Show Notes
This week we celebrate 50 years of The Undertones with guitar player Damian O’Neill.
Damien kept diaries during the early years of the band & reads extracts for us throughout & he tells us about joining the band age 15 & their first gig at a local scout hall. From there The Undertones honed their craft playing regularly at The Casbah in their hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland.
His older brother John O’Neill starts to write songs & they record their debut release The Teenage Kicks EP - after which John Peel plays it & becomes a fan - resulting in the songs success & an appearance on Top Of The Pops.
The day after their TV debut the band return to Derry for a triumphant homecoming gig at The Rocking Chair, a local pub.
Damien tells us about briefly touring with Joy Division & The Rezillos & their ill fated attempt to stage a festival in their hometown headlined by The Clash. The festival is cancelled after Joe Strummer receives a letter from local political loyalists.
In return for the cancellation, the Undertones get to open for The Clash on a US tour in the Autumn of 1979.
Damien also tells us about his favourite Undertones tracks, his brother John getting arrested on tour & previews the upcoming 50th anniversary gigs later this year.
It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmaps
It is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it.
You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/events
Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17
X: @simonmusicmaps
Facebook: E17rockbookclub
Hosted, Produced & Edited by Simon Cardwell Music by Andy Maxwell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Music Maps Podcast
Jimmy McDonough joins us this week to tell us about his new book Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky Tonks.
Roy Boulter joins us to talk about his time in The Farm & also his new film Algorithm Party starring PJ Smith, which marks Roy’s directorial debut.
This week we present an episode in 2 parts - in part 1 we welcome Holly Buckler daughter of The Jam drummer Rick Buckler.
Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne is our focus this week as Keith Kahn-Harris joins us to mark the release of his book The Beautiful Death of Ozzy Osborne - How Metal Teaches Us To Live. Out now in the US & the UK.
Join us to go back 25 years to the release of The Strokes debut album Is This It.