A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
This is the start of the
biography section. It has links to everything else on the site but it's
done in order of events. If you want to print a picture, click on it to
get a better quality version. Links to the record reviews, MP3's etc are,
hopefully, in Blue. Please remember that the live MP3's are generally
of poorish quality and for fans only. Anyone with no more than a casual
interest should not be playing them as you'll just end up going down the
pub to slag the band off. MP3's and videos can be downloaded (right click
and 'save target as'/ control+ click on link for Macs), Realaudio can
only be played online. At present the videos are big files, of limited
quality and the sound distorts- I hope to improve on the quality when
I get better software.
The
Eighties- what the fuck was all that about? (Jimmy Pursey)
Microdisney and the 1980's may have been a long
time ago but they meant a lot to me, too much to leave them ignored by
Cyberspace. They never really got the recognition they deserved and I
will never know how many other people they touched. To me though, they
would have been worthy of sharing a stage with Elvis, The Beatles, The
Sex Pistols and S Club 7.
From the early gentle semi-acoustic numbers to the later more aggressive,
fully produced sound, there was always a quality that made them stand
out. A band who played melodic pop tunes but with an attitude and message
that said more to me about the Eighties than anything else. Times and
music have changed since but the truth and relevance of their songs hasn't.
The Eighties were pretty grim, what with Thatcher and all that, and no
band (or politician) summed up the climate better. Whilst other more obviously
political bands whinged about a lot of things, Microdisney wrote about
people- the people who let it all happen. They peered deep into the human
soul and found fear, insecurity, ignorance, greed, apathy. Sometimes they
still even had time to laugh. Hatred was there for all things Right Wing
and Corporate, but really it was more to do with how people lived their
lives. They wrote about love, about sex, about lifestyle, about politics
and usually it took just one 3 minute song to cram it all in. A song about
nuclear war ('Town to Town') became a song about personal relationships
and it all made sense in a way I am struggling to explain.
When Microdisney was born, chart music had just discovered synthesizers. No-one needed to write songs anymore which left bands to concentrate on their make up. Fashion became everything and, as an added bonus, no-one was interested in hearing about what social security budget their tax cuts had come out of. On both counts of style and content Microdisney had missed the boat (if there ever was a boat for them to sail in). While the independent labels were still producing some good stuff, they too were being consumed by trends. Lazy journalists needed an easy angle and unless you were a part of a scene you were nothing. Microdisney just didn't fit in. Too cynical and worldly to be the bright pop act that Sean O'Hagan's music could have made them, not hardcore or experimental enough for the 'alternatives'. Even so, they made it onto Virgin. Gigs attended by the same 50 people turned into fair-sized gatherings and their mums got to see them on Tom O'Connor. In the end though it wasn't enough- they got more and more pissed off with the world, with the way they were being treated and probably with each other. They burned out after 5 years. Sean continued making pop songs with the High Llamas, Cathal Coughlan turned hardcore with the Fatima Mansions. Others may say different but neither on their own came anywhere near producing what they had done with Microdisney. They should have been massive.