The Radiators From Space are a band full of question marks yet without dispute were Ireland’s greatest punk band easily topping their more commercial compatriots like the Boomtown Rats.
From the off they were up against it in a deeply conservative, religious country where priests and newspapers were the undisputed truth, so Punk rock was the work of the devil to be sure!
As if that wasn’t enough, a gig the band put on resulted in a man stabbed to death. Signing to Chiswick Records and finding playing now blocked in Ireland, the band moved to London. They dropped their debut single Television Screen In March 1977 but without singer Steve Rapid who exited (but appears on covers and some songs) but stayed in an advisory capacity. The band made an immediate impact on London and compatriot Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy who put them on his legendary Live & Dangerous tour. In addition, they played all the classic dives like the Roxy Club & Vortex finally releasing a classic 1977 punk album in October of that year.
Somehow they persuaded Tony Visconti (Bowie Berlin period and T Rex) to produce them and in early 1978 the band set about recording an album that was poles apart from their punky debut in its breadth, aspirations and lyrical content that they knew was their masterpiece. So far removed was it from their debut that they were bottled at the Electric Ballroom by disgruntled punk fans. A single Million Dollar Hero was released that was not the hit that was expected.
Due to cash flow issues, Chiswick put the album Ghostown on hold until 1979 and by then their moment had gone. The band lasted longer but first their contract with Chiswick expired and then the band fizzled out.
The Radiators From Space started life as a band called Greta Garbage and the Trash Cans in 1973. Formed by Steve Rapid and later joined by Peter Holidai, who had been living in London up to then. Along with guitarist Billy Lugar (now with Revolver) the band rehearsed numbers by the MC5, Velvet Underground and New York Dolls as well as Bowie and Silverhead. Phil Chevron, who the band had met earlier that year replaced Luger; Phil brought in James Crash, a drummer he had met trying to get his own band together. Mark Megaray was asked to join. he had previously played rhythm guitar but since he owned a bass guitar he said he’d give it a try and has been with them since. Unlike two previous bass players who left one to become a scientologist and another to join a commune of primal screamers.
The band now started rehearsing under the name “The Radiators from Space” a name chosen for its sound and B-movie syndrome. They recorded a cassette demo in Steve’s garage which they gave to Midnite Records. Midnite produced a studio demo which was sent to Chiswick Records who agreed to do a single of two of the originals featured.
The band then started to do live appearances and they supported Eddie & The Hot Rods at the end of the year. The single Television Screen was recorded early in 1977, making the band one of the first, with the ‘punk’ media explosion to record a single. When it was released in Britain Ion the Chiswick label) it made single of the week in Sounds and made number 17 in the charts in Ireland.
The publicity after the Sex PistolsBill Grundy headlines made it harder for the band to get gigs from promotors who were still very much into the old wave. When they did play though, audience reactions ranged from ecstatic reception to the entire audience walking out of one gig.
In June of 1977, The Radiators played the Punk Festival at Dublin’s University’s Belfield campus along with The Undertones and others. Tragically at this concert, 18 year old Patrick Coultry was stabbed to death in the first minutes of the Radiators gig. Guitarist Pete Holidai had broken up the fight originally and was unaware.
In the wake of the tragedy following a lot of tabloid hysteria promoters cancelled gigs. It didn’t help that the NME made it its front page and associated the attacks on Johnny Rotten and Tim Smith with this together as some sort of punk violence. The band were disappointed in the NME and saw them as no better than the newspapers in Ireland.
The band had already been on the end of false reporting from the Irish Sunday World attributing quotes such as “spastics should be done away with… we should kill all old people” to the band to whip up anger at the band. This informed a number of their lyrics.
The band split up overnight but then decided to carry on but understandably didn’t feel into playing live for some time after that and spent the time rehearsing for their album.
By this time Steve Rapid had decided to quit (he would later rejoin the band in a later phase and became an album-sleeve designer, responsible for virtually everything in U2’s back catalogue plus Virgin Prunes and Depeche Mode covers) though still stayed involved with the band. Guitarist Pete Holidai saw the band in 2 phases.
The first being a five-piece with the recently departed Steve Averill (aka Rapid) as our ‘front man’ doing his Iggy punk routine. His decision to leave the band came very early, prior to recording TV Tube Heart in fact, which gave Phil and myself more freedom. Steve’s departure allowed us to begin to write for ourselves as singers…Steve remained involved in a guru capacity.” Hot Press
TV Tube Heart was their debut album and was entirely recorded, produced and mixed in Dublin and its content in the main deals directly with aspects of life and the media in Ireland today.
Dalymount Park August 1977 – Photo Credit Joe Jackson
Later that summer The Radiators were added to the bill of one of Ireland’s first-ever major outdoor concerts when they joined a very mixed bill with Thin Lizzy, Graham Parker and The Rumour, The Boomtown Rats and Fairpoint Convention in Dalymount Park. For the new wave, fiercely competitive but friendly rivals the Boomtown Rats stole the show. They were about to release Looking After No1 which would propel them into the charts and a string of hits and stardom.
After this gig the band moved to London and their debut album TV Tube Heart was released a few months later in October. The band were an instant draw on the punk circuit playing key venues like the Roxy Club and Vortex.
Pete Holidai The Roxy club gigs were part of our first UK tour where we played about 15 gigs in the London area and then moved around the country. When we went to london, we had released two singles and had just released TV Tube Heart all receiving positive (and lots of) press. So we found ourselves in a position where we were one of the prominant bands that no one in the UK had seen to date so therefore all of these gigs were, if not sold out ,very well attended (including attendance by other bands checking us out – Sex Pistols, Clash, Jam, Keith Moon, Iggy Pop etc.)
Right – Thunders and Radiators! Photo Credit ??
During a song called Contact at the Roxy Club, I broke a string so put the guitar down and did the lead singer thing, there was a beautiful punk girl in the crowd who I focused on with a stretched out hand singing “Contact…I’ve got to make Contact”, after a bit of persuasion she touched my hand. After the gig I found her and started chatting to her. It turned out Iggy Pop, who was at the gig..was chasing her and wanted her to go to New York with him..she didn’t…she married Me! Punk 77 Interview, November 2005
The following month The Radiators were the support band on Thin Lizzy’s epic Live & Dangerous tour.
You have to say hats off to Phil Lynott and the rest of the band. The tour was mammoth to support arguably the greatest live album. Having a new wave band as support was risky and the fact that they were so open-minded was a credit to them. The band are also given 2 pages in the supporting tour programme.
Phil Lynott It’s good to have The Radiators as support. It’s difficult for them but they went down better tonight. The tickets for this tour had to be printed ‘Thin Lizzy plus Support’ because certain venues would not have us if we announced we were playing with a new wave band. And it’s good too because I’ve learnt a lot about new wave, its finer points and its philosophy through talking and chatting to them on the road.” Record Mirror, 03 December, 1977
Towards the end of the tour in London at the Hammersmith Odeon the Radiators met Tony Visconti at an after-show party. Visconti famously produced Bowie through his trilogy of Berlin albums, T Rex and Thin Lizzy’s Live & Dangerous and he agreed to produce their next album after seeing the band.
First he told them to go away and write a couple of hits and they came back with Million Dollar Hero which was released in March 1979. It wasn’t a hit though the music papers were praising it.
Songs for the new album Ghostown had started as far back as October 1977 and they recorded over the next few months. Chiswick were having cash flow difficulties and a couple of people said they would pay for the recording costs (no doubt thinking they were getting TV Tube Heart 2). The band put everything into the recording and Visconti was the perfect foil to unleash their creativity to produce an astonishing set of songs so far removed from TV Tube Heart it was right they shortened their name to The Radiators.
At a listening party for journalists, jaws dropped. So did the jaws of the would-be bill payers who promptly bailed. Later in October 1978 the band played the Electric Ballroom and debuted the songs and a softer image that was featured in teenage mag Oh Boy! in July that year.
Dreamy!
Support is ironically Stiff Little Fingers who are on the up with songs full of rage about their situation and sounding like the Radiators did a year back. Disillusioned by the punk audience’s utter rejection of its new, and to the band their best tunes, as in bottles and glasses thrown, the band never really recovered from this and the album delay and never played the UK again
If there is a lesson to be learned from last Tuesday’s performance at the Electric, it is simply that the band’s music has progressed so dramatically that they must now find an audience to appreciate it. The audience was having so many bombs dropped on it that they probably still suffering from shellshock. Melody Maker, 10.11.77
The album was eventually released in 1979 when Chiswick got back on their feet. Again ironically this was Chiswick’s purple patch with The Dammed and Machine Gun Etiquette which had numerous charting singles.
Sadly for The Radiators a couple of singles were released but sales were poor and the band left Chiswick and our time period. Suffice it to say they lasted a couple more years then folded.
Now all these years later with re-issues and new audiences, Ghostown is finally appreciated but regardless TV Tube Heart is and always will be an absolute fucking punk belter.
Television Screen / Love Detective (Chiswick April 1977)
It all starts here and a song that almost sounds like they’ve speeded it up in the studio it’s so frenetic. It’s a mutant cross between an amphetamine-rushed Eddie & The Hot Rods Teenage Depression and Status Quo but with punk attitude stamped over its less than 2 minutes of time. Absolute 24 carat punk rock classic!
I’m gonna smash my Telecaster Through the television screen Because I don’t like what’s going down I got the rights, I got the rights I’ve got the ticket and the buck stops here!
Sounds 7.5.77
Enemies / Psychotic Reaction (September 1977)
The second single and arguably their best. Still punky but melodic and again arguably out Clashes The Clash (and predates them) with its twin guitars and harmonies. On its flipside features the Count 5 sixties garage punk classic. These boys had the right influences, sound and look!
No wall to wall sneers here, and after all living the other side of the Irish Sea would justify them alot more than those who insist on adopting such a stance just to be chic. A hit, I hope. Steve Clarke, NME, 8.10.1977
Sounds October 1st, 1977 Donna McAllister
Million Dollar Hero / Blitzin’ At The Ritz (Chiswick Records March 1978)
The first of two songs written by the boys after producer Tony Visconti instructed them to go away and write some hits. Its intro echoes their first single but once it gets going this is a band that have changed their sound and image. The tunes and harmonies are there but producer Visconti has smoothed off the rough edges and added some sax. But what is it? Power pop? New wave?
It’s the sort of thing the Rich Kids were churning out and with the right push could have easily have been a hit. But it wasn’t. It got an honorable mention in the NME singles column of by Andy Gill as being very good though curiously he described it as “A finely crafted piece of pop which doesn’t try to revive the glories of the past.”
“One of those 24-carat melodies that has to be a hit” NME “Lifts the band out of last year’s new wave innovators bracket and into the pop stars of tomorrow league” Sounds “If there’s justice, it’ll chart” Record Mirror
Let’s Talk About The Weather / Hucklebuck / Try & Stop Me (Chiswick May 1979)
The second of two songs written by the boys after producer Tony Visconti instructed them to go away and write some hits. Now they sound like Magazine as it kicks off but it’s again another poppier song laden with hooks but a lot more complex. Again it could have easily have been a hit.
Not sure what’s happening on the cover but it must mean something to someone!
Kitty Ricketts / Ballad Of The Faithful Departed (Chiswick September 1979)
Ok if you’d been a punky Radiators fan you would have probably be thinking whats happened to them and then if you’d bought this you be at the what the fuck stage. Its a song about a Dublin prostitute who has is a minor character in legendary Irish author James Joyce’s Ulysses
The song is a mash up of Benny & The Jets, Bowie, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Steve Harley but actually as it goes on has some spite and punk swagger and you can see the seeds of the later Pogues.
Tony Visconti (Producer) But, speaking of Berlin, Phil already was a fan of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s collaborations. Phil was a sophisticated man. It’s even possible that I played him Bowie’s ‘Alabama Song’ before it was released.
‘Kitty Ricketts’ is a masterpiece in that respect. Writing in the studio is a seat-of-the-pants experience. Bowie did it with the flip of a hand – but I have been witness to many train-wrecks, when other artistes tried to do the same. That Phil pulled it off so successfully was a minor miracle. It was not punk, it was re-imagined Brecht! Full credit to the band for cooking up such a brilliantly bizarre arrangement, so iconoclastic in a time when such sophistication wasn’t valued. I am guilty of encouraging them to keep stretching themselves. Hotpress
TV Tube Heart (Chiswick Records October 1977)
No ifs, no buts no maybes – an absolute 1977 punk classic and there’s so much going on in it. Classic cover with the band lit by the neon rays of the TV they are staring vacantly at. The record opens up with distortion and feedback wail before going into a slowed-down version of the debut single Television Screen.
Then there are the songs that are a mixture of glam, 77 punk, sixties garage punk and occasionally The Monkees! They use backing vocals to great effect, clever chord changes, effects pedals and vocal changes. They could obviously play and they are tight as a ducks arse.
In short, the songs are all snappy and to the point. Picks would be Enemies, Not Too Late,Roxy Girl, Ripped & Torn and Press Gang but it is hard to find a song I don’t like,
Reviews in the main were positive like this one by Barry Cain from Record Mirror from 15.10.1977.
And then this one which was half a page long by a very very not normally sensitive and prissy Phil McNeil (NME 15.10.1977) who also wrote some astounding self righteous bollocks about the stabbing incident that occurred at a Radiators gig and which the NME made front page and then devoted just barely a half page article on it, and though the stabbing was unrelated to punk rock except it was at a gig, linked several violent attacks on Rotten and Tim Smith to it further engendering the belief that punk rock was violent and causing bands to have their gigs canceled.
It’s half a page with 2/3rds of it the above tripe and the last bit about the album itself. However he does like it and finishes with, what would turn out to be ironic given what happened next, …” it augurs an interesting future for The Radiators From Space and that could be a big seller itself.”
Click for larger images
Ghostown (Chiswick Records July 1979)
This album has WTF written all over it. I mean it’s early 1978 and the boys have met the famed T Rex and Bowie producer Tony Visconti who has agreed to produce them. Barely 6 months have elapsed since their ground zero punk classic TV Tube Heart. Already punk is moving on and bands like the Rich Kids and Magazine are showing the different strands and a myriad of opportunities for progression.
The first WTF would be the complete mindfuck a punk fan of the first album would get picking this up and dropping the needle. And this lay their challenge. Their music had changed and so had most of their original audience and they needed to start from scratch and find another audience which I don’t think they ever did or recovered from the reaction to the new songs.
Visconti certainly opened the door to the band’s creativity and his links with Bolan and Bowie and the production values had that influence. Check out Walking Home Alone Again for what sounds like an outtake from Marc Bolan’s Electric Warrior and I think if I remember an interview somewhere, played through Bolan’s speakers and amp.
Phil Chevron In writing an album about what it was like to grow up in Dublin in the ’70s, for me and Pete in particular, Bowie and Bolan were the soundtrack. So there was a real validity there. It was using the past as a yardstick and trying to forge something new. In a sense, Ghostown is a skip full of memories and old stuff and childhood memories. Quote Unknown
Phil Chevron We took the time-honoured emigration trail in 1977, when Chiswick Records released our first album TV TUBE HEART but found that our intentions were often misunderstood. While we shared many of the characteristics of the UK punk bands – the energy and the attitudes – we had nothing to say about tower-blocks or anarchy.
Our best songs came from our experience of growing up in an Ireland still paralysed by political and religious hypocrisies but which, we believed, was in its heart youthful and forward-thinking. We were the first Irish band to grapple with these contradictions but first and foremost we were a pop group and we could readily identify with the UK’s ‘No Fun’ slogan. Get On The Right Track
The second WTF was their debut showed they could write songs with hooks and enough of a sonic and vocal palette to develop in whatever way they wanted to go. Sounds like Chiswick were in total support too. So how did a record recorded in 1978 get delayed till 1979? We’ve already seen so many times that events moved fast in 1977/1978 and getting your stuff out at the right time was critical. The answer lies in cashflow it appears. Chiswick was short of funds to pay for the recording, but apparently, a couple of guarantors appeared, no doubt thinking it would be the debut album mark 2. When they heard the finished songs, they pulled out and it was a year later that Chiswick had the funds and released it. Ex singer Steve Rapid designed a series of adverts for the album.
John Byrne Who Are the Strangers? Is the song that opened side two of Ghostown, and that splendid tune could well have been about The Radiators, as the year-long delay in the album’s release saw them as yesterday’s band releasing tomorrow’s music today. The album hadn’t a hope. RTE
In the end it made no difference. They’d missed the boat and at least it’s a small comfort that years later the album and the band got the recognition that evaded them at the time.
TalkPunk
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