Strange Movements

Strange Movements From; Dublin Active; 1978 – 1980
Style; tbc
Line up;
Vocals; Turlough Hill
Guitar; Lar Rogan Guitar
Guitar; Lenny Lunge (Tony Leonard) Guitar
Bass; Ken Doyne
Drums; Denis McGrane

Lar Rogan & Ken Doyne left the band in January 1980 to form Neon Heart, they were replaced by Sammy Richards & Pete Clements. From February to May 1979 the band had a residency at the Magnet Bar with The Alternatives, from May to July 1979 they had a residency at the Spinning Wheel. Denis McGrane would leave the band in May 1980 to join Bantry Heavy Metal band The Nameless.
Records
7″ “Dancing In The Ghetto/Amuse Yourself”
May ’79 Good Vibrations Records. 
This single was recorded while their lead guitarist was in hospital recovering from a motorcycle crash. There were rumours in the Irish press in early 1980 that a follow up single was to be released on an American independent label.

George Purdy concert promoter & manager of the Skank Mooks & The Citizens Ticket supplied by Johnny Bonnie Gig Guide 22/11/1978 St Anthony’s Hall, Dublin George Purdy  The whole reason behind the gig was I saw Grafton St and the Dandelion market full of people every weekend complaining they couldn’t get to see bands because all gigs were held in licensed premises. Most of the people who paid for the records, magazines and clothes were under age. After the St Anthony’s gig you had the Dandelion Saturday afternoon and McGonagle’s Saturday and Sunday afternoon gigs. The attendance At St Anthony’s (600+) made it apparent there was a market not being catered for.
U2 were on the original bill but got involved in a dispute over who should “headline” or play last. As this was “not in the spirit” of the event I removed them. No hard feelings as I recall.
Although I do have a recollection of Adam Clayton returning from U2’s first tour of large US arenas asking me if I ‘was still promoting little gigs in little halls?”
The Movements didn’t play, despite protestations from Turlough from the stage. The Nooks played an anarchic version of “wild thing” where the thin line which devices performer and audience became very blurred or disappeared. The “official” mooks were Paul Woodful, Dick Purdy, Johnny Bonnie, Reb, Fred McLoughlin the rest just got on stage during the chaos. The line up was The Citizens, Skank Mooks, Strange Movements (thrown off after ticket dispute) Virgin Prunes (compete with Bono and Edge doing backing vocals. Bono injured his foot in the spokes of Guggie’s Honda 50 on the way to the gig), New Versions and Berlin.
The hall cost the princely sum if 40 pounds to hire. The PA and lights 100. I was putting my future at risk here! There was graffiti damage backstage, the fire only left ashes on the dance floor, it was only paper. Emmett O’Reilly Yeah, I’m afraid myself and Gavin Friday were responsible for the used computer printout paper that was set on fire. We liberated it from the office where we worked. The first bottle missed my face by a couple of inches. Strangely, I noticed it was a Smithwicks bottle as it flew by.

School Kids on stage @ Blackrock Park. Picture by Patrick Brocklebank. 04/06/1979 “Peace” Concert Peoples Park Blackrock. Strange Movement did not play at this concert, they did invade the stage. Irish Press report “A punk rock group which gate-crashed a Dublin open air peace concert yesterday was asked to leave the stage at the People’s Park in Blackrock after shouting slogans at the audience, threatening to burn down Leinster House, throwing holy water in a lake and burning Vatican flags”.

George Purdy They used Papal Flags at the gig in Blackrock during an anti-papacy song. The Papal visit was in Sept ’79 which would have been a year after the pictured gig so I don’t know if there would be any connection. I remember on the day in Blackrock Park I wasn’t even aware of the existence of papal flags as I had to ask someone what the yellow flags were. 
Emmett O’Reilly My memories (unreliable) of the gig that U2 were supposed to play was that there was, for some reason, a large contingent from N. Ireland at it and that they were the source of the trouble (!) Saw some awful scenes, one guy decking another, then taking off his boot and smashing the guy in the face with it. Strange Movements: played with them and The Alternatives a couple of times, when I was in The Citizens, probably in the Magnet. Thought they were ok but at the time regarded them as a bit hippy-ish and certainly not “hard”.

02/07/1978 Blackrock Park, Dublin with Boy Scoutz, The School Kids, Rocky DeValera & The Gravediggers, U2, The Vipers. Hot Press “Frontlines” June must be a wicked month for punks. Certainly the Blackrock Festival held last Sunday was a depressing sequence of cock ups. The organizers had formed the impression that Fran Quigley was going to deliver them a PA. He didn’t so they had to use The School Kids’ gear which wasn’t built for open air performances.Then fights broke out which led to one unfortunate blood spewing individual, being carted off to hospital. Then amidst the shambles, The Vipers and U2 decided not to play. Just another gig in Blackrock Park, huh?………………

22/11/1978 St Anthony’s “Punk Festival” with New Versions, Berlin, Virgin Prunes, Skank Mooks, The Citizens. Eamon Delaney “I have a poster for this gig. The full lineup, from the top, is the New Versions, Berlin, the Virgin Prunes, the Strange Movements, the Skank Mooks and the Citizens. It was my first gig, and very memorable ; a wild show, with fires being burned down the front of the stage as people set alight some reams of computer paper thrown around as part of the Prunes typically avant garde shock-art set. A women in a wheelchair was whirling around the moshpit, and kids from nearby Oliver Bond flats snook in to join the show. The Strange Movements had a single, Dancing in the Ghetto with Good Vibrations records and the New Versions had Regine Moylett as a singer, subsequently a long time PR person with U2. She and her sister Susan ran the famous No Romance punk and fashion bondage shop in the Dandelion..”

22/02/1979 Magnet Bar, Dublin with White Noise, The Alternatives, Skank Mooks
22/03/1979 Magnet Bar, Dublin with The Alternatives, Boy Scoutz, The Blades. Hot Press review by Bill Graham Rehearsals rehearsals rooms at the Magnet but the Pearse St. kids outside don’t identify. Afterwards, someone stumbles back with a bruised scalp. The difference between Dublin and London; here gangs don’t have isms or projected ideologies.

Upstairs, no sweating scene, just friends and allies at a workshop. The Alternatives open, their bassist opting for the low slung Simenon/Ulster model. Still at the 1, 2, 3, 4 stage, they haven’t yet counted to 10 or more.

The Blades are neat if not enough. Their bassist buys his ties from the same shop as Foxton or Robinson and sings like Elvis C so I don’t know whether their Beatlism pop punk revivalism comes from Buddy’s publisher or his clone. Still, they have a design, etched with some understanding fills from the guitarist. Work to do but a concept, worth the effort.

The Boy Scoutz excuse themselves by announcing they had only an hour’s notice so hadn’t the time to get pissed/sober enough. They exude but not flaunt a sense of style, but problems remain with the rhythm machine (The Slits/Runaways trauma too). None the less, new bassist Deirdre has a power and the pulse to develop.

So far experimental rather than applied science. Strange Movements used to be but now their Good Vibrations signing makes sense. Truly, Dublin’s only Ulster band in attitude, their bassist takes off the Undertones v-neck sweater look while singer Turlough has a holed pullover but it’s a bainin. He doesn’t take no fun for an answer either, as much inciter as exciter.

Too many prior statements have used the spirit of ’76 as fuel for other purposes than punk or neo-same. Not the Strange Movements who are instinctive fans who know about emotion not “Rock”. Beneath it all a sense of desperation, thus a lament on “Loughan House”, and of isolation, their projected single “Dancing In The Ghetto” The Magnet Theme, slow and sure fingered and a record worth wanting.

Strange Movements have an instinct for rock’s primal power and can’t be so jaded to pastiche. Their one cover, the Stones “Sympathy For The Devil” but the gang at the traffic lights isn’t in tune. A ghetto yes but nobody’s dancing and the movements are strange, stranger still than Turlough comprehends. If and when…………………

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27/05/1979 Dandelion Market, Dublin with The Blades
03/06/1979 McGonagle’s, Dublin with The Frames
10/06/1979 Dug Inn, Bray
08/07/1979 McGonagle’s, Dublin with The Blades