Post-Punk

Feargal Sharkey reacts to new mural of The Undertones in Derry

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A new mural has been unveiled of The Undertones overlooking the historic Derry Walls.

Garrett Hargan

A new Undertones mural which has been completed beside Derry’s walls on Magazine Street. Picture Martin McKeown

A new mural has been unveiled of The Undertones overlooking the historic Derry Walls.

Former lead singer of the band, Feargal Sharkey, who is now known as much for his environmental campaigning described it as an “absolute honour”.

The artwork, created by Karl Porter of UV Arts, involved weeks of work but had been mooted as an idea for a number of years.

It is timely with this year marking the 45th anniversary of they band’s legendary single, Teenage Kicks.

Karl and other artists have been responsible for transforming Derry’s streetscape over recent years.

Alongside old Troubles-related murals, images celebrating the city’s heritage and cultural icons now take pride of place.

Like the band, this particular piece is punk in style — a departure from UV Arts’ other work with three layers of colour and Karl drawing inspiration from world-renowned political street artist, Banksy.

Commenting online, former frontman Mr Sharkey said: “WOW! How fantastic is that, what an absolute honour.

“My applause and appreciation to everyone involved, never thought for one second I would ever see myself staring down from Derry walls. Totally brilliant bit of work.”

The image itself is one that graces the cover of The Undertones’ self-titled debut album.

It shows the young men atop a wall in Bull Park which is close to the areas where they all grew up.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph for a recent interview, guitarist Mickey Bradley shared a story about one homecoming gig at the park.

Having just appeared on Top of the Pops, they returned to perform a gig in the back of a lorry at Bull Park where young boys “pelted us with eggs” and the show had to be abandoned.

McCartney and Casey solicitors provided the gable wall canvas and supported Karl for The Undertones piece, along with other local businesses.

Source: Feargal Sharkey reacts to new mural of The Undertones in Derry

Joy Division Singer Ian Curtis Remembered On The 40th Anniversary Of His Death

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Jon Savage, the author of ‘This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else,’ discusses the post-punk singer, who committed suicide on May 18, 1980 at age 23.

A few months into 1980, the British post-punk group Joy Division were ready to take the next steps in their promising career. Led by their compelling lead singer Ian Curtis, the emerging quartet from Manchester were gaining momentum with an acclaimed debut album in Unknown Pleasures; their live shows were must-see draws; and they had gotten exposure on television and favorable reviews in the music press. Now Joy Division were set to embark on their first-ever U.S. tour and release a new record, Closer, that saw them expanding on their sonic palette. But that all came to a tragic halt when Curtis – who struggled with personal and health issues – committed suicide at the age of 23 on May 18, 1980.

“A poetic, sensitive, tortured soul, the Ian Curtis of the myth—he was definitely that,” former Joy Division bassist Peter Hook remembered Curtis

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Mark E Smith: the last of the non-conformists

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There was no one quite like the Fall’s post-punk poet.

It was announced yesterday that, after a period of ill health last year, Mark E Smith has passed away aged 60. The only constant member of the Fall since he formed the band in 1976, MES (as his name was often abbreviated) was a true original, a glorious one-off who remained closer to the original post-punk brief than anyone else. His passing is another weary reminder of the fading out of a non-conformist era, a time when public life wasn’t dominated by well-connected head-boy types or pop figures whose idea of being edgy is to endorse Jeremy Corbyn in the Guardian.

Indeed, many of us loved MES precisely because he had an in-built bullshit detector alerting him to the pretensions of petit-bourgeois radicals and their strange ideas. The Fall’s 1994 track ‘Middle Class Revolt!’ was a prescient statement on the shifting direction of British culture and politics. His unaffected persona was that of a cranky old factory worker moaning about students and layabouts. It always made for entertaining copy in interviews, and in real life he was no different. Nevertheless, his proletarian belligerence couldn’t entirely hide his autodidacticism and his role as a genuine artist. For a start, the Fall’s name was taken from a 1956 Albert Camus novel, and MES’s reference points were resolutely literary – Marlowe, Nabokov, Ballard, Gogol and Ellison crop up in various ways throughout MES’s song titles and lyrics. The writer Simon Reynolds pointed out that the Fall’s biggest early influence was not punk rock, but a worn out library card. It clearly showed in MES’s dramatic and vivid wordplay manifest throughout his band’s 40-year existence.

As a precocious teenager, MES was first hooked on pivotal Krautrock band Can, with their motorik chug and expansive drum rolls becoming a mainstay of the Fall’s sound. And yet, at the same time, the Fall never really sounded like anyone else. They may have often given the impression of shambolic chaos, but beneath that there was a tightly honed drive and attack which drew on anything from 1950s rockabilly through to the fizz and squall of acid house. The Fall were always a disorientating collage, but one held in check by MES’s pile-driving energy. The result was hypnotic and compelling. Central to this magnetic quality was always MES’s barked, tumbling wordplay that had its own lexicon and codes. Such was the force of MES’s personality that lesser lights were often drafted in by Smith for guest vocal appearances to add grit, menace and humour [ . . . ] Source: Mark E Smith: the last of the non-conformists