Alternatives

Alternatives From; Dublin Active; Dublin 1978 – 1980
Style; tbc
Line up;
Vocals & Guitar; Paul Redmond
Guitar; Ian Christie
Bass; David Christie
Drums Declan Byrne

David started the band and was their mainstay. He was influenced by the Clash, Manchester’s Slaughter & The Dogs & New York Dolls. Their set was a mixture of covers (Teenage Kicks, Wishing Well) and band originals like (Battlefield).
During the winter/spring of 78/79 the band played the Magnet Bar every Thursday with The Blades & Strange Movements. Ian was badly beaten up by local thugs after one of these gigs.
Declan sold his drum kit and left the band to go to Bolton Street College. The Alternatives played the Dandelion Market as support to Neon Heart in November 1979, various drummers were used after Declan left, the band split sometime after the Dandelion gig.
David & Paul would later form A Further Room.
Paul Redmond No demo tapes. The alternatives 1st gig was in the Magnet in Pearse street..we went on 1st .then the vipers the blades and last U2…great gig….we were due to play the 1st lark in the park in Blackrock. The one that the punks and teds got called off. For fighting. I think that was 78….

Gig Guide
22/02/1979 Magnet Bar, Dublin with White Noise, Skank Mooks, Strange Movements

22/03/1979 Magnet Bar, Dublin with Strange Movements, 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…………………
11/11/1979 Dandelion Market, Dublin with Neon Heart. Declan had left the band by this time, he returned to college. The band had various drummers including former “Sinner” Bernie Walsh.