Terri Hooley, Teenage Kicks, and the Belfast punk scene at the height of the Troubles
Terri Hooley outside his Good Vibrations shop in Belfast. Stuart Bailie's book details that era.
Punk rock faced the ultimate test when it arrived in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, says music author and journalist Stuart Bailie. It was all very well affecting a snarl and singing about storming the barricades from the relative safety of New York or London. In Belfast and Derry, where the bombs were going off and paramilitaries flexed their muscles, punk’s manifesto of brotherhood and defiance resonated differently.
“Proof of concept for punk was Belfast. The King’s Road could talk about revolution. New York could talk about radicalism,” explains Bailie, who tells the story of those times via a new book about the Godfather of Belfast punk, Terri Hooley: Seventy-Five Revolutions.
“You drop punk into Belfast where at that stage 2,000 people had died in the conflict – the place is being riven apart by incendiary device and car-bombs. And some lunatic decides he wants to open a record shop, close to the Europa Hotel [at that point, the most bombed hotel in Europe].”
That record shop was Good Vibrations. The lunatic was Hooley, a driving force in a Northern Ireland music scene who will shortly turn 75 (hence the title of Bailie’s book).
At a time when Belfast was starkly divided, the store was one of those rare refuges where kids could come together. Step through the doors, and the conflict faded to background noise. Here, everyone was the same – all united by music.
“In the evenings, there wasn’t much of a social life. Your parents didn’t want you to go out. People went out and never came back. Saturday afternoon was your moment to meet your tribe, your people. One of the few places you could go if you couldn’t afford to go to a pub or were too young to go was to stand in Terri’s record shop for several hours. Many people did. It was deeply important.”
Hooley has survived long enough to become a living legend. His story is well known: there have been previous books about him and even a 2012 movie in which he was played by Richard Dormer, aka Beric from Game of Thrones, with future Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker as his then-wife Ruth.
Bailie, a writer for the NME, Mojo and the author of several books about Northern Ireland music, has come at the subject from a new angle. Seventy-Five Revolutions looks at the early influences on Hooley and features wonderful archive images of Belfast in the 1970s and '80s.
“I’ve been taking photographs of Terri for 30 years. Why not do a photo-book? And then you go, ‘no that would be a missed opportunity’. There are so many stories there. I didn’t want to do a huge book. Why don’t we make it something really beautiful? There was a previous book about Terri – it was interesting in a way but it was about his sex life and stuff. I thought, ‘that’s not the kind of book I want to write’. I wanted it to not be 'Crazy Terri'. I wanted it to be loved for Terri and consideration for Terri.”
Good Vibrations wasn’t just a store. Hooley ran a label of the same name, which is how he came to sign Derry punks The Undertones and put out their iconic single, 'Teenage Kicks'. Their success was a testament to his determination not to follow the rules. No London record label would have given The Undertones a second glance: punks were supposed to be dressed in leather and denim, with spiky hair and ready-made slogans.
The Undertones wore anoraks and sang about Subbuteo. It took an outsider such as Hooley to give them a chance (though both shop and label would unravel in the 1980s).
“That’s the tag that his legendary status hangs on. The whole idea that it was this semi-random decision. He was crossing the road. He says, ‘by the time I’ve crossed the road I’ll give you an answer’ [as to whether or not to sign The Undertones]. I liked that: he didn’t spend months sweating, what should I do with this band? A semi-random act has created one of the most distinctive punk records ever. In Belfast, regardless of The Undertones, we would have loved him anyway. But to be able to put something out for £300 that the whole world knows is a classic – most of us will never have that opportunity. He’ll go to heaven for that alone.”
Truffling through the archives of the Belfast music scene was a personal journey for Bailie. He moved to London in the mid-1980s and had a thriving career as a music journalist. He could have stayed; many did. But instead, in 1996, he moved with his family back to Belfast. The city was still a conflict zone then – but he went anyway. There have been challenging times. But having raised his family there, he’s never regretted it.
“I went to London in 1985. At that stage, people talked about an acceptable level of violence. It was like Belfast was always going to be a bit shit. Part of that fun of the punk era had turned into this thing where you had to make videos and get record company money. Everything became very challenging. I was in London for 11 years. I worked for the NME and various other places. I had a great time; I loved it.
“But I had a young family. It was a case of either you come back now or you don’t come back. You’d see these people who never made it home. There was always a little bit of sadness about them. I came back. I remember I did this thing with [industrial rock trio] Therapy? in 1994, just after the ceasefire. We travelled around Northern Ireland. We went to the Nerve Centre in Derry – we met Ash and David Holmes. I thought, ‘well I’ve got something to offer here’. My young family can have a good life here. I haven’t really regretted it. In Belfast, you have to get by on pennies.”
Still, he’s glad he persevered and came home. He and Hooley became friends – having put behind them that time Hooley refused to sign Bailie’s band during the Good Vibrations years. Had he stayed in London, he wouldn’t have had that relationship.
”In Belfast, you have some of the greatest laughs ever. You have good pals around you. It’s hard to make a living. All the other bits are quite good.”
- Terri Hooley: Seventy-Five Revolutions is out now. Among the outlets it can be purchased from is http://www.musicglue.com/digwithit/shop
