel, The Irish Post, The Irish World, various local radio stations, RTE (and, of course, Hot Press!). The Venue also did substantial advertising for the weekend, handing out some 30,000 flyers. So, for an up-and-coming Irish band, it was an ideal vehicle to get some of that vital exposure.

Dan Dowling too was pleased both because of the publicity, and because of the new punters who turned up. As he put it, “I think it is a great boost to The Venue. I would see it becoming an annual event. I imagine that it would be at least twice as big next year.”

Let’s hope the Kerryman is right!