Track 7: 'there are places I'll remember all my life though some have changed...'

Living here day by day, you think it's the centre of the world. You believe nothing will ever change, The you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything's changed. The thread's broken...

It’s late in the afternoon, and the four of us are standing outside the Underground bar on Dame Street.

There is some hesitation - we are about to perpetrate a fraud, and we have no way of knowing how it is going to play out.

We have come here looking for our first proper headline gig; every show we have played up to this point, has been a tragicomedy of sorts; collectively, we have scrubbed those gigs from our consciousness, marked them off as false starts.

This will be the real thing.

In my pocket, I carry a cassette recording of an obscure Pop Will Eat Itself EP that we hope to pass off as our first demo tape. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and without the money to record our own music, this cunning plan concocted over a few pints seemed foolproof at the time.

Now, in the cold light of day as we prepare to descend the steps into the bowels of this subterranean venue, we are beginning to doubt ourselves.

We have heard stories about Jeff - Jeff runs the venue - he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and has a low tolerance for bullshit. What if he is a fan of Pop Will Eat Itself? What if he immediately smells a rat? We have visions of us being run out of the place, barred for life for trying to pull a fast one. There is a moment when we almost lose our bottle and beat a hasty retreat.

It wouldn’t be the first time, for me anyway.

Some months before, Mylie and I had got wind that a Manchester band called the Stockholm Monsters were playing a secret gig in Dublin. The Underground was mentioned as a possible venue. We had never been to a gig there before.

That night, we stood at the top of the stairs, debating whether to go down or not. It was an intimidating place for the first timer; a blast of bass, drums, guitars & heat rushed up the stairway and hit you with an almost physical force. You could see nothing from the top of the stairs, but by Jesus, you could hear it. You had no real idea what it was like down there, what to expect.

So we bottled it, and moved on, concluding that the cauldron of noise surging up those stairs didn’t sound much like Stockholm Monsters. Now, with a very different purpose, the four of descend the steps, like young men on their way to face the guillotine.

The first thing we notice: the tiny stage is immediately to our right and just behind us when we reach the bottom stair. In front of us, a long narrow venue, tables and seats on the left, the bar situated on the right. A cigarette machine just in front of the stage. There is no real indication that it is a music venue - it’s not plastered with posters, or memorabilia of any sort.

There are no obvious signs of life; the place is deserted. We stand there a moment, unsure of what to do next, before taking a few tentative steps forward.

We hear the rattle of empty bottles from behind a door at the end of the room.

We wait. Eventually, the door swings open, and a tall imposing figure emerges. He sees us, leaves us wait a moment while he puts something behind the bar, and then marches towards us.

He doesn’t introduce himself -just nods. He knows what’s coming next. Fearghal tells him we are a band called Whipping Boy and we are looking for a gig.

I thrust the ‘demo tape’ forward, blurting out some gibberish. He eyes us suspiciously, and asks what kind of stuff do we play.

“Kinda Sonic Youth, Big Black, Jesus and Mary Chain, that kind of thing…”

‘When were you looking to play?’ he asks, ignoring the tape I am left holding like a right spare.

“About six weeks from now we should be ready…”

He thumbs through a tattered notebook….”I can give you a Thursday night…it will be eighty pounds for the P.A./venue and I can do sound for you’. You keep anything you make on the door…”

We can hardly believe our luck, as he scrawls our name into the notebook -the date is fixed. He belatedly introduces himself as Jeff, and says if there are any problems, to give him a call or drop in.

We leave the venue elated, relieved and a little shocked that we didn’t have to resort to the demo tape deception routine. It was so easy, in stark contrast to our experiences trying to secure gigs at other venues. Little did we know leaving the venue that day, that this would be the start of close friendship with Jeff, and that the Underground would become like a second home for the next few years.

Over the following weeks, we devote all our energies into preparing for our debut Underground show. There is an urgency to rehearsals; we know this is a proper gig, no more messing around. We design homemade posters and flyers. Pre-internet, it is the only way to get the word around. We patrol Grafton Street on Saturday afternoons, where the Goths and Punks gather, handing out flyers, trying to build a little intrigue, to get noticed, to be seen.

We stick posters up on derelict buildings in the dead of night -they rarely last long before someone else comes along and pastes their posters over them. It is a constant battle to get noticed; a thriving local music scene means there is a glut of bands all trying to get their name out there.

I would love to say that I remember that first gig in the Underground as an auspicious occasion, that I recall the details, the specifics. But those details are lost in the mist of time. I do know there was around 30 -40 people there; a mixture of friends and venue regulars.

I also know it was the first time that we felt like a real band; this was a place where many of the leading lights on the Dublin music scene had played before graduating on to bigger venues.

Afterwards, we asked Jeff what he thought of the gig.

His only response was: ‘it sounded like a bleedin’ 747 taking off!’

There is one more memory from that night.

Jeff saw us hauling the amps and drum kit up the stairs and asked where we were bringing the gear. I told him we were bringing it back to my place in Dominick St. “And how are you getting it there?” he asked.

“Walking”- we had lost money on the gig so transport was out of the question.

He sighed loudly, and said “wait there, I will get the van and run youse over..”

When we get there, he grabs an amp and carries it up the stairs. Of course, I didn’t tell him I lived on the top balcony! By the time we get to the top, he is gasping for breath, cursing and probably wishing he had kept his mouth shut, and left us to our own devices.

But I don’t think so.

Because beneath the gruff exterior, Jeff was one of the good guys. He had a kind heart and if he liked you, and you treated him with respect, he couldn’t do enough for you.

We bonded with him almost immediately, probably because Mylie and I were from similar backgrounds to him. He also loved the madness and mayhem that Fearghal brought when he was onstage - he got a real kick out of that.

So that was the true beginning; the Underground became a place where we would find our feet as a band. Learn our trade. We made mistakes, played the odd dud of a show, but there were nights when everything clicked, and we felt like the best band in the world, even if nobody else saw it that way.

It was a special place, run by special people and is a big part of our story.

‘All our lives spent Underground’ is a line from the song ‘Personality’ on Heartworm.

We would go on to achieve some modest level of success in later years, but those early days and shows in the Underground are some of the happiest times we had as a band, when the bond between us was unshakable, and the thrill of playing music for an audience was this magical, indescribable thing.

Photo Credit: Ellis Quay, Dublin. David Jazay