In 1977 Dave Angry (aka Dave McCullough of long defunct UK Music Weekly Sounds) and I published the fanzine Alternative Ulster* in Northern Ireland. We came up with the title together one afternoon while looking out over a grey, wet Irish winter day contemplating the then grievous and sorry lot of the wee north. Local band Stiff Little Fingers were so taken by Alternative Ulster the fanzine that they wrote a song named after it which they wanted to release on the fanzine as a flexi disc. They premiered the song for me in the Trident Bar, Bangor.
In the summer of 2018 an Alternative Ulster plaque was unveiled on the hostelry that now stands where The Trident used to be. The title we dreamed up has entered into common parlance, though the fanzine is largely forgotten, except by me and whoever recently outbid me to the tune of £50 on ebay for a copy. When SLF were doing their 40th Anniversary tour in 2017, I arranged to print up a 40th Anniversary issue of Alternative Ulster, the fanzine. But it wasn’t like the old days and, although some were kind enough to invest £5 for a numbered issue made on Google docs, when Jake Burns gave us a little space on his merch stall at the Brighton gig on the 40th Anniversary tour we (my pal Jenny and I) sold exactly no copies. But there WAS this
poem, Antisocial Media, which I included in the zine and added in the time left over during the recording session. My heart leapt a few healthy octaves when Martin’s wondrous backing track was fitted to the words. Thanks to Ralph McLean and his team at Radio Ulster for assistance above and beyond. Though I regret excising the line about The Undertones I am happy to reclaim a bit of my own past from the smokescreen of history. And in making my first proper collection of one on one recordings, an album as was, I’ve learned that killing your babies is all part of (creative) life.
*No relation to the 21st century magazine of the same name.
lyrics
AN ALTERNATIVE ULSTER 2018
There’s an alternative Ulster where there’s no security force. A place without Arlene’s, RHI or Gerry’s twitter discourse. There’s an alternative Ulster where the music is sweet. They pogo away the days there because Walden’s heaven is under their feet.
There’s the alternative Ulster of Terri and my brother Jake, The love you take being equal to the love you make.
An alternative Ulster of sundry elations
Where we came together and felt good vibrations.
We would pogo till our feet got tired,
Then go down to Dublin and get totally wired,
Roar for them songs until our throats got sore,
And then cry out for more, more, more. Characters they were, to soak up these bands. Merve the Perve, Tara Winter and the late Freddie Hans. Trouble sailed round every corner
And we were tied to the masts.
I feared bumping into those guys from The Outcasts.
In the backstreets of the empty city
There’s voices that still moan
Like the wingeing fucker
Attempting to call up Protex up on the phone.
The hangouts, the drug dens,
The greasy spoons, and that bar,
Not to mention the lifts we cadged in my dad’s car.
The eternal search for every sort of living thrill.
The music kept on rolling down through the years Though it couldn’t conquer death or banish all fears. The loss and the illnesses that come with time.
Sins thought to be yours turned out to be mine.
That was history, and those are the ways.
Grey was mixed with gold in those old days.
But that’s alright, and here’s the last line,
An alternative must be waiting. Now is the time.
They stoked punk fires on the Cregagh estate
Where Alwyn’s Private World lay in wait.
On Stracham Green in July they fanned up the flames. Across the road came Geordie, he played football games. He was a warrior in a shirt of green,
The best alternative Ulster we’d ever seen.
There was mushrooms growing. Magic from the ground. Terri played the new tunes and the 60s psychedelic sounds. Nothing peculiar, and nothing so strange,
Like Arthur Lee making that change.
Staying forever plus one more day.
And in 77 we also gave it up for Mr Marvin Gaye.
The music kept on rolling down through the years Though it couldn’t conquer death or banish all fears. The loss and the illnesses that come with time.
Sins thought to be yours turned out to be mine.
That was history, and those are the ways.
Grey was mixed with gold in those old days.
But that’s alright, and here’s the last line,
An alternative must be waiting.
Now is the time.
credits
from Utopia,
released February 1, 2019
Gavin Martin - Words, Martin Bell - Music
The Headstrong Mining Company is the latest incarnation of the creative partnership of Multi-Instrumentalist Martin Bell (
Ex. The Wonder Stuff) and Spoken Word Artist / Music Critic Gavin Martin (NME, Daily Mirror). The dashing pair also go under the names "Martin & Bell", as well as "Bell and the Irishman....more
Poet Douglas Kearney and composer/producer/drummer Val Jeanty link up for a a compelling LP that feels like the written word come to life. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2021
