Terri Hooley

Lauren Martin

Hello… hi, everybody. Welcome to Red Bull Music Academy weekender in Belfast. It’s really great to kick off the electricity with the fantastic Terri Hooley. Terri Hooley, everybody.

Terri Hooley

Thank you, Lauren, for the lovely introduction. I usually introduce myself as the biggest wanker you’ve ever met. I’m surprised anybody turned up. I’m glad. I was a bit worried about that. The other thing I was a bit worried about was when they said “lecture.” I don’t like to be lectured at, and I don’t like to lecture to anybody, so I’m quite glad it’s a question-and-answer thing.

The other thing is, anybody wants to ask me anything, feel free. I’ll try and tell you the truth and not run off on a million tangents; tell you a story, start my story, and it’ll last three years.

Lauren Martin

This can’t last three years, this is an hour and a half, but we’ll do our best to cover as much as possible. I thought, seeing as we’re in Belfast and we’re speaking to you, your own story and the story of Belfast run in almost a perfect tandem. I thought I’d kick off with a track that kind of is the very beginning for you.

(music: Hank Williams – “I Saw the Light”)

Terri Hooley

No better tune.

Lauren Martin

Can you give us a little bit of a background about that particular track, and its story for your life, because it’s tied into quite a pivotal moment in your young life.

Terri Hooley

It’s very funny. I used it at the opening of Good Vibrations, the film. I’m a huge Hank Williams fan, and a lot of young people are coming up and asking me to play it, which is great. Hank Williams was a great singer-songwriter, and most of his work was done in three years, and he died early. He left a legacy, just everybody… loads of people have recorded, and are still recording Hank Williams songs.

It’s my first musical memory, because at the age of six, I lived in East Belfast in a place called Garnerville estate, in a pre-fab bungalow, and I got my eye shot out. When the ambulance came, and they put bandages around my two eyes, and it was a lovely sunny day and I could see the light, and they were putting me into the ambulance, and I was thinking, “These guys are crazy. I could walk in the ambulance myself.” All I could think of was Hank Williams’s “I Saw the Light”.

So, the BBC, many, many years later, phoned me up and went, “Is it true, the grandfather of punk is a big Hank Williams fan?” I said, “I absolutely am.” They said, “Would you like to come in and talk – it’s his birthday tomorrow?” I went, “I’d love to.” I told that story, and a woman got in touch with the BBC and wanted to know how to get in touch with me, because they didn’t know where I’d first heard it. It turned out that her aunties ran a guest house on Botanic Avenue, and my grandfather used to go around and collect on a Friday, money – donations for the church, because we were running a guest house we didn’t go then. I think even Gene Vincent once stayed in that guest house, but I’m not quite sure about that.

Anyway, one Friday I went around and they put on that record, and I begged them and begged them and begged them to play it again and again and again. I found out eventually where I first heard it. Stuart Bailey’s sitting there – just back from Nashville – gave me his father’s 78 copy for a Christmas present there. It’s one of the few things I’m allowed to put up on the wall in my girlfriend’s house. After eight years, I was allowed to put up two awards, and Stuart’s 78… I’ve got a foot in the door now.

Lauren Martin

You finally got a copy of it to hang and put on your wall.

Terri Hooley

It’s just beautiful to see it, and it’s in really good condition. It just reminds me of… I used to go to people’s houses, especially in the ’60s. I love all kinds of music. I’m very passionate about music. I’m not a musical snob – far from it. Everybody thinks I’m… I love some of the most ridiculous records in the world.

I used to go, and all these girls… It was the ’60s, and it was the Stones, it was the Beatles, it was a really exciting time. I’d be pulling out their dads’ Charlie Parker albums, or Paganini, and Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald. “Why you playing my mom and dad’s record collection?” It’s just, I was always really interested to read the covers, to see who recorded it – fanatical, really. I was a bit of a record collector’s nerd at the time. I’m not so much now, but I was definitely then.

Lauren Martin

You were quite the record collector nerd from early on. Did you get that from your father?

Terri Hooley

No. The greatest thing about… We lived… We were more or less very, very poor, and everybody was in those days. The first record I ever actually owned, the day I became a record collector, I have still got; unbelievable – three divorces, been burnt out – and it was a Summer County [margarine] free flip-flop record. The guy came down the street, and he put one through our letter box, and I ran after him and asked… I begged him for one, and he gave it to me.

I knew my brother, even though he didn’t really want it, he wouldn’t let me have the other record. He was a bit mean, actually. I don’t want to talk ill of the dead, but he was a right bastard. I hid it in the airing cupboard, under the towels. For months, I just would go in and lock myself in the bathroom and read all the words.

I invented a game… It was Terri Hooley, Stuart Bailey, and I’d count all the “Ts” on the record, and you got a point for each “T”, and the “S” for Stuart, and then see who would win. I’d do this with all my friends. One day, a friend asked me, would I give him a hand with a chair to go around to his auntie’s house, and she had a record player. I heard it for the first time. It was, “Swinging on a Garden Gate,” by Humphrey Lyttelton, who was a great jazz musician, because jazz was the music of my youth.

When I heard it for the first time I thought, “Jesus, this is just wonderful,” and that was my very first record that I ever got, and I didn’t even have to steal it. David Holmes, famous DJ, he wrote in my book…

The original text was, “Terri gave me all these ’60s soul records, and I think he stole them from somebody who was in prison.”

“David, what are you going on about? I might steal your girlfriend, I might steal your drink, I might steal your drugs, but I’d never steal your record collection; no way.”

Lauren Martin

Even from early on, music was such a massive part of your life, but I know that as well as records, radio was a big part of your life.

Terri Hooley

Yeah.

Lauren Martin

I know that your dad bought you your first radio when you were six years old; he brought it back from a trip?

Terri Hooley

No, my dad was very left, and my mom was very Christian. My father was English, and they met during the war, and my grandfather didn’t like my dad much at all, neither did my uncles. My grandfather pleaded with my mom, the day that they got married, not to marry him. He was a real leftie, and they were all Orange.

My mom married my dad, and she went to England and she didn’t like it, so she left and came back home. I lived a lot at my grandparents’ house, which was great, because they had a big piano, and I was in love with my aunties. I was a bit of a mommy’s boy, hanging on to my mom’s apron strings. Everybody would sit around and sing, around the piano and all, and perform, and it was just magical.

We went to the Garnerville, and then my mom and dad would go out to their Labour party meetings at night, and I’d sneak out of bed and listen to Radio Luxembourg, fanatically, and hear all this wonderful music, and American Forces overseas, to hear the blues and the soul. My father went to Sweden on a trade union gig, and he brought me back my first transistor radio. That was heaven to me, to be able to hear music anywhere.

It was just fantastic. I did have what was called a crystal set, which you used the frame of the bed as an aerial, and it was old ex-army headphones, and it was very limited. But to be able to walk about, carrying and listening to music, was just magical to me.

Lauren Martin

It may seem a bit hard to believe, with a lot of the younger people in the room, but it really was, in a lot of respects, the only way to hear music, was through the radio – through Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline. What sort of records were you exposed to? I would imagine, not having that much choice, what you were exposed to you either absolutely loved or absolutely hated. What kind of records were really catching you from a young age, listening to the radio?

Terri Hooley

I remember listening to American overseas broadcasts. It was really for the American troops in Germany. I’m just back from San Francisco, and I heard this record one night… I didn’t know who it was, I didn’t catch who it was. It was called “San Francisco Bay Blues.”

“I’ve got the blues for my baby down by the San Francisco Bay, ocean liner’s gone so far away. I didn’t mean to treat her so bad, best girl I ever had.” It was just an amazing record to me, and it took me a while to find out who it was. It also took me a while to track it down. That was one of the first records, I think, that I ever sent away for. Eric Clapton did a version on his MTV Unplugged album, and brought that song to a different generation. I found out Bob Dylan, instead with Jesse Fuller, who was a bit of a one-man band… he had actually come and played Belfast, but I was too young to go.

Eric Clapton did quite a good version, I must admit, and it turned that song on to another… I never thought I’d ever be to San Francisco, and there I was, just the other day, last week.

Lauren Martin

Everything comes full circle.

Terri Hooley

That song, going through my head.

Lauren Martin

When it came to, you said, the relationship between your mom and your dad, and your mom took you to Methodist church when you were younger, and you’d be exposed to gospel music, and then you were listening to these things on the radio, how did you think, growing up, that had an impact on your tastes as you became a teenager?

Terri Hooley

I love gospel music. My mom would take me to church on a Sunday morning, to the Sunday school teacher at church. We weren’t allowed to play on a Sunday. We had to wear our Sunday best, and we weren’t allowed to get anything dirty. Sundays were pretty boring. I do actually love the gospel. I think it’s because of my Methodist upbringing; there’s a bit of that in me. I like the singing in the churches. That was the bit of church that I like, was the singing. I used to go to Baptist churches, because they used to have tambourines and stuff. I enjoyed that. I remember one night, going to this Baptist hall, and they’re going, “There’s a sinner here, there’s a sinner here,” and had everyone stand. They came up to me and I went, “No, just totally here for the music,” and never went back.

I like a lot of American gospel music. I like lots of music, but what really… I got a job at the side of city hall, in the photographic exhibition. Music and photography were my great loves. I got to know the reps who would come to the record shop on a Friday, and then that was their last call of the week, and they’d give me all these free records… demonstration records. I was just in heaven.

I was doing DJing… I started doing DJing when I was 15, in a youth club, and then I started doing DJ, and then I would have a record, which wasn’t released for weeks, and it would be “Terri’s Tip for the Top”. I can remember, it was like Ike and Tina Turner’s “River”, Percy Sledge, “When a Man Loves a Woman”. Every week, I’d have a “Terri’s Tip for the Top”. It was never… “Terri’s Tip for the Top” was never in the top ten, which was amazing.

Lauren Martin

Very underground of you. I suppose one of the main things that strikes me about you getting into music early on, and feeling an affinity with gospel music, is how that also informed your taste for classic R&B music. I’ve got a track for you, that I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about.

(music: The Shangri-Las - “Past, Present And Future”)

Terri Hooley

Yeah.

Lauren Martin

Just when it was getting a bit dramatic.

Terri Hooley

It is the sort of three-minute perfect rock opera. It’s got “Moonlight Sonata”, by Beethoven there. It’s got “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”, and I love Ella Fitzgerald’s version. It’s also like a coffin rock record as well. I was a fanatical Shangri-Las fan, and Ronettes, the Crystals, Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas; just loved all the girlie groups, the Chiffons… don’t even start me on the Shirelles.

Lauren Martin

I was hoping to start you.

Terri Hooley

I used to torture my mom to death, especially with the Shangri-Las. My first girlfriend was killed in a car accident coming back from a party in Bangor. The night I was out, painting anti-Vietnam war, slogans around Belfast, and she went to this party, and she was killed on the way back. I used to sit in the bedroom; I just thought I’d never be with anybody again. My mom used to hear me crying in bed at night. I used to sit in bed, and I’d play this. I was quite a lonely kid. My brother was a bit nasty, and he wouldn’t let me play with anybody he knew and stuff. When I got my own record player, 1/6 [shillings] every week, Kays catalog, Dansette, and I had my own records. I just sort of lived in a sweet world of my own in the bedroom, and the records were my best friends. I was asked, about 40 years ago, what was my all-time favorite record, and I said “It’s ‘Past, Present and Future’ by the Shangri-Las. I love that record.” I thought, “That’s a bit wimpish. It should have been something like ‘Born to be Wild’ by Steppenwolf or something.” At that time… I would say, if you asked me today, I would say that’s a very personal record for me, and it’s very part of my growing up.

I was in New York 18 years ago, and somebody told me… I love George “Shadow” Morton, the producer. He produced the Dixie Cups. He produced a lot of great stuff. Somebody said to me, “His phone number is in the New York phone book. Why don’t you phone him up?” I went, “That’s a bit like a stalker. I feel a bit bad about it.”

This girl gave me Mary Weiss’s, the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, number and said, “Why don’t you phone her up?” I went, “I’m a bit shy.” If anybody’s seen the story of Good Vibrations, the deal was to get an autographed photograph of the Shangri-Las, and I never got it. Mary Weiss sent me an email one day. David Holmes had got in touch with her, and she sent me an email. I was sitting at home on Friday afternoon, and Mary Weiss… I said, “That can’t be Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the Shangri-Las.” I went and made myself a cup of tea, bit of brandy in it, and I sat there, afraid to open it up. I opened it up, and there was a message from her.

She said, “Terri, what is it you want me to autograph?” I sort of sent her a few lines, then she sent me a few lines, then I told her why I loved the Shangri-Las. I thought, “I’m writing my life story here. I’d better stop.” We were going to fly Mary Weiss over from New York. Her mother had found, in her loft, an autographed poster of all the band… Some of the band are dead. Mary sent it to me… Sent it to David Holmes, and then we asked her, “Would you come over to Ulster Hall for the opening?”

To tell you the truth, if Mary Weiss had come to Ulster Hall that night, I wouldn’t have let her go back to America. She’s still not a bad-looking woman, I tell you. I was madly in love with her. I was madly in love with all the Shangri-Las, but I was a big Ronettes fan, and I used to carry, in my pocket, a cut-out of the NME, was a photograph of Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes. Years later, my good friend John T Davis and I were talking one night, and didn’t he do exactly the same? He had a cut-out photograph out of a pop magazine, and carried it about when he was a school kid… another thing that we have in common. Yeah, it was just wonderful. I never even thought I’d be in correspondence with Mary Weiss. I hope to meet her someday.

Lauren Martin

Thanks very much for sharing that. I appreciate it.

Terri Hooley

She could be a future Mrs Hooley.

Lauren Martin

With any luck. I was also playing that because, like you say in the film Good Vibrations, you agree to pass on your rights, as it were, for the Undertones “Teenage Kicks” for something like £500, a signed photo of the Shangri-Las. I love that, £500 will come and go, but a signed photo of the Shangri-Las is forever. I like that saying.

Terri Hooley

People keep asking me. It is a funny thing. I was thinking that I would get some copies made for a few friends, and I went to look for it in the house and I couldn’t find it. I know it’s in the room somewhere; I just haven’t looked properly. There’s this room in the house, and if I set anything down, Claire puts it in the room. I go, “I was reading that letter. What happened to it?” She said, “I put it in the room.” Everything’s in the room. I know it’s definitely safe but I’m going to have to… There’s just CDs and records and everything in this room. It needs a good clear-out, but I’ll get to it one of these days.

Lauren Martin

I can imagine there’s a lot of treasures in there. I was mostly…

Terri Hooley

I’d say yeah; ten years ago, I was burned out in a fire, I lost an autographed Johnny Cash photograph that I’d got from in London. After Johnny died, I took it down, because people wanted to buy it and I said, “No, I’m not selling it.” It went up in the fire. Recently, my guys were looking for something else for someone, and then they found an autographed Johnny Cash and June Carter photograph, which I didn’t even know I had, so that was a nice surprise.

Lauren Martin

Collecting signed photos was as much as collecting records at this point.

Terri Hooley

I used to be a bit of an autograph hunter; the Kinks, Stones, everybody, when I was younger.

Lauren Martin

I was partly playing that record as well because pop music, and classic American R&B pop music, is such a fine red thread, as it were, throughout the whole feel of Good Vibrations. It was punk rock, but it had a very pop-accessible feel to a lot of things, and I thought the Shangri-Las was a good example of that. It was also really interesting how contemporary black music at the time, from the States, was very much a part of your taste, and that informed what the label went on to become. On that kind of note, I’m going to play a track, and hopefully it will spark a memory of you from 1968.
(music: Juke Boy Bonner – “Belfast Blues”)

Knock it off, I’ve been told.

Terri Hooley

The ’60s, to me, were just… I was born at the right time, in the right place. I’m 65 now, so I was born in 1940. Just the rock & roll whole thing changed, and then the ’60s, and I think the Beatles… I was a huge Rolling Stones fanatic. Never… I love what the Beatles did, but I’m not a fanatical Beatles fan, but the Beatles did change everything.

For me as a teenager, growing up in the ’60s was absolutely just the most amazing experience in Belfast. Rationing was over. People were starting to have a bit of money. Youth culture was really changing. Everything… The music was changing. If you go back and look at the Stones and the Beatles and a lot of bands that were doing covers of American records, and I was the secretary… I was running a folk club, a shebeen in the high street, then it sort of closed down, and Dougie Knight asked me if I’d like to run the blues club in his shop on a Sunday night. Believe it or not, in the ’60s, on a Sunday, everything closed down. They used to lock up the swings, so the kids couldn’t play. You just couldn’t do anything on a Sunday. We’d run this club on a Sunday night, in his shop. We had maybe five artists on, and it was one and sixpence for girls, and 2/6 for boys, which was my idea. You got free coffee and biscuits and wonderful music.

It was a great promotion for Dougie’s shop, but we also put on concerts, and we brought over a lot of American blues artists. The last concert we ever did was in November, 1968, and that’s just who you heard, was Juke Boy Bonner. In Belfast, there’d been trouble, and also there wasn’t any rioting that night, but there was a fear of rioting, and the pubs all closed at six o’clock in the evening, and the town was deserted.

We were a bit worried about getting Juke Boy Bonner down from the airport, because we’d heard the roads had been blocked off and stuff. The concert was in the War Memorial building on Waring Street. It was just two minutes away. It’s a venue, it’s just never used anymore. We were all a bit worried, but the blues crowd came out; we had a good crowd, plus the fact it was the only place in Belfast on Sunday you could get a drink. With the blues crowd and alcoholics, it was a good night.

Lauren Martin

Tomato or tomato, at some point.

Terri Hooley

We’d done all this food to sell and all; we just gave it away to people. We were waiting to see if Juke Boy Bonner was coming out. We had a friend up on stage playing, and Juke Boy Bonner arrived out. My friend Pauline jumped up and kissed him. It sort of mentions her in the song. I gave him a big hug and was so glad he got such a warm welcome.

That was the night that I realized the party was over, and the ’60s was one big party we thought would go on forever. That was the night I realized Bob Dylan’s right; the times, they are a’changing. That was the start of it. The ’70s in this country was horrific. I didn’t really do much. We were afraid to go out. Clubs and bars were bombed, and friends had been killed. We stayed at home a lot and were partying in our house. If there was trouble, people just stayed the night. I was sort of selling records from my back bedroom.

It wasn’t until I had this job on Howard Street that a friend of mine… his sister and I had been good friends in the Maritime jazz club, and he was very interested in that period. He came in and he bought a Juke Boy Bonner CD in my shop, and I’d ordered up all these CDs that were about to be deleted. I’d ordered them all up. They came up with a copy of Juke Boy Bonner. I remember when we brought him to Belfast he says, “There’s a track on it called ‘Belfast Blues’”. That must be 15 years ago, and I never even knew it existed.

Apparently, Juke Boy Bonner went over to London next week and put it down. I never knew it existed until Colin Carson… It was great just to hear that memory. Because my friend Pauline was raped and murdered in New York… She was my mentor. She was a lot older than me. She taught me to read and write, but she taught me a lot of bad habits, too. I never went back to church after meeting her. I became a right heathen.

She took pity on me, because she thought I was care in the community. That’s a three-hour story. I saw this girl one night, she was ten years older than me. I asked to go out with her and she said, “I might see you in the tennis club.” I got all dolled up in my brother’s teddy boy jacket, which you just didn’t wear to dances in those days. I went to the gig, and the girl never turned up.

The speaker said, “Are you trying to be hard man?” I said, “No, I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe in violence.” I told them the story, and they sort of adopted me and invited me to this barbecue. The next thing, I was drinking Guinness and brandy. They took me to this house, and there was a party on. They asked me what did I want to drink, and I didn’t know. All I said was, “I’ll have a Babycham,” because that was always on the TV. Pauline just turned around and said, “No, you’re not. Guinness and porter, that’s what you’ll like.” I had the worst hangover ever. I swore I’d never drink again.

Lauren Martin

Actually, that recording is called “Belfast Blues”, and it was recorded in 1969, so it would have been a year after the gig. It was on his 1970 LP.

Terri Hooley

Where was it recorded?

Lauren Martin

I think it was… That was November ’68 that he played that gig, so he would have recorded it a couple months later, but it was on a 1970 LP from some London sessions that he did. I picked that partly because you were the secretary of the Blues Society at that time.

Terri Hooley

It was the last gig that we ever did, as the Blues Society. It was the end of a decade for me. The ’60s had ended early. It was just a kaleidoscope of color and fashion and freedom. Our Friday night would be, we would go to the Spanish Rooms on the Falls Road, and five or six of us would buy a gallon of cider, and we’d drink it around the entry, and then we’d get 1/6 back on the container, and then we’d buy a pound deal of hashish, and then we would go down to the Maritime Hotel to hear Them. That was just fantastic; one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Belfast, if not the greatest. That was amazing.

Many years later I went back with a couple of ’60s musicians to do a bit of filming for The Old Grey Whistle Test, and we couldn’t believe how small it was. It was like the size of this room. Our memory of it was, it was like the Ulster Hall. Mervyn Crawford… He plays saxophone now… He said, “God, look how tiny that stage is.” My legs were shaking going up. We just couldn’t… It was like somebody had built a wee facsimile of it. Our memory of it was that it was huge, but it wasn’t. It was just like this room, basically, maybe a bit bigger.

That was fantastic. That was a fantastic club. There were 80 clubs in and around Belfast where you could hear live music – unbelievable. When the Troubles came, there were like two… The weekends were just bonkers. You just didn’t get any sleep. The ’60s was like…

Lauren Martin

Speaking of Them, I was also, with the “Belfast Blues” track, again talking about the influence of things like the Shangri-Las, the influence of contemporary black pop and R&B music on the sound. I think when you’re saying the end of the ’60s was like a massive social, political, but also a cultural cut-off point, when Belfast really became very insular, mostly not of its own volition. I thought I could play parts of 2 tracks, just to kind of exemplify the influence of R&B on what was happening in Belfast.

(music: Rose Mitchell – “Baby Please Don’t Go”)

Lauren Martin

And then, part two…

(music: Them – “Baby Please Don’t Go”)

Laure Martin

I thought that was a nice correlation. Both of them are called “Baby Please Don’t Go,” but I’d like to think that that was quite a good example of what we’re speaking about; how the big beat kind of rock bands like Them, with Van Morrison, and then the influence of pop and R&B from the wider world. When it came to the end of the ’60s, that very much felt like a cut-off point for you.

Terri Hooley

Them are brilliant, but they weren’t the only brilliant band in Belfast. There was lots of really great bands, and the influence was American black music, obviously. Van’s father was a big record collector. His mom, Violet, was a bit of a singer. His father worked in the shipyards and was into the blues, jazz, country, so it was where obviously Van got a lot of his influences from. The R&B explosion of the ’60s was phenomenal. Black artists like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters and BB King were absolute gods in the United Kingdom. They were hardly heard of in America at the time; it’s hard to believe. In fact, many people say it was the British invasion that brought black music back to America.

I used to be fanatical at checking out who wrote the songs and scripts. I love Them’s version of “Don’t Look Back”, the John Lee Hooker song; one of my heroes. “Don’t Look back to the days of yesterday, you cannot live on the past…” When the Troubles started, I started playing that a lot more. My history didn’t start in ’60. My history started around ’65, in the jazz club; that’s my whole history of Belfast, really.

There was the political stuff as well, that was coming. I was quite helpful in getting Nina Simone, who was very political, over to do her only gig in Belfast in the late‘60s, when it was the time of the civil rights movement. She was a bit crazy, a bit like myself. I always thought she was a wonderful artist. Also, a great album that came out was… It’s my all-time favorite record… was “What’s Going On”, by Marvin Gaye, because I was very anti-Vietnam War. That whole album, which the head of Motown didn’t want to put out, and became their best-selling album ever, I think. I remember reading one of the reviews, and it just said, “This is not a bad album, if you play it.” I thought, “Jesus.” It’s just my all-time favorite record. I could listen to it 24 hours a day. It’s got all sorts of stuff in it; a bit about ecology and all. That was also… I think Barry Gordy, the head of Motown, didn’t want to put it out because he thought it was a bit too political. There was a lot of political black music coming… fantastic stuff coming out of America at the time. A lot of music was, with the civil rights movement in America, you could relate to it in Belfast.

We were just talking in the car on the way down here about some music, and about somebody coming over and about the civil rights thing. I said, songs like “Go to Sleep Weary Hobo,” I love, but I always hated “Go to Sleep Weary Provo.” I used to hate the way they’d take a classic American folk song and turn it.

The Troubles… I just wonder what it was all about now. It was just complete madness. It looked like our country was having a nervous breakdown. We didn’t go out much. One night, three gunmen… I was coming out of work, and they tried to grab me into a car. Two guys that used to tell me every day they hated my guts, saved my life. Then, I decided to set up Good Vibrations. I thought, “I might as well do something before they kill me.”

I’d always been interested in music. I started selling music from my house, then I started doing the markets. Eventually, we got the derelict building in Great Victoria Street. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but it seemed to go OK. We were going for a while, and a guy called Gordy Owens from Sandy Road came in and told me about this punk gig. I went down there, and I was the most unlikeliest person in the world – I really was that hippie. I went down and I heard punk, and I heard the Outcasts play, who I thought were atrocious. They were absolutely dreadful.

Lauren Martin

That was… Rudi & the Outcasts gig, that was 1978?

Terri Hooley

Could well have been.

Lauren Martin

It could have been?

Terri Hooley

I’ve got Alzheimer’s coming in… I can remember things in the ’60s so clear. I can’t remember what I did last week. I went down and I heard Rudi, and I loved a lot of the American garage bands, like you’d see on a compilation albums; the Saints, the Standells, Electric Prunes. They really did a great version of ? & the Mysterions. I loved all that garage music, so it wasn’t a great jump for me. I liked the Ramones very much. It wasn’t a great jump for me. To hear something which was really exciting in Belfast, it just reminded me of my youth – going to hear Them and all the bands. I thought, “This is brilliant.” We didn’t have an effective music industry here, so Them and all had to go to England to record and get deals. There was a lot of great bands here that should have had records out. I went up to Rudi, and I went, “Do you want to make a record?” They just thought I was a madman. Nine months later, I was the Outcasts’ manager, with a record label.

Lauren Martin

That was the first release; Rudi’s “Big Time” was the first release on Good Vibrations?

Terri Hooley

Yeah. We didn’t have a clue how to put out a record or anything.

Lauren Martin

It sounded pretty good. This is how it sounded.

(music: Rudi – “Big Time”)

Lauren Martin

It seems a shame to cut off in the middle of a riff, but that was “Big Time” by Rudi.

Terri Hooley

I don’t know whether it was those speakers or what, but it sounded really good to me.

Lauren Martin

It’s possibly difficult for somebody of my age group to understand hearing punk, anthologized as it has become, but in the context of Belfast, at the time, there was basically a ghettoization of the city – bars were shutting at tea time. There were no venues open, and there were quite literally barricades.

Terri Hooley

Yes, a ring of steel around the city center.

Lauren Martin

A ring of steel around the city center. I was listening to a really interesting BBC Radio 4 interview with a woman recently, who claims to be one of these punks. She said it was essentially a violent playground, between the punks, the RUC, and the army.

Terri Hooley

Yes.

Lauren Martin

I remember yourself saying that the punks basically saved Belfast.

Terri Hooley

They opened up the night life again in Belfast. Jim Cusack, who was the security correspondent for The Irish Times, knew quite a lot, and from Belfast… He said, “It was Terri Hooley and the punks that opened up the nightlife in Belfast.” I’m not completely sure that was true, but we certainly did help. Where we are, in this area… the Harp Bar was just around the corner, which was a shithole, basically. It was a strip club during the day, and they had music at night. We opened up the Harp Bar, and it really was the first time in a decade where kids… whether they were Protestant or Catholic, it didn’t matter. If your hair was orange or green, it didn’t matter if you came from Mars, as long as you were a punk. Not all punks were love and peace; far from it. There were some right bastards.

A lot of people said to me, “If it wasn’t for the punk and all, we would have joined the paramilitaries. We would have killed people. We would have ended up in jail.” It changed a lot of people’s lives, not only my own, but also a lot of the bands, like Stiff Little Fingers, the Undertones. It was just a time of no hope, and punk, to me, was like a little candle; a little light in the darkness, in this sea of madness and sectarian violence and craziness. It was also very exciting. It was really, really exciting.

Good Vibrations didn’t have a good musical policy. Some people say, “Terri signed the band up because he fancied their girlfriends, or because they’d bought him a drink one night,” or something. It’s probably true. We hadn’t a clue what we were doing. The last thing we ever thought was that anybody’d ever remember any of this stuff. We just didn’t have a clue. It was all new to us, how you made a record.

We sent… Rudi was a band that I really thought should have made it, and I regret… If you watch the film Good Vibrations, because I didn’t put out a record… No, they left us and went to England, and then came back and recorded for us again. I begged them. I broke down and cried and I said, “Don’t go.”

A friend of mine had traveled with bands all over Europe. He said, “Terri, Rudi, I think, just jumped the gun too quickly.” We were sort of going OK, and then the Undertones was the big one, and that was just amazing.

I went to London, and the first people I took it to was Rough Trade. They were the biggest independent record distributors in the UK, and plus the fact of the label. They’d just signed up Stiff Little Fingers. I went down to Geoff Travis and Richard Scott. I got off the plane, I took it down… I was all excited, and I played them the Undertones [“Teenage Kicks”]. They told me it was the worst record they’d ever heard. I was devastated. We recorded this at the back of the Duke Of York pub in a clothing warehouse in a little studio, for £200, £50 a track. I took it to EMI and a whole lot of other record companies. They all thought it was shit. On the last day… It was my last hope… was CBS. I went in there, and they told me it was rubbish, and I wrecked their office. I was so frustrated. I was so angry.

I went around and left copies for John Peel and the BBC. I came back… I went and got trashed that weekend in London. I had a lot of mates. I didn’t want to go home, because I felt I’d really let the band down. I really believed in “Teenage Kicks”. I really thought it was a great pop record, and very radio-friendly and stuff. I got trashed, and I didn’t want to come home. I came home… I was so disappointed, I’d let the band down. I broke down and cried to my wife.

She said, “Maybe John Peel will play it.” That night, he played it, and famously, the first time ever in the history of the BBC, a record was played two times in a row, back to back. Sire phoned me up; they got my home phone number, and they phoned me up. They wanted to license the record for America, actually; that was the thing. I said, “Look, we’re not really a proper record label, and my job isn’t running a record label. My job is to put Northern Ireland back on the music map, and that’s all I want to try to do.” I said, “Get over here on Wednesday night. They’re playing in Derry.” They came over and I heard them on a Wednesday night. Thursday, they were signed. On the Friday… Peter Powell had put it out as his record of the week on Radio 1, and a lot of other Radio 1 deejays were then playing it. CBS wanted the Undertones, and I said, “Too bad, they got signed yesterday.” CBS, who was particularly nasty to me… That’s why I wrecked their office, said, “Have you got any other bands on the label?” I said, “I have, but I wouldn’t fucking give them to you.”

Lauren Martin

That’s really, the relationship that you, as Good Vibrations, and you personally, have had with both independent labels and major labels over the years, including Rough Trade, Sire, EMI. It’s very interesting to think of, what is it that…

Terri Hooley

I don’t actually like the music business. I like the music. The hit record companies, sometimes I think are legalized mafia. That’s why I’ve never had a contract with anybody in my life. I should have; actually, I could be quite rich if I had. Just think, if I had a penny for every time that I had heard “Teenage Kicks” in my life, I’d be able to buy you all a drink.

Lauren Martin

I ask partly because I’m curious as to what you think at the time, because by the time that the Undertones were really saying… That was like ’78, ’79… Punk was quite an established musical genre. You had the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops, the Clash were huge. What do you think in particular it was about the Northern Irish punk sound, that people at first were quite rejecting of, and then came to love?

Terri Hooley

I think it’s sort of a rawness, to some of the bands. You had it in the ’60s, too. If you look at a lot of the bands, it was a sort of rough edge to the music. Also, I think it meant something here, to people. They were getting out of their ghettos, and going to these wee places. Stuart once wrote that no matter which tribe you came from, to go, you had to pass a lot of different areas to get to the Harp Bar. When you came down these streets, 35 years ago, at night, it was as scary as anything. There was just nobody about at all; nobody. It was scary.

The Harp Bar might have been rubbish, but when you got in to hear the music, it was just like going to see Them again, for me. I was very lucky. I got a chance to re-live my youth. After Stiff Little Fingers did all the political stuff, a lot of the bands didn’t want to write about the Troubles. They wanted to write what was happening in their life. A lot of the bands avoided writing about the Troubles, which I sort of think, it was a reaction against the Troubles. I think there should have been maybe more political songs at the time.

Nobody felt like doing them, because Stiff Little Fingers had been such a tremendous success, with “Suspect Device” and “Alternative Ulster” and stuff.

Lauren Martin

That kind of split, like in hindsight, it was kind of a thematic split in what was going on in the punk scene in Northern Ireland. You had Stiff Little Fingers, who were actively writing about the Troubles, and then you had groups like the Undertones, who were quite the flip of it, where they were more about, from my perspective… obviously, you can correct me if you think differently… but they were more about a kind of romantic escapism, about their own teenage lives and trying to… I remember reading something from Feargal Sharkey and he said, “There is no way that a one-hour gig is going to squash 400 years of hatred and violence. The Undertones were about escapism.” Does that kind of chime with you? There was almost two kind of sides to it?

Terri Hooley

I suppose if you lived in Derry at that time, and you were a young person that just went out and rioted every day after school, and the Undertones formed a band. The reason why I thought they were so good in the studio, was because they’d practice and practice and practice and practice. When they went into the studio, you basically were recording them live. They were that good.

I think the thing for many bands is, some bands are very lazy. It’s just to practice and practice and practice and practice until you get it right. At the time, Derry being such a violent city, I think being in a band was like a safety net for them; not getting caught up in all this. It’s hard to explain, really, but they were frightened to come down to Belfast because of all the sectarian murders and stuff.

Lauren Martin

[Inaudible]

Terri Hooley

Mickey Bradley, of the Undertones, a few years ago asked me to take him around the corner and show him where he recorded “Teenage Kicks”. His memory of it was, they were really scared coming to Belfast.

Lauren Martin

I was going to say, because the Undertones are from Bogside, in Derry. That was, unfortunately, famously well known in the late ’60s, early ’70s, for…

Terri Hooley

Yeah, we were frightened to go up to Bogside.

Lauren Martin

… the sectarian violence, yeah. I was wondering also, the way that the Undertones portrayed themselves, and how people reacted to them. They’re looking back… They’re a very loved kind of northern Irish pop group. At the time, I was quite struck to read that people were really quite hostile to them. They felt they were kind of … They were going against a quite typically Belfast thing of, “You should know your place. I know who you are, and where you come from.” Their kind of aspirational way of acting, was seen as quite an antithesis to that.

Terri Hooley

The night that I took Sire up, I stayed in Mrs Sharkey’s house, in the guest room, which is like a religious grotto. It was like going to Lourdes or something. I was like, “Jesus, I love all this stuff.” The next day, I went down to get some cigarettes and a paper from the shop, and Feargal came with me. People ran across the road and spat on him. What on earth is that all about? In Belfast, nobody could be bothered to run across the road and spit on somebody. I was really shocked. I was quite taken aback about that.

People had put up… It had literally just started… People had put up graffiti, who didn’t like the band. I think they just got used to it after a while. I know Feargal took a lot of flak, personally. There was stuff in the music press about Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones not liking each other and stuff like that.

There were a lot of good bands. One of the bands that I really loved was Ruefrex, and some of their stuff was political. They were from the Shankill Road. If I turned a band down, they used to go, “Terri only signs Protestant bands from East Belfast, which is far from the truth.” I’m not well-liked in East Belfast, so I’m not… I like all kinds of people.

We didn’t really know what we were doing, and it was a real cottage industry. We all folded each other’s sleeves. Unfortunately, we went bankrupt, because a lot of small independent distributors loved to sell our records, but they never wanted to pay us. A lot of them went bust, and then we went bust because we couldn’t pay our bills.

I was quite glad, eventually. I was sort of quite relieved, but it was about three years of my life that just seemed to be madness and no sleep. Kids would be coming, knocking on my door at three o’clock in the morning with a demo. It was just bonkers. I think I just basically ran out of energy, so I was sort of quite glad. The other thing is, because we were such a small label, nobody really remembers some of the rubbish records that I put out.

Lauren Martin

Not to pick a rubbish record, because I wouldn’t do that, but there is one particular record on the Good Vibrations label that I find really interesting. It was the only 12” single that you ever put out, and I was hoping to do a little segue into another side of this. I’m going to play this, and hopefully you can tell me a little bit about it.

(music: Zebra - “Repression”)

Lauren Martin

Could you tell us a little bit about that record?

Terri Hooley

I’ve always been a big reggae fan, since the ’60s actually. In the ’60s, a lot of the older jazz musicians that I used to stand outside of bars to hear when I was a kid – because I couldn’t get in – I got to know. They would go over to England. In those days it was, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs." A lot of the jazz guys, when they got jobs in England, traveling with jazz bands and working in studios, they lived in the same areas as a lot of Jamaicans. They used to come back to Belfast and give me these 7" ska records. I was in heaven, because I was a big calypso fan.

In 1965 or ’66, the Wailing Wailers’ first record, “One Cup of Coffee,” came out. That was Bob Marley’s first record, and I played it one night at the jazz club. It completely cleared the floor. So I had a big interest in ska, was a collector, and set up the Belfast Reggae Society. I did regular gigs up at Queens University every week, and I was in Dublin with John Paley at a 24-hour festival called Dark Space. Some of our bands were playing. The Electric Prunes were playing – I can’t remember everybody. But there was this black and white band called Zebra. John Paley said, “I think we should put out a record with them.” I did. I don’t even think [John] played it. We put out 1,500 copies 12" and we couldn’t give it away [laughs]. Then, a year and a half ago, a Japanese collector paid 700 quid for one. I’ve got two in the house, if anyone wants to give me a bid.

I didn’t have one until quite recently. Two years ago, at my annual 40th birthday party, somebody gave me one. And someone gave me their father’s Holy Bible – ex-punk, very religious.

Lauren Martin

It’s just such an interesting record because Good Vibrations is known as a punk label. It’s fascinating to see an Irish ska band.

Terri Hooley

We did bring reggae bands. We also brought Shane McGowan for his first gig in Ireland. Shane worked in a record shop in SoHo market with two friends who were in the Esoteric Music Society in the ’60s, Phil Gaston and Stan Brennan. He worked with them. That’s where I first met him. Then he formed a band called the Nipple Erectors. I brought them over for a gig in the Harp Bar. A few nights before, he phoned me up and said, “Terri what do we do when we get to Belfast? Should the band keep their heads down?” I said, “When you get to Belfast, there’s only one thing you need to know, and that’s how to keep your drink down.” A few words I now regret.

Then we brought over people like the Fall. I was pretty experimental. I called it the “punk workshop.” We brought over the Monochrome Set in their very early days. My favorite nights in the Harp Bar were our own bands, really.

Lauren Martin

Also, on the theme of reggae, I know that before Good Vibrations started up you were playing on pirate radio in Ireland, and you were mostly playing a lot of reggae records. There was one night in particular when you were playing in the jazz bar you were talking about in 1965, and you played a Wailers record – “Simmer Down.” There were two quite famous men in the crowd at the time. Do you remember this?

Terri Hooley

No.

Lauren Martin

Right. Hopefully, I’m going to jog your memory with the track.

(music: The Wailing Wailers – “Simmer Down”)

Lauren Martin

That’s the Wailers’ “Simmer Down,” but I’m doing a segue into this, because I think this is one of possibly the most interesting, strange stories I’ve heard about you so far, and I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Terri Hooley

I don’t remember it.

Lauren Martin

We can jog your memory, then.

Terri Hooley

You tell me a story.

Lauren Martin

OK, I’ll tell you a story. Two footballers, George Best and Johnny Giles, were in the crowd. Johnny Giles had never heard ska or reggae before, and ran up to you, demanding to know what it was. Through you, he became friends with Bob Marley, which is pretty interesting.

Terri Hooley

After I treasured Bob Marley’s first record, I wrote to him, care of Trenchtown, Jamaica, and three months later I got a letter back from him. He told me his father was Irish. If you look at Jamaica, and look at the map, there’s places like Antrim Springs and all. They used to send a lot of convicts from out here, to the plantations and stuff, as they did to Australia and all. There’s lots of places in Jamaica that are all named after places in Northern Ireland.

Bob wrote back to me, and then we started to correspond, and we didn’t meet until the ’70s. I met him one night, and he said to me… in a flat in Balham and he said to me, “I believe you’re from Belfast?” I said, “Actually, I am.” He said, “Do you know this weird guy, Terri Hooley, who takes his glass eye out and puts it in people’s pints of Guinness?” I went, “No, I’ve never heard of him.”

The next day, he was in – it was the time of Catch a Fire – and he was in the office. He was having an argument with Chris Blackwell because he wanted to go back to Jamaica. He was missing his family. He was missing the sun; it was raining. Everything was going great for them. They got The Old Grey Whistle Test. They were getting rave reviews, and I think he wanted to cancel the last two gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Chris Black was saying, “You can’t do this. We’ve got a contract. You’d have to get doctors to tell you you’re ill,” and all. Jumbo, a guy who worked there came out and he said to the guy, “I get my wages at the end of the month, but we’ve put a lot of effort into this, and I know it would break Chris’ heart if you cancelled the rest of the tour. My biggest problem is, your biggest fan in the world is standing in our press department. I want you to come down and meet him. He’s stealing everything; all the press releases and photographs I could get my hands on.”

Jumbo walks in and says, “I want you to meet him.” He says, “I’ve already met Terri Judas Iscariot Hooley.” He says, “Are you taking me for a pint?” Bob didn’t have much money. It wasn’t easy, like you have now, mobile phones to get in touch with him. I had to phone his wife, and she had to go to his wife and tell him about Bob Marley. He sang Bob a song, off “Concrete Jungle”, the first track off the album.

Bob was very polite. He turned around and said, “I want you to do me a favor. That was very interesting, but never play one of my songs again.” He was a lovely man. Recently, Stuart and I were down at the Wailers’ gig. I was doing support, and what a disaster that was. There was only “Family Man” Aston Barrett, and I met Peter Tosh, Carlton Barrett, Bunny… To go on as the Wailers to me is an absolute disgrace. It should be done under the Trades Description Act. I went down, and I did my hour’s set and was done by 8.30 PM, and that was unbelievable for me. It wasn’t half-eight in the morning, for a change.

Lauren Martin

Just trying to pull through the theme of reggae again, it’s to show the breadth of everything that you’ve been interested in for so many years, and what’s influenced the label. I just find it fascinating that you would start off selling records from your room, then having the record shop, playing pirate radio, even going across the border to play pirate radio, play reggae records. It really is just a testament to the breadth of everything you’ve done.

Terri Hooley

I used to go over the border every Saturday night, to do Pirate Radio. Famously, on KISS FM in Monaghan, preaching love, peace and understanding into the black North. It eventually worked, but not through my record show. It was really funny. The British army used to stop me and say, “Terri, are you playing a record for us?” I’d say, “You’ll have to write in,” or whatever. One night, they held me back for two hours. They were putting on… the other radio stations were putting on UB40 and stuff, and I went in and I said, “What’s the next record?” They said, “Living on the Front Line.”

I said, “This here is very specially for David, Paul and all these guys, ‘Living on the Front Line’ in Middleton,” and that’s where the checkpoint was. The next week, I could have smuggled anything over that border. “Away you go, Terri.” In fact, one night the car broke down, and they fixed it for us. There wasn’t anything against the British army; it’s just like phoning up or whatever.

Lauren Martin

You’ve always liked to cause a fuss at your shows. I remember, there was one night in particular where you announced to the crowd at the end of a gig of yours that you were going to play the national anthem. They were like, “You couldn’t possibly. You can’t do that.”

Terri Hooley

The manager of the venue run up, because he didn’t know which one of the two I was going to play.

Lauren Martin

This is what you played.

Terri Hooley

It stopped him in his tracks. He was just about to go for me and… alright.

Lauren Martin

The national anthem.

(music: The Undertones – “Teenage Kicks”)

Lauren Martin

I felt like that one needed the ceremony of being faded out a little bit. It seems a shame to cut that off.

Terri Hooley

What I didn’t realize at the time… What happened was, a friend of mine, who was at the art college, gave me a demo of the Undertones. I played it and played it, and I thought there was something there. I had a lot of friends come around the house, and nobody liked it. A friend of mine who used to make the best potcheen in Belfast, up in the Royal Hospital, in the basement which was guarded by the British Army… Actually, he was born out in Malaysia. His father had been something big in the army, so he had a security pass. He just made a really good potcheen, but you wouldn’t want to drink any of it nowadays.

At half-three in the morning, I was playing the Undertones tape, and Ricky went, “I don’t see what you like about that band.” There were other friends who were in bands in the ’60s, and I thought they would like it, and they didn’t.

We didn’t have much money, and I wasn’t sure quite what to do, and I was going to sign up another band. I was going to meet them at tea time. They sort of had a manager in the band. It was a bit like Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and I quite liked them. Bernie came up to me and he said, “I’m going up to Derry. What’ll I tell this band? They’re about to break up if you don’t put out a record.”

I thought, “Jesus, I’ll tell you when I get across the road, at the crossing.” I went to tell them we were on the limb, and we were going to do it. I was really worried. I went, “What’ll I tell this band?” They said, “That’s all right. Don’t worry about that, Terri. We’re on our way to London to make it big. Your label will be too small for us anyway.”

I was going to relay to them, I didn’t want to disappoint them. Then I went, “We’re not good enough for you?” We brought them up to Queen’s University to play. It was very difficult for us to get gigs. We used to hire out hotels and tell them it was somebody’s 25th birthday party, and then they’d find out it was three punk bands.

Lauren Martin

You must have gotten barred from pretty much every venue in the city, after one gig at each one, pretty much?

Terri Hooley

No, we did get barred from Queen’s University for life, because I got all dressed up and I went up one lunchtime, and I went up to the office. I said to this young girl, “My name is Terri Hooley from the Belfast Music Society. We would like to put on a concert in what’s now the Nelson Mandela Hall.” The girl obviously was taking over while the woman who did the job was on her lunch break, and she thought we were Queen’s Classical Society and gave us the hall for £5. I went, “Are you sure this is right?” She said, “No, there’s your receipt. It’s in the book. Nobody else can get the hall.”

When Queen’s found out it was seven punk bands called The Battle of the Bands, they tried everything to stop it, and actually had the local Hell’s Angels doing security and all. They tried to stop them getting gear in and all. The bouncers were really nasty. The gig went on, and it was a great gig, and we raised money to set up Just Books, the anarchist book shop on Winetavern Street.

It was a fantastic gig, and it was the first time the Undertones came up and played. I think they went into the studio and recorded “Teenage Kicks” the next day. Queen’s gave me a terrible time, so what happened was, the kids didn’t like it, so they put out a few windows at the front of Queen’s. There was no trouble inside the gig whatsoever, except the Ruefrex thought, “This is the biggest gig we’ll ever play.”

Everybody had 25 minutes, half an hour at the most, to do their set. You had to prove to the audience you were great in that time. The Ruefrex went, “We’ll never get an audience like this again.” They played outside, just with the Hell’s Angels, and they went up and lifted them off the stage. That was the only trouble we had that night.

I got a letter from Queen’s, and I think it must have went up in the fire ten years ago, because I tried to find it when we were doing the book, telling me that I was barred from Queen’s University for life – not for a week, not for a month, not for a year, but for life.

Lauren Martin

It must have been a bit of a badge of honor to do that, in the name of punk rock, I suppose.

Terri Hooley

I haven’t been barred from too many places, but I was definitely barred from Queen’s. The next gig I went, the bands… There was some band that was from England, and I think Rudi were playing. It might have been the Adverts or something. I sort of sneaked in the back door.

Lauren Martin

When it comes to the legacy of “Teenage Kicks,” because it’s perhaps the story of it getting played on John Peel’s show twice, which is the first time in BBC radio history that ever happened, and the legacy of the track… It’s such a familiar track to punk fans, rock fans, pop fans; it’s such a legacy record. When you hear it played out here, what is it about… because you must have heard it hundreds of thousands of times now, what is it about the track now that still grabs you, and is it the same as what grabbed you when you first heard it?

Terri Hooley

Yeah, I have many versions of it. I have Nouvelle Vague’s version of it, the jazz version. I have Union Avenue who, when I first heard it, I thought it was Johnny Cash singing. It starts off with “Ring of Fire” and goes into “Teenage Kicks”. Many bands have played it, like Green Day, REM did it in concert, somebody else did it as an encore at Tennent’s Vital recently, Kings of Leon or somebody. I can’t remember who it was.

It’s just a classic little pop record, really. The drum sound on it, it sounds to me as fresh today, like Rudi did, as it did all those years. It’s just that I’m not all that much interested in what’s happening in the charts at the moment.

Lauren Martin

Do you feel, as somebody who… you’ve always called yourself hippie and punk rock, as you’re looking back…

Terri Hooley

I’m a hippie anarchist, to be honest, because that’s what I am. The reason why I call myself a hippie anarchist is because, knowing how everybody likes to pigeonhole everybody, you have to be on one side or the other, and I don’t really have a pigeonhole box for hippie anarchists. I want them to set one up, and then I’ll be in that box.

I don’t really know what my politics are. I was brought up very Christian by my mother, and socialist by my dad. I was brought up to believe a lot of things; I believe I’ve got a brother in Melbourne, a sister in Paris, and the whole wide world is mom and dad to me, and we’re all a family of man. We all should look after each other.

I’m not the worst person in the world, though my girlfriend might tell you different. I’m sort of, in the words of the Shangri-Las song, “good, bad, but not evil.”

Lauren Martin

I like… I think that’s a good way to live. I asked how you feel about that kind of record, and how you feel about still being a hippie anarchist. Being so in love with the ’60s, and everything it symbolized, and keeping that alive through the film and your book and everything… do you feel like you live in the past a little, still?

Terri Hooley

I do. I live in the past.

Lauren Martin

Do you think that’s for better or worse? How do you feel?

Terri Hooley

In two minutes, this will be the past. I absolutely have to have things to look forward to. Last year, I did the Electric Picnic, and I was very nervous. It was sheer… it went down well. In fact, it went down fantastically well; 3,000 people in the tent, going bananas, and me on stage running around like a three-year-old child, but with a bottle of whiskey.

Lauren Martin

That’s quite an image.

Terri Hooley

That was just brilliant, but [I thought] I’ll never be invited back. They sent me a letter saying… an email saying, “We were very much inspired by your set, Terri, last year. We’d like you to come back and do a bigger stage this year.” I thought, “Jesus.” I wasn’t feeling well, but I was really looking forward to doing it. I didn’t get to do it, because I had a very bad chest infection, and then I went off to Barcelona to do a punk gig, and then did nothing. In fact, Stuart took me home one night, because we both did a DJ set on a Tuesday night. Thought he was never going to see me again; I was that bad.

I came back from Barcelona, and I opened my emails, and there was an email from Electric Picnic saying, “Terri, I heard you were very ill. Hope you’re feeling better, and by the way, you’re the first person we booked for the Electric Picnic next year.” I know I’m going to be alive for another year, and that is what is going to keep me alive, is knowing that I’ll be back at the Electric Picnic.

I always have to have something to look forward to. You’ll not be getting rid of me just yet. In fact, I had my second wake in this building, and last January I had my third and final wake. I think I’ll be pushing it to have another. It was a journalist who said to me, “When are you having your third wake?” I said, “I’ve had two. I think it might be…” He said, “The bloody two that you had were great.”

Lauren Martin

Yeah, I think… is that the last bit of time? Have we got time?

Terri Hooley

It’s about… Does anybody want to ask me anything?

Lauren Martin

Yeah.

Terri Hooley

I’m not that frightening. You don’t have to ask me anything.

Lauren Martin

No, we don’t ordinarily do it, but I’d be happy, if anybody wants to ask any questions; anybody?

Terri Hooley

Do you know what usually happens, and this happens all the time. People – especially when I was out in Cologne – the people were frightened of me. Nobody would ask me any questions. I started to ask myself questions, and then answer them.

I did it in London. That was the funniest Q&A ever. Is anybody buying a drink? Any future Mrs Hooleys with a big bank account? No?

Lauren Martin

You got £500 back in the day. You were doing fine. It was just a mention to see that there is a screening of Good Vibrations, the film about Terri and Good Vibrations, on Sunday at the MAC. If anybody’s interested in seeing the film, and seeing a bit more of the context of everything, you’re more than welcome to go.

Terri Hooley

I’ll never understand why they couldn’t get somebody good-looking to play my part – somebody that didn’t drink and curse and be a madman and disgraceful.

Lauren Martin

I heard Michael Fassbender was a bit busy.

Terri Hooley

Originally, it was going to be Michael Fassbender. All my female friends were going, “Geez.” Richard Dormer did the pilot, and he was absolutely brilliant. He had me down to a T. He’s just amazing. We would have had the film out quicker… We worked very fast like that. I turned down two contracts ten years ago before. It really took 15 years, from beginning to end, to get the film. I never thought I’d be alive to see it. When I did see it I thought, “I really like this film. It’s really good, warts and all. It doesn’t make me out to be an angel, because I haven’t been an angel in my life. I haven’t been that bad, but I haven’t been an angel.”

I’m very proud of everybody who worked on the film. We had a great team. Nick, the editor, said, “We had a fantastic film that lasted two-and-a-half hours,” and it broke his heart to cut it down to 93 minutes. I was really surprised at people like The Belfast Telegraph. If anybody has seen the film, Belfast Telegraph has had insiders in the music industry say, “This film’s going to be big.” When the film came out I said… It had a half page in the Telegraph; “If there’s one thing you do this weekend, you’ve got to go and see Good Vibrations, the best movie ever to come out of Northern Ireland.”

I’m very delighted with the success of the movie, for not only the directors, David Holmes, the producer, Chris Martin, and everybody in the film. The film’s been shown all over the world. The best reaction I ever saw for the movie was, believe it or not, in Moscow. I was out there for Irish week, and they built a bar called the Hoolygan Bar, asked for my book. That wasn’t a plug for my book, because I don’t even have a copy, and I’ve never even read it.

Lauren Martin

It’s not a plug, if it’s a plug.

Terri Hooley

I did DJ in it, and I let the Moscow punks take over, and it was just amazing. I really enjoyed Moscow. They were so enthusiastic about the movie, and they stood and clapped for ten minutes, and cheered. They’d all got free Guinness and Irish whiskey beforehand, so I think that might have been a part of the reason.

Lauren Martin

I think that might have helped.

Terri Hooley

They clapped and clapped until I got up and spoke to them. I was absolutely in tears, because I didn’t expect a reaction like that. It was a bigger reaction than we got in Belfast. “Maybe he’s all right.”

Lauren Martin

Just another little thing; before that, there is Daniel Holmes’ short film. It’s a premiere of The Light of My Eyes, which is on 50 minutes beforehand, and it starts at three; I forgot to say. It’s three o’clock tomorrow… On Sunday afternoon. Did anybody want to ask any questions at all? No? Were you kind of hopeful for some?

Terri Hooley

I’m dying for a pee…

Lauren Martin

Hold on, I’ve got one. You hang tight.

Audience member

How are you, Terri? There’s a great scene in the film… it’s more a question, did it happen in that particular way, where you’ve kind of made up your mind that you’re going to open up the shop, and I think it’s kind of the IRA come together in a bar, and you rock on in, sit down, and throw the records on the top. It was kind of more simple, when it happened… did you kind of hand-pick the records in the hope that, “I’ve picked some really, really good ones,” or did you just pick all the crap that was lying at the bottom of the basement?

Terri Hooley

Actually, there was a brilliant drawing in the Irish Independent or something, or the Sunday Times, and it talks about, these guys came around looking for protection money. Somebody had given me all these demo records that they got, and there’s all these Philomena Begley albums and Irish accordion albums and stuff that we had in the shop. I used to say, “There’s no money in the till. Take those records, sell them, and then you’ll get some money.” The cartoon was of a guy with a balaclava in the bar, buy one of these albums, or else.

Lauren Martin

You did have to… Obviously, that was in the film, but you did have to persuade the paramilitaries on both sides, essentially, to leave the business alone, because also it was on Great Victoria Street, and it was the most bombed street in Europe for a while. Obviously, opening up the shop was quite potentially a fraught process. It wasn’t just like opening the doors. There was a lot more politics to it than that.

Terri Hooley

Yeah, that’s the way it was. Dave [inaudible] and I had been friends, and when I was doing hippie magazines in the late ’60s, and we’d try to set up in 1971 the Belfast Arts Lab, sort of building like this, and it had enormous success. There was eventually an Arts Lab set up, it didn’t last long. The thing that came out of that was the printing press that Dave had. Richard, we were trying to get a building, and eventually we got the shop in Great Victoria Street. I wasn’t sure whether the record shop would work or not, and it was just a hub of activity. You looked back at some of the footage in Shellshock Rock, and it was just so many kids in there on a Saturday.

Bands were formed in the shop, and people met in the shop, and got married. It was a good shop for partying in as well, because we had all the good music. It was difficult, and then Michael [inaudible], he had to leave the country, and wrote a book about his travels. We were both threatened, and I didn’t leave. He says, “There was a time when Terri and I used to go and talk to the IRA, and the UDA and try to get them to see a bit of sense, and then there was a time when it just went, “Don’t ever come back, and you’re our enemies.” It was basically that.

It was quite… it could be quite nervewracking sometimes, working there late at night, and hear the banging on the door and all, looking out the window, seeing who it was. There were times when people hit me and stuff like that. Years later, a lot of paramilitaries have apologized to me for things that happened in the past.

I haven’t been attacked for a couple of years. I love the ceasefire, because I used to be attacked every month, and the old bones can’t take it anymore, to tell you the truth. I’m more frightened now. I’m frightened of my girlfriend, actually. I’m more… People say about how brave I used to be and all. I just think it was insanity, really. I’m not very brave these days.

I love Belfast. I live and breathe this city. I would say, in San Francisco, as an old hippie, I thought that it would all be wonderful. I didn’t really like it at all, and I was so glad to get back home to Belfast. I really love Belfast. I love people from northern Ireland, and I’m very proud to be from Belfast, but to tell you the truth… I think people here are very generous, and are very caring. It’s just the bigots and the racists that I don’t like, but you have to deal with them, too, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world. I never have. I always realized, as a younger person, especially when the Troubles came, and a lot of friends… We had 40 friends, and we were called the tribe. I was the last man standing in Belfast. Everybody got up and left … poets, artists, musicians.

I always felt that when I left, one, I would never come back, and two, I would feel like a traitor. Also, I love Belfast. It’s so exciting. It’s such a small city, and there’s always something happening, especially now. 35 years ago, I wouldn’t be invited to one gig a week, maybe a Saturday afternoon in the pub. Now, I’m invited to 300 things every week in Belfast. I just wish I had the energy to go to most of them. A lot of them, admittedly, I wouldn’t want to go to.

There’s so many young and exciting bands here. I’ve always said this, from the ’60s, that Northern Ireland is such a small country, we have the best poets, musicians, performers… more than anywhere else in Europe. Somebody phoned me up… Van Morrison’s ex-manager phoned last week and he said, “I just had a couple of new bands. You’re absolutely right. I know you’ve been saying it from the ’60s – we have absolutely fantastic talent in this country.” You think of the people that come out of the country… Seamus Heaney, Paul Brady, who Bob Dylan says is one of his favorite songwriters, Van Morrison, all the people.

Lauren Martin

I’d like to think for most people, you are on that list, for modern Belfast history, definitely. You’re saying that you’re proud of Belfast, but I’m sure Belfast is very proud of you as well.

Terri Hooley

The Belfast City Council…

Lauren Martin

… maybe not so much.

Terri Hooley

They used to try and ban my concerts and all. I was a pain in the ass to them. I laugh when they used to try and ban my concerts in Ulster Hall. The IRA were blowing up a city, the Shankill Butchers were butchering Catholics, and they thought punk was a threat. A couple of years ago, they just agreed to put up a plaque for me, and they called me a cultural icon, the two-faced so-and-sos.

Lauren Martin

I suppose being immortalized, that is extremely fitting, because you are quite literally a part of the fabric of the city.

Terri Hooley

The funny thing is, when we were doing all this, nobody ever thought that this would last, or anybody would ever remember it, plus the fact that many a time, we thought we would never last the week. Terry Gleason, the artist, said… Terry lived on the Ormeau Road, and if you walked down the Ormeau Road on the right-hand side at night, it meant you were a Catholic. If you walked down the left-hand side, it meant you were a Protestant. Terry and his merry band of men always danced down the middle.

That’s one thing I’m very proud of; I never took sides. I just couldn’t really… I did argue with [a friend] about working-class people going out and killing working-class people, and stuff like this. I’m just really glad it’s all over. It was horrific days. I don’t really want to be reminded of them. Belfast isn’t quite the way it was in the ’60s for me. It’s become very corporate. A lot of the old shops, the old book shops, of course we have to move on. Belfast is, to me, quite exciting at the moment.

We’ve gone through a really dark period, and you just couldn’t get bored in Belfast, at the moment. It’s just so much going on – in fact, too many festivals.

Lauren Martin

There is a… you’re DJing tonight as well, aren’t you?

Terri Hooley

Yeah, with three house DJs, and I’m really, really worried about it. I’m like a fish out of water.

Lauren Martin

Where is that again?

Terri Hooley

Aether and Echo, and it’s ten o’clock. I think I’ll go on first. Don’t ask me what I’m going to play, because I haven’t a clue.

Lauren Martin

If you fancy carrying the party on, you can come and see Terri DJ with everybody else. I think we are going to have to wrap up. I could listen to you talk all day, but we are going to have to keep track of the time.

Terri Hooley

I hope you weren’t too bored, with all I’ve said. I wouldn’t come along and listen to some old eejit talk about this load of old nonsense. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren Martin

Terri Hooley, everybody.

[Applause]