Microdisney - Harmony Time (1988)

Cathal Coughlan and Sean O'Hagan met at a party on New Years Eve in 1979, and with the addition of vocalist Mick Lynch they formed a trio that they named Constant Reminders. Within a few months they'd added Jack Walsh on bass and and Dave Galvin on drums, and their live gigs were taken much less seriously than future Microdisney outings would be, most likely because of Lynch's vaudevillian sense of humour compared to Coughlan's more acerbic world-view. The band stayed together for a few months, but having two frontmen was always going to be trouble, with both Coughlan and Lynch wanting to sing their own songs, and so Lynch left to join The Mean Features, later going on to become the frontman for indie-shamblers Stump. With Coughlan on keyboards and vocals, and O'Hagan on guitar, Chris McCarthy replaced Walsh on bass, and Giordai O'Laoghaire was added as a second guitarist, with the quintet renaming themselves Micro-Disney. Their style was completely different to what they would become known for, being a sort of rambling punk-funk, led by O'Hagan's lightning fast rhythm guitar, as can be heard on 'National Anthem', which was their contribution to the 'Kaught At The Kampus' 12" single, released in 1980. O'Laoghaire left the band in January 1982, soon followed by Galvin in March, and after McCarthy departed the band was down to a duo of Coughlan and O'Hagan. In May 1982 it was announced in Devoid Media magazine that they were on the verge of signing to a UK label, and in September they released their first single 'Hello Rascals' on Kabuki Records. 

'Pink Skinned Man' followed in 1983, and the success of the two singles led to an invitation to go to London to record a session for the John Peel show, deciding to move there permanently once it was recorded. While there they recruited Jon Fell on bass and Tom Fenner on drums, and became a gigging band again. In January 1984 they recorded a second Peel session, and just three months later were invited back again for another session in April. By this time they'd signed a deal with Rough Trade Records, who released their debut album 'Everything Is Fantastic' in May, together with the 'Dolly' single the following month. From the middle of 1984 Microdisney started gigging extensively to build on the relative interest of their first releases, not just to make the public aware of their existence but also to win over their record label in the process, as Rough Trade seemed to be shuffling their feet over the next release, and reserving their efforts and resources for label mates The Smiths. 'Everybody Is Fantastic' did make a brief appearance in the indie charts in August, and a further Peel session was recorded in October 1984, where they previewed some excellent new material. Penniless and desperate for continuity, the band considered re-releasing a compilation of their older material themselves, and it came in the form of the provocatively titled 'We Hate You South African Bastards', put out by Rough Trade, and allowing fans to hear those rare first two singles, as well as picking up some previously unheard songs. However, the album was not representative of what Microdisney were doing at the time. Impatient for the new material to see the light of day, their situation was fuelling some increasingly bitter lyrics, commenting on the political situation in England at the time. 

January 1985 finally saw signs of progress, with a new album and single promised, and a heavy nationwide tour to follow, but it was April before the three song EP 'In The World' finally appeared, and it pretty much disappeared without trace. Things then went quiet again, while fans waited for the promised album, but before that appeared they released the single 'Birthday Girl', which was one of their best pop songs. The album finally arrived in November, with Rough Trade putting significantly more weight behind its release than their first record, and 'The Clock Comes Down The Stairs' became their first indie number one, helped in no small part by being a truly brilliant album. The success of 'The Clock Comes Down the Stairs' gave Microdisney prospects of a much brighter future as they entered 1986. James Compton (ex Darts) had joined them on keyboards, and the band were beginning to be noticed in the press, prompting Virgin Records to offer them a record deal, which was an easy decision to make bearing in mind that they'd always felt they were never given the backing they deserved from Rough Trade. Once signed to Virgin, Microdisney entered a well deserved period of rest and relaxation, with gigs few and far between, although they did play the Glastonbury festival, and they recorded their sixth Peel session In July. 1986 saw them working on and recording a new album, with 'Crooked Mile' appearing in January 1987, six months after it should have been released. 'Town To Town' was issued as a single, and was well received, almost gracing the Top Forty, and it even earned them a pleasurable appearance on the Tom O'Connor show, with no hint of a scowl, and playing in the spirit it was intended. 

Things were not as rosy as they seemed, though, as the band were unhappy with the recording of 'Crooked Mile', feeling that they had ruined some of their best songs, and despite the record having at least three other tracks good enough to be singles, they refused to release any more singles from it. By February 1987 their promotional tour had fizzled out,  and they commenced work on the follow-up record, with the first fruits being the superb return to form single 'Singer's Hampstead Home', being a vicious attack on Boy George, who lived in Hampstead at the time. Instead of the new album following right behind the single, it became a waiting game again, and it was February 1988 before they issued another single, with 'Gale Force Wind' preceding the album '39 Minutes' by a month. It was their best work in some time, with a production that captured the hard side of their nature but took nothing away from the pop melodies, and where no punches were pulled. Despite the quality of the music, it was ignored by the general public, and they were dropped by Virgin just two months after the album came out, and the disillusioned band split up in August 1988. Normally that would be a sad end to a criminally under-rated group, but with talents like Coughlan and O'Hagan involved they weren't going to stay down for long, and in no time at all Coughlan had formed Fatima Mansions and O'Hagan put together The High Llamas, with both bands going on to have the huge success that had eluded Microdisney. They should have been much more respected and admired than they were, and hopefully you can hear how good they were from this collection of rare singles, b-sides and out-takes. 

      
Track listing

Disc I - 1980-1985
01 National Anthem (from the 'Kaught At The Kampus' 12" single 1980)
02 Hello Rascals (single 1982)
03 The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost (b-side of 'Hello Rascals')
04 Michael Murphy (previously unreleased)
05 Patrick Moore Says You Can't Sleep Here (previously unreleased)
06 Pink Skinned Man (single 1983)
07 Fiction Land (b-side of 'Pink Skinned Man')
08 Love Your Enemies (previously unreleased)
09 Pretoria Quickstep (previously unreleased)
10 Dear Rosemary (b-side of 'Dolly' 1984)
11 Harmony Time (b-side of 'Birthday Girl' 1985)
12 Money For The Trams (b-side of 'Birthday Girl' 1985)

Disc II - 1985-1988
01 Loftholdinswood (from the 'In The World' single 1985)
02 Teddy Dogs (from the 'In The World' single 1985)
03 464 (from the 'In The World' single 1985)
04 Little Town In Ireland (b-side of 'Town To Town' 1987))
05 She Only Gave In To Her Anger (b-side of 'Singer's Hampstead Home' 1987)
06 Brother Olaf (b-side of 'Singer's Hampstead Home' 1987)
07 Half A Day (b-side of 'Singer's Hampstead Home' 1987)
08 I Can't Say No (Betty Lou Version) (b-side of 'Gale Force Wind' 1988)
09 No, I Can't Say (Thank You For Speaking To Me Mustapha) (b-side of 'Gale Force Wind' 1988)
10 Can't I Say No (Hackney Aid) (b-side of 'Gale Force Wind' 1988)

The Fatima Mansions - Suicide Bridge (1994)

After the split of the criminally under-rated Microdisney, the band's acerbic and political frontman Cathal Coughlan surfaced with a new group and an uncompromising vision. The Fatima Mansions, named after a run-down Dublin housing estate, was to be a vehicle for his world-view, and Andrias O'Gruama (guitar), Hugh Bunker (bass), Nick Allum (drums) and Zac Woolhouse (keyboards) were enlisted for the supporting roles. Coughlan's lyrical fixations of religious bigotry, imperialism and death was spelled out in parables of increasing hysteria and black humour, while the safety of Microdisney's rock arrangements was abandoned in favour of an all-out aural assault, leading to the band becoming a cult favourite in the 90's. They introduced themselves in 1989 with the album 'Against Nature', which was lauded as a startlingly well-rounded debut, establishing a broad territory from the driving single 'Only Losers Take The Bus', to the synth-pop pastiche of '13th Century Boy', and the occasional brooding ballad like 'Wilderness On Time'. There was a new-found power and urgency in the vocal delivery, and an incisiveness to the sound, driven by Andrias's raw guitar lines. The single 'Blues For Ceausescu' followed in 1990, and took the band on to a higher level of ferocity and invention, heralding in the eighteen-track onslaught of the second album 'Viva Dead Ponies' later that same year. Meanwhile, regular gigging quickly built their reputation as an extraordinary spectacle, with Coughlan hurling his hulk around the stage like a man possessed while the band drove him on. 

In early 1991, Coughlan performed some acoustic gigs billed as 'Fatima Mansions Singular', and some of these more restrained songs emerged on 1991's 'Bertie's Brochures', including covers of Scott Walker's 'Long About Now' and Richard Thompson's 'The Great Valerio', and a barely recognizable dismemberment of R.E.M.'s 'Shiny Happy People'. Normal service was resumed with the release of Valhalla Avenue in 1992, which contained the customary doses of rancour and strident guitar riffing on tracks like 'Evil Man' and 'Go Home Bible Mike', but the album's ferocious tone did not prevent it from becoming their biggest seller yet, reaching number 52 on the UK albums chart. They even had a surprise Top 10 single later that year with a near-psychotic reworking of Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)', although this was largely due to the Manic Street Preachers' flip-side cover of the M*A*S*H theme song 'Suicide Is Painless', with both songs coming from the NME tribute album in aid of the charity, the Spastics Society. While their uncompromising style may have ruled out any greater commercial success, their standing as a live act secured a support slot on a U2 tour, and Coughlan continued his prolific output by releasing '20 Golden Showers' in 1993 under the name Bubonique, featuring compatriot comedian Sean Hughes, followed by a new Fatima Mansions album, 'Lost In The Former West' the next year. Once again this was not for the faint-hearted, tackling international affairs with the usual rage and humour, and became the swansong for the band, as they went on hiatus while Coughlan worked on a new solo release. As well as all the superb music to be found on their albums, they also treated their fans to previously unheard tracks on the flips pf their singles, some of which never made it onto their albums either. This two-disc set gathers them all together for a double album of hard to find recordings from this uncompromising and much-missed band, made all the more poignant by Coughlan's death on 18 May 2022 after a long illness; he was just 61 years of age.

Track listing

Disc One
01 What? (b-side of 'Only Losers Take The Bus' 1989)
02 Dear Dad (from the 'Edward Not Edward' compilation 1989)
03 Blues For Ceausescu (single 1991)
04 On Suicide Bridge (b-side of 'Blues For Ceausescu')
05 Lady Godiva's Operation (from 'Heaven And Hell' tribute album to The Velvet Undeground 1991)

06 Hive (single 1991)
07 Stigmata (b-side of 'Hive')
08 The Holy Mugger (b-side of 'Hive')
09 A Singer Must Die (from 'I'm Your Fan' tribute album to Leonard Cohen 1991)
10 Paper Thin Hotel (b-side of '1000%' 1992)
11 1,000,000% (b-side of '1000%' 1992)

Disc Two
01 Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (split single 1992)
02 The Scarecrow (b-side of 'Evil Man' 1992) 
03 John The Gun (from 'Peace Together' charity album 1993)
04 As I Washed The Blood Off (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
05 Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
06 It's So Cold.... I Think (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
07 Into Thinner Air With The Loyaliser (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
08 Gary Numan's Porsche (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
09 Arnie's Five (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
10 Sleep Of The Just (b-side of 'Popemobile' 1994)