I've been doing a run of mainstream artists for the past week or two, so it's time for something that's barely in the stream.
In 1990, between leaving and returning to Papua New Guinea, due to personal circumstances I spent the year living the life of a single man in Fremantle, Western Australia. I fell in with a group of people who drank at Irish pubs (I don't remember stealing that pint glass mug from Fenians) and we went from our local Clancy's to anywhere playing live music. That's how I heard about and bought this album.
Lick the Tins came from relative obscurity, released a single followed by an album, then a couple more singles FROM the album, then they quietly faded back into relative obscurity. This 1986 LP contains almost their entire output, although the 1991 re-release had 6 bonus tracks. They were mainly b-sides or 12" mixes.
Simon Ryan and Ronan Heenan had been in 'The Almost Brothers', another combo practically unknown but who remarkably had a song on the 1980 Radio One playlist. The group broke up but Simon and Ronan met up again a few years later in London. Ronan brought in his friend, Alison Marr who he used to busk with in the London Underground. Ronan and Alison were both from Northern Ireland, he trained as a vet and she was a reporter. Simon was a graphic designer at Stiff Records. Between the three of them they wanted to combine a love of rock and blues with Irish traditional folk.
Simon heard Alison singing a Celtic version of the Elvis song 'Can't Help Falling in Love', accompanying herself on the pennywhistle while Ronan played guitar. He thought it was worth making a demo. He took the demo to his mates at Stiff Records who "told him that he should not consider giving up his day job, and should get on with designing sleeves."
Fortunately the demo did get heard by Bob Barnes who was a partner in Sedition Records. He got them to re-record the song in a studio and it was released as a single. With Aiden McCroary initially on bass then keyboards and Chris Hayes taking over bass plus a couple of random violin players, they got an album together. Simon Ryan not only played the drums on the album, he also took the advice of his friends at Stiff Records and designed the cover.
'Belle of Belfast City' and 'In the Middle of the Night' were also put out as singles but didn't manage to make an impression. A few years later Van Morrison & The Chieftains released 'I'll Tell Me Ma' as a single (same song, alternate title).
One of the album tracks is Hendrix's 'Hey Joe' which last for two and a half minutes, the first 2 mins is Irish reels and the last 30 seconds mentions Joe. I love it !!
After critical acclaim but commercial disaster, the group played clubs and colleges for a while but eventually broke up a year later. That's a shame, they could have been better than their 5 minutes of fame.
The first time I heard their brilliant cover of'Can't Help Falling in Love' was during the end credits of the 1987 movie 'Some Kind of Wonderful'
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