Tom Dunne: Microdisney on the BBC adds to Cork's sense of majesty this week
Cork band Microdisney, pictured here in 1987, are the subjects of a BBC Four documentary. (Photo by David Corio/Redferns)
As if there isn’t enough “Cork is great!” stuff in the air this week, there will be more incoming this Friday night on BBC Four.
A new documentary called The Story of Microdisney – The Clock Comes Down the Stairs, from director Julie Perkins, broadcasts at 10pm.
Central to it is the question: how can a band so unbelievably amazing not have “made it?” As a lifelong fan, I can only echo that: how indeed?
In the documentary you will hear a renowned music producer suggest that the O’Hagan/Coughlan songwriting partnership deserves to rank alongside those of Lennon/McCartney and Rodgers and Hammerstein.
There are those who will smirk at such a comparison and those who will nod furiously in agreement.
I don’t want to say which camp I am in, but I’ll tell you one thing: I think I’ve strained my neck.
It is interesting to hear Julie’s perspective. A TV producer/director, she was largely unaware of the band until asked to film a birthday party in 2012 at which Cathal Coughlan, Sean O’Hagan and bassist Jon Fell performed.
It was the first performance of Microdisney since their breakup in 1988.
She was not unaware of a certain magic in the air and began to discover the brilliance of the music and the power of Sean and Cathal’s partnership.
So, in 2018 when proper reunion concerts were mooted, she asked to film them. Thank God she did: the recorded footage and subsequent interviews are golden.
Cork is central to it all. There were elements to the Cork music scene of the late 1970s that made it unique in Ireland.
Elvera Butler’s canny booking skills, her ear for talent and her promotion of local acts, coupled with The Arcadia venue, created a scene in Cork that was unlike any other in the country.
It is said in the documentary that the Cork scene most closely echoed what was happening with the punk scene in the UK.
Bands like Mean Features, Nun Attax and Microdisney got to play with or see bands like The Fall and XTC. There was nothing like this in Dublin. Cork inculcated talent.
One of our various recessions undid Elvera’s good work and Sean and Cathal, like so many generations of Irish, took the boat to England. Here they faced penury and racism but dug in to make music.
A change in music direction was forced on them by circumstance, but it paid immediate dividends.
From playing music and looking at what has made some bands successful and others not, I had long since reached the conclusion that in the UK in the 1980s, two names were key.
If you could get the attention of Geoff Travis at Rough Trade, or John Peel at the BBC, your chances of getting on improved immeasurably. Microdisney got the attention of both.
John Peel even went as far as to describe ‘Helicopter of the Holy Ghost’ as the greatest B-side he had ever heard. Session after session followed.
When The Clock Comes Down the Stairs album was released it topped the indie charts. That was no mean feat.
So why did Microdisney not go on to enjoy the type of success labelmates The Smiths would soon experience?
‘Town to Town’, ‘Singer’s Hampstead Home’, ‘Loftsholdingswood’ and ‘Goodbye it’s 1987’ still sound epic and chart-conquering. Why not even a Top of the Pops appearance?
There is no simple answer to that — as you will find when you watch the documentary — although at times you may suspect that fate was conspiring against them. Even the weight of Virgin Records was not enough to get anything into the charts.
The band, in interview, are philosophical enough. It has to have been madly frustrating, but they carried those frustrations lightly enough. They moved on. There were other careers in music, other triumphs.
And then there were the reunion gigs in 2018. In light of Cathal’s subsequent passing in May 2022, those gigs look all the more precious here.
To see them celebrated, the songs played in the kind of venues and in front of the kind of sell-out adoring crowds they deserved, is life-affirming.
“Táimid I gCorcaigh,” Cathal announces as he ambles onto the stage at Cyprus Avenue. Back to Cork where it all began.
Later he and Sean pay tribute to each other on stage. They thank each other. It is wonderful and very poignant.
Cillian the best actor, these guys the best songwriters. Bottle the Lee, I tells ya.
- The Story of Microdisney – The Clock Comes Down the Stairs is on BBC Four on Friday, March 15, at 10pm
