Hill Street Blues
It was the summer of 1979, as I recall. The night that my band, the absurdly-titled Acme Music made their debut at the Harp Bar on Belfast's Hill Street. We had rocked the youth club circuit and a few church halls. I think we had already featured at Clonduff Community Centre where they paid for your talent in cider bottles. But the Harp Bar was the big deal. It was where the grandees of punk lived. It was also a temendously snobby joint and if you hadn't been in the first few skirmishes of the punk wars, you were considered a vulgar intruder. Which wasn't very punk rock at all...
So we gave it our best and a few people clapped, perhaps ironically. Many of our fans had been too scared to turn up, such was the Harp's reputation. But we negotiated the stripper on the stairway and hauled a pitiful PA system up there with us. We may have played a Ramones song and we didn't look too concerned when a stray beer glass went whistling though the air. That's my pal Alan Giddings on guitar - the Mick Jones to my Joe Strummer delusion. In the background is drummer Ian Hanna. He was a pet food merchandiser, and so we travelled in style, supine on boxes of Biffo dog food. We smelt of offal, gelatine and unquenchable teen spirit.
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At 06:16 1st Jul 2009, lspeltier02 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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At 19:10 1st Jul 2009, attheyouthclub wrote:wowwwww! 1979 - Deluded? Yes. Great fun? Yes. Embarassing? Not at all. I like the photo. I'm obviously looking to you to count us in but I think Ian's playing a different song altogether (if song's the right word). Anyway at least we can say we were there or around, at least and we all played our little part in pushing the old men of Ulster rock off the stage at The Harp and The Pound. Oh God, I've just remembered the look of horror on Terry Hooley's face when we played him our demo that day at Good Vibs (do you still have it?) I think he said something like ''Well the timings quite good, boys'' - Thanks Terry!
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At 19:13 1st Jul 2009, attheyouthclub wrote:.....Oh and speaking of Joe Strummer, Bruce opened with London Calling on Sunday night in Hyde Park....AWESOME....
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At 05:46 22nd Jul 2009, carolnunggu wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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At 19:38 9th Oct 2009, stoyancho wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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At 10:59 25th Mar 2010, stephen wrote:I stumbled upon this blog article after reading a comment about acme music. I remembered my old mate from Methody, Alan Giddings, played in a such named band. So it was good to see a picture of the band, complete with Alan, looking slightly nervous on that guitar! Did he forget to take off his Methody school tie that evening? ;-)
Stephen
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