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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
52 — village July - August 2012
Brief Background
Stano’s first musical expressions exploded in the
embryonic mayhem of Dublin’s punk movement.
No other musician from that era has produced
the range, quality and quantity of albums that he
has. His output embodies the scorching ethic of
early Dublin punk: no compromise, no accept-
ance of commercial considerations. The solo
nature of his work hasn’t been to the exclusion
of collaborations. In a way, his ability to include
contributions from members of Thin Lizzy, My
Bloody Valentine, Donal Lunny as well as visual
artists, demonstrates the quintessential intercon-
nectedness of the Irish art world.
Context
Sociologists Barbara Bradby and Brian Torode
laid down the marker for popular music studies in
Ireland. They correctly asserted that the meaning-
ful study of Irish music acts demanded scrutiny of
their particular social and industrial surroundings.
Their studies of U2 challenged the standard and
lazy myths that Irish bands emerged from ‘virgin
births’. This myth perpetuated the false conclu-
sion that great acts find their way to success. Such
lazy logic has contributed to a lack of comprehen-
sion about how crucial elements of Irish society
actually function.
The material conditions of any indus-
try or craft process shape the output.
Late RTE radio personality Gerry Ryan’s
autobiography contains frequent salivating admi-
ration for men he describes as “merchant princes”.
This élite of property developers and politicians,
he wrote, should be better compensated and
respected by the people of Ireland.
Higher rewards, he felt, would eliminate corrup-
tion. He described his youth spend in their midst:
“The Haugheys had a mansion, a swimming-
pool, rolling gardens, a hunting area and a lake.
A whole gang of us well-heeled upper-mid-
dle-class kids used to hang around together in
surroundings that exuded privilege and wealth”.
Ryan’s book describes his brief flirtation with
punk in Dublin. He enjoyed this brief dalliance
while a student at Trinity College. His bands Anal
Crack and the Vomettes (one can only imagine the
hilarity - what a laugh for his fellow law students)
and the Wires performed in Trinity and another
citadel of punk, the Dalkey Island Hotel.
While to Gerry Ryan and his mates Anal Crack
punk was a jolly jape, to other young Irish people
it was serious business. It is impossible to con-
template U2’s success without referring to the
vehement, violent and vibrant scene that opened
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Stano,
punk
polyglot
The revolutionary
Threats’ synths-player
was always challenging
in the creatively-loaded,
dangerous early 1980s
53
doors through which they gladly stepped. Stano
epitomises that hardscrabble incremental artis-
tic industriousness.
Stano’s life demonstrates the intriguing con-
nections in the Irish music industry. The punk
wave saw a tsunami of acts performing original
music. Many had a serious siege mentality, a feel-
ing of isolation. There was a sense that everything
that had happened previously was wrong. Like
any collective artistic endeavour alliances were
formed and broken. One of the heaviest bands of
the era had the perfect punk name – The Threat.
Stano was on synths. The first bands who plunged
into the idea of punk were generally musicians
who had struggled in some previous pre-punk
incarnation. Pub rockers, r ‘n’ b aces, glam preen-
ers and underground dwellers all heeded the call
to the new movement.
It attracted rebels and poseurs, peo-
ple who wanted to dress up and spit because
they read about it in the newspapers. It also
attracted the curious and the genuinely inspired.
The Threat accepted the new vision of punk. Their
songs uncompromisingly accepted that to be punk
meant to stand outside the mainstream. That was
dangerous ground in the Dublin of 1978. Their
singer, Maurice Foley, played traditional Irish
music growing up and developed a passing inter-
est in folk. Later it was the beat of the tambourine
that called to him.
At the height of the band’s popularity Foley
simply disappeared and joined the Hare Krishnas.
While many musicians threatened to walk out on
their bands Foley walked out on the Threat. And
who did these heaviest punks get to produce
their debut single? Planxty’s Donal Lunny. From
its inception the punk movement in Ireland had
a link with the traditional music
sphere. Albeit the progressive side
of trad in Ireland. Both waltzed on
the wild side from necessity.
The Threats’ debut single was
recorded and the band waited for
Lunny to mix it. European commit-
ments prevented the trad man from
mixing the single immediately. In
the simpler and unsophisticated
times that were in, the Threat used
to call up to Christy Moore’s house
weekly to find out when Lunny
might be back to complete the
single. In true punk spirit they even-
tually gave up and did it themselves.
Foley’s defection to Krishna put an
end to the Threat in 1981 but not
before the two-sided slab/slap of
vinyl documented some of the progressive ele-
ments of that punk scene.
The band’s Deirdre Creed was one of Ireland’s
first female bass players. Stano’s early adoption of
the synthesiser placed him alongside other pio-
neers like Steve Averill who grafted that futuristic
instrument to the local new-wave scene. Only
Averill kept pace musically and visually with
Stano in those complex, creative and chaotic
times. Their ingenuity, application and sustained
bloody-mindedness deflected the Dublin music
world from complacency. They were matched in
the literary sense by Dave Clifford whose fantastic
fanzine Vox chronicled the best of that scene. He
helped the Threat with their artwork.
Clifford poured his artistic background and
entrepreneurial instincts into the short-lived label
‘Vox Enterprise’. The debut release was Stano’s first
solo single, ‘Room’. While none of Stano’s output
is easy listening, some of his work is exceptionally
challenging. And that is one of the reasons why he
is the most significant solo artist to emerge from
that early Dublin punk scene. His work forces
the listener to engage. It offers a stark choice: be
annoyed by this or understand it. ‘ Room’ is evoca-
tive, distinctly unpunky (which makes it punky).
This was music by and for the people who
took John Lydon’s invitation to break the rules.
To them it was a compulsion not an option.
The average career of Dublin bands of the era
was one-single long. Most never succeeded in
gathering the resources necessary to leave a leg-
acy. The three Rs that constitute the bedrock of the
music industry: rehearse; record; release, were
beyond the means of most. Studios were primi-
tive and expensive.
Rehearsal rooms were often not just unfit
for purpose: they were unfit for human occu-
pation. Yet a few brave souls persevered.
While contemporaries the Virgin Prunes shrieked
for attention, Stano shied away from it. His instinct
was to shun the spotlight. In early Threat gigs he
placed his keyboards out of eyeshot - offstage. In
later shows he faced the floor, sometimes he even
lay on it. An artist seeking sanctuary
yet needing to express himself. To
the audience he was uncomfortable
viewing and completely captivating
because of this.
There were lots of chancers at the
time but few who would take a chance
on artists and commit resources to
them. Scoff Records was the nearest
the Republic came to producing a
response to Belfast’s Good Vibrations
record label - chronicling the emerg-
ing Dublin scene, giving these bands
a platform in the early eighties.
Although punk it certainly is not, its
guiding light, Deke O’Brien, was a
veteran of the early scene when Bob
Geldof needed allies in attempting
(for the most part very unsuccess-
fully) to prise open even a handful of venues to
original Irish rock acts. O’Brien brought this expe-
rience to many of the young Dublin acts who got
some sort of start from a release on the label.
A compilation called ‘Strange Passion –
Explorations in Irish Post Punk, DIY and
Electronic Music 1980-83’ has recently gath-
ered a number of innovative recordings together.
It deserves to be heard. More importantly it
deserves to be appreciated not solely for the
music but for the spirit and energy, passion
and creativity of those early trail-blazing acts.
We should not be nostalgic for the music scene
that produced them. The mindless violence was
repellent. Fights were picked like scabs by angry
and frustrated young people. The conditions were
Dickensian and hostility, rivalries and petty squab-
bles undermined most of the genius. You were
more likely to encounter bands on the car ferry
to Holyhead than see them play in Dublin.
The bright sparks that lit up the early eight-
ies darkness kept many of us coming back for
more. These were not celebrated poetic champi-
ons. These were (under)-dogged artists intent on
expressing creativity. What would the Irish music
scene look and sound like without the efforts of
Stano, The Prunes, Steve Averill, the Threat and
their brothers-in-arms the Peridots and Chant!
Chant! Chant!; or without Dave Clifford and his
revolutionary Vox fanzine? And where are their
heirs?
His work forces
the listener to
be annoyed
by this or
understand it
¨
