Title: Horslips: Tall Tales, the Official Biography
Abstract: Horslips: Tall Tales, The Official Biography by Mark Cunningham Dublin: O'Brien Press, 2013 ISBN 978-1847175861 288 pages. 24.99 [pounds sterling]. Hardcover At last, musicians played traditional tunes in a lively, innovative way that made an Irish boy feel proud rather than pathetic'. So Maurice Linnane recalls when he heard Horslips as a boy on the radio, in this large-format biography of the pioneering 1970s rock band. Mark Cunningham, himself a musician and producer, integrates reminiscences from each of the five members, along with archival material from photos and media. This handsome design intersperses thoughtful analyses and entertaining stories into editorial commentary on gigs, recording processes, albums, critical reception, and career moves. Having grown up with Beatlemania, as well as an eclectic exposure to Irish music and culture, four of the five musicians first met in 1970 to mime a suitably hairy band for a Harp commercial. Three of them worked in advertising and promotion; the real band they then formed was determined to remain in Ireland and to retain control of not only its music but marketing and presentation. Bassist Barry Devlin defines this funky ceilidhe approach to deconstruct tunes and use them as the basis for new material'; Violinist, guitarist, and concertina player Charles O'Connor agrees that the band would transfer melodies from traditional sources. By the end of 1971, they electrified dancehalls in more ways than one. Appealing to the emerging glam rock movement, they dressed in leather, snakeskin, and even curtains from Clery's. Suitably, they also blended a bold visual look with fresh sounds. Horslips may have confessed no cultural responsibility to incorporate the traditional context; it just evolved as keyboardist, piper, and flautist Jim Lockhart avers. But it captured attention soon, as the band knew not only how to work the media but to work themselves in an intelligent, disciplined fashion. By 1972, their self-released debut, Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part made them Ireland's first home-grown rock success. Follow-up The Tain mingled Yeats' treatment of Cu Chulainn with Old Irish sources, bypassing Thomas Kinsella's translation as too recent for lyricist and percussionist Eamon Carr. These indigenous inspirations mingled with superheroes and Marvel Comics for Carr, a poet who also began to sprinkle into songs his verse patterns filtering both the Beats and Basho. Turlough O'Carolan's life story flowed into their third album, Dancehall Sweethearts, but that and its overproduced, more mainstream if lackluster follow-up loosened the intricate fit of rock with folk which had made their first pair of LPs critically and popularly successful. An acoustic Christmas-themed album mid-decade revived their spirit, enthusiastic reception on tours at home and overseas increased, and by 1976, their arguably most consistent and most powerful record emerged. A teenaged guitarist, soon to be known as The Edge, attended his first rock concert at Skerries. He was so impressed by Horslips that he resolved to join classmates who became U2. A triple-movement Celtic symphony, the Book of Invasions managed to slip a stanza stolen from Swinburne and what Carr calls a Bowie-esque whiff of alienation into a confident examination of origin myths. The Famine and immigration continued as themes in Exiles (1977) and The Man Who Built America (1978). The latter used Mici Mac Gabhann's memoir Rotha Mor an tSaoil to ground its narrative. Reflecting this novel mix of Irish heritage and American reinvention, Devlin and O'Connor appear to have sought a polished, slick musical delivery, in an era when arena rock and punk competed for loyalty among fans split over the merits of progressive rock's concept albums and mythic lore. …
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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