The Underground of Happiness

From Brisbane to Tokyo. From Brooklyn to Stroud. London. Cork. Dublin. Minneapolis. Enjoy. x Playlist 1. Ghost Woman – Along (Full Time Hobby) ( playing Oslo, London, Aug 29 ) 2. Casino – Back in the day 3. Polica – Blood (Memphis Industries) 4. Curse of Lono – In your arms 5. Donna Thompson – Be with you (PRAH Recordings) 6. Yuko Kono – Ginger (Morr Music) 7. Naked Lungs – Why do people change ( playing The Workman’s Cellar, Dublin, Aug 12 ) 8. Fixity – Hungry clouds (KantCope) ( playing Coughlan’s, Cork, Aug 12 ) 9. The Umlauts – Another fact (PRAH Recordings) 10. Marina Allen – Superreality (Fire Records) 11. Yosa Peit – Anthy (Fire Records) 12. Kate Bush – Cloudbusting (EMI) 13. Bobby Oroza – Loving body (Big Crown Records) 14. Sunny & The Sunliners – Viva mi triestesa (Big Crown Records) 15. MF Tomlinson – A cloud (PRAH Recordings) 16. The Go Betweens – Bye bye pride (Beggars Banquet) 17. Peter Broderick – With the notes in my ears (Hush) ...

Back in the days when Comet Records existed in Cork , I got into The Go-Betweens (Comet later became Plugd , which has now moved around the corner from Washington Street to the Triskel Arts Centre building). In those days, Comet used to sell Beggars Banquet releases on cassette for a fiver - and in those Walkman days, cassettes were my medium of choice. And so I found The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990 . I was vaguely aware of the band - I think I had heard Bachelor kisses on Dave Fanning's radio show a few times during the 80's. But I didn't own anything by the band. Of course, typical me, to become interested in the band after they'd broken up (in fact, both Grant McLennan and Robert Forster had released their first solo efforts by this time). I think it was the sleevenotes that sold me on it. Each song had a short note from either Grant or Robert. Like this one by Grant, for Bye bye pride - Cairns is a lazy, small town full of boats and cane fields. It is also unbea...