Category: Microdisney

It’s been almost six months since I last sat down to type up something for this series. Thanks for your patience!

Back in 2020, I pulled together a couple of what proved to be well-received posts on Microdisney.  Those dealt with a couple of singles released on Rough Trade back in 1984 and 1985, so I thought it would be a useful exercise to go back in time when I resurrected this series.

I’ll own up to not owning a copy of this single which came out on Kabuki Records in 1982.  It can be readily obtained via Discogs for about £25.

Both sides of the 7″ are more easily available via the compilation album We Hate You South African Bastards that was originally issued by Rough Trade in 1984 and then given later re-issues by Rev-Ola in 1996 and Cherry Red in 2013, but with the title of Love Your Enemies.   I’m assuming that with the end of Apartheid in 1990 that the band were now content to accept the change.

mp3 : Microdisney – Hello Rascals
mp3 : Microdisney – Helicopter of the Holy Ghost

Given that the late Cathal Coughlan had a reputation as being the angry young man of the Irish music scene, these gentle sounding numbers may come as a bit of a surprise.   But then again, the anger inside someone doesn’t have to be shouted out loud.

Hello Rascals is a thoughtful song – one in which the protagonist, possibly/probably as a result of addiction, is now sleeping rough on the streets and whose mental health issues see him terrified by dogs and mocked/pitied in equal measures by children and old ladies.

Helicopter of the Holy Ghost was the first of what would prove to be many critiques over the years from Cathal on religion.   It’s a song that John Peel played a lot on his show.

Microdisney would release one further single through Kabuki Records before making the move to Rough Trade and later again to Virgin Records before calling it a day in 1988.

The real inspiration for this post was seeing a fabulous documentary, Microdisney: The Clock Comes Down the Stairs, that was broadcast on BBC 4 a few months back and is still available via the BBC I-player.  It is very highly recommended.

JC

I was delighted with the positive response to the recent posting featuring Birthday Girl by Microdisney and so I thought it would be worth having an early(ish) return to them.

One of the comments left behind last time, was from Colin Milligan:-

“I saw Microdisney way-back-when at the Venue in Edinburgh. Great gig. Some good singles: Singer’s Hampstead Home, Loftholdingswood, and Gale Force Wind, as well as Birthday Girl. I suppose they all sound a bit ‘of their time’ now. Thanks for the reminder.”

I first came across Microdisney thanks to an appearance on Whistle Test, on a show that was broadcast partly live from the ICA in London in March 1985 and for which I had intended to tune in to catch sight of a new band from Manchester that I had heard so much about

It was a show that I had arranged for my flatmates to be tape in its entirety on a VHS tape as I couldn’t watch it when it went out. I had fully intended to just fast forward to the James piece, but the show opened with a very fine number from a band that I only knew by name and the fact they had previously released a fantastically named mini-album, at a time when anti-apartheid protests were many, called We Hate You South African Bastards:-

mp3: Microdisney – Loftholdingswood

I was really surprised that Loftholdingswood was such a tuneful pop number – in my head, I imagined they would be loud, shouty and angry men. Looking back, I am incredulous that I missed out on them but it was a period in which so much great pop music was being released, particularly from Glasgow and Scottish-based bands, that it was impossible to stay fully on top of things.

Loftholdingswood is still a very fine song – there’s more than a hint of the sort of great pop music that Paddy McAloon and Prefab Sprout were producing at this point in time. And given that nobody ever accuses them as ‘being of its time’, I’d argue that this is no different…..and if you’re reading this Colin, I would hope you’d agree.

The song appeared on a three-track EP called In The World. I’m happy to say that I recently picked up a second-hand copy in reasonably decent shape and here’s the other two tracks.

mp3: Microdisney – Teddy Dogs
mp3: Microdisney – 464

One thing is, from listening to the opening section of 464, you’d never mix up Paddy McAloon and Cathal Coughlan‘s styles of singing….and there’s a hint of the venom and anger that would come to the fore in Fatima Mansions and songs like Blues for Ceausescu.

JC

Microdisney was an Irish band that was founded in Cork in 1980, with its two mainstays being Cathal Coughlan (keyboards, vocals) and Sean O’Hagan (guitar). The band broke up in 1988 with Coughlan going on to form the Fatima Mansions while O’Hagan fronted the High Llamas.

After some 30 years, they got back together and then broke-up again following live shows in London in the summer of 2018 before Dublin and Cork in February 2019.  An extensive interview, given subsequently by Cathal Coughlan to an Irish newspaper, provides all the explanation you need. Here’s an edited version of it:-

Where there is an end, there might also be a cautious beginning. Cathal Coughlan, the Cork man perhaps best known for being the vocalist and lyricist of Microdisney, is wrapping up the group, setting alight to the package and scattering the ashes on to waters that will transport them to the afterlife.

“There are a number of things that persistently matter to me,” says Coughlan of his next creative step, “and one is the art song. Whether it’s German theatre, Sinatra, Tin Pan Alley, Northern Soul or discordant, pernickety song composition from the late 20th century, those are the things I care about. A lot of what I’m doing is in that range. The challenge is: how do you do something noir that doesn’t allude? I don’t want to allude if I can help it.”

Now in his late 50s, with robust features, Coughlan has much more a measure of himself than he once had. He is the exact opposite of Joni Mitchell’s pronouncement as a songwriter to comfort more than disturb. He speaks slowly, cautiously. He has the manner of someone who has come through conflict intact yet is very much in charge because of it, and he has a knack for closing circles with precision.

He did the same with his post-Microdisney groups, Fatima Mansions and Bubonique, but this time last year he had to re-open the box that his first band had been sealed in for over 30 years. The reason was Microdisney being, in 2018, the first recipient of the IMRO/NCH Trailblazer Award, which celebrates culturally important albums (in this case, 1985’s The Clock Comes Down the Stairs) by iconic Irish musicians, songwriters and composers.

“I felt very humbled,” he says of the award being bestowed. In acceptance, he includes the other band members, particularly fellow Cork colleague Sean O’Hagan. “Obviously, Sean and I are more rooted in Ireland, and so it possibly meant something different, but everyone was blown away by it.”

It shows how Ireland has changed, says Coughlan, who recalls that in the mid-1980s, the band could never have afforded to self-finance a journey from London to Dublin. “It would be unwise not to accept that there was a generational aspect to it, but it meant a hell of a lot to be given such an award by a major cultural institution.”

Was there a sense that Microdisney had either been completely forgotten about or were little more than a fond memory for a certain demographic of music fan? “The dust had settled for us,” says Coughlan with an unsentimental air of finality. “Any emotional stuff that we had from the ’80s had long ago drifted off into the ether; we knew we could play the material, and I knew that I could relate to a lot of the emotional aspects of it.”

If the Microdisney shows last June (two at the National Concert Hall, one of which was invite-only, one at London’s Barbican) proved anything, it was that their songs have stood the often perilous test of time.

Regarding talk of further Microdisney shows, Coughlan says: “There was an ellipsis more than a discussion. Other than we had all enjoyed it and that the shows exceeded our expectations – which were high enough to begin with – we all had other stuff going on, so it got a bit quiet.”

Cue a promoter’s offer, however, to play gigs in Dublin and Cork. “We just decided to do it, yet not the same as last year. The two shows, however, is really the extent of it.”

Why such a definitive end?

“Because in the context of being a songwriting and recording outfit, Microdisney ran its course. Yes, people appreciated it, and it made a big difference to my life, but let’s just leave it, for the most part.” He says the band can be revived, and that fun would certainly be had, “but that’s about the size of it”.

So there you are…..a band that was well-loved in their native land doing the decent thing by playing a very small number of shows in acknowledgment of a major award then calling it a day before their legacy runs the risk of being tarnished. A number of their peers should take heed…

Here’s a 12″ single, complete with two b-sides, from the 1985 album, put out on Rough Trade Records, that received that IMRO/NCH Trailblazer Award:-

mp3: Microdisney – Birthday Girl
mp3: Microdisney – Harmony Time
mp3: Microdisney – Money For The Trams

The a-side is very poppy and radio-friendly….a sort of cross between Prefab Sprout and Deacon Blue.

Selected today as it is Mrs Villain’s actual birthday…..

JC