Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Good Vibrations
Written by Mark Ashby
Sunday, 25 August 2013 03:20
‘Good Vibrations’ (Universal)
June 16th, 1978. A date that changed the landscape of the Northern Ireland music scene forever. Quite literally.
That morning, five young lads from the city of Londonderry travelled the 70 and a bit miles to Belfast to record their debut EP. It’s an event which may not seem significant in itself, but, as I said, it was a moment of musical legend…. The five lads in question went by the collective name of The Undertones and the lead song on the EP was called ‘Teenage Kicks’: recorded at the long vanished Wizard Studios, and the result was released on the local Good Vibrations label: with the one and only late John Peel championing their cause by playing the single almost constantly on his late night Radio One show, a few short weeks later the band signed a major deal, ‘Teenage Kicks’ went global and the rest, as they say, is history…
Rewind a few years… and meet one Terence ‘Terri’ Hooley – a music buff, a product of the Sixties, brought up on everything from country to the blues and reggae, who had opened a record store in the heart of bomb-blasted downtown Belfast – and, not only that, on the street affectionately nicknamed ‘Bomb Alley’: was he mad or what? In those dark days, it was a city dominated by shootings and bombings: the army patrolled the streets and people had to undergo searches even to do something as mundane as their Saturday afternoon shopping. When I say ‘dark days’ I truly mean it… but Hooley shone light into that darkness: his belief in the unifying power of music proved to be right and his humble shop soon became a mecca for music lovers of all shades, keen to share a common, unifying bond in a divided society.
At the same time, the Belfast punk scene began to emerge, and Hooley, an unreconstructed anarchist (to this very day), quickly identified with the music’s sense of rebellion, as well as its honesty. Therefore, he made the next logical step: he owned a record store, but it was not much use to this nascent subculture if people could not buy the music these young bands were producing – so, he set up his now legendary Good Vibrations label, with the first product of this new venture being a single, released in May 1978, called ‘Big Time’ a young-dumb-and-full-of-come act by the name of Rudi. Again, as they say, the rest is history – and it is a history which now has been given permanence by this wonderful biopic, based on Hooley’s own memoir.
Right from the start, ‘Good Vibrations’ captures the darkness and light of Hooley and his times: the carefree atmosphere of his 1960s upbringing quickly descending into the dirt and mire of the ‘Troubles’, as his friends turn against each in a society forced to take sides – a path he himself refuses to take. The dark side of life – the firebombings, the indiscriminate tit-for-tat murders – is reflected through use of contemporaneous use of BBC news reports combined with brief re-enactments (such as an abortive RUC raid on the birthplace of the city’s punk movement, the Pound Club, and an encounter with a British army patrol somewhere in the backside of nowhere), while the light is brought through in the film’s brutally honest use of Belfast’s trademark humour – and particularly that of our protagonist, the inimitable Hooley.
Richard Dormer – who also has played another great flawed Belfast icon, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, and will be known to a wider audience from ‘Game Of Thrones’ – is stunning in his portrayal of the godfather of the Belfast punk scene, capturing his look (right down to his physical movements) and his accent – as well as his loquacity – perfectly, as well as Hooley’s many character flaws – his naivety, his total disregard for the value of money (selling his portion of the rights to ‘Teenage Kicks’ for the price of a new van), his lifelong battle with alcohol – and his strengths: his passion for everything that he has done (“this doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to everyone”, he says of the aforesaid anthem), his commitment and his belief in the complete and overpoweringly redemptive strength of music.
While a bit clean cut in places, especially in relation to the modern day recreations of the original punk sound, and slightly over-sentimental, ‘Good Vibrations’ nevertheless is a marvellous film which captures a very important period in music history, anywhere in the world but especially a story played out against such a tumultuous backdrop. As Hooley says himself, it is a movie about “spirit and hope and one man against the odds”: as his character says in the final line “Good Vibrations is not a record shop, it’s not a label – it’s a way of life”. It’s a movie filled with heartbreak and ecstasy, depression and fulfilment.
As someone who has the great honour of knowing Terri Hooley (and occasionally sharing a bevy and a DJ set with him), I know there is so much more to his story that this movie tells… but, what part of his story it tells, it does extremely well. For music fans outside Norn Iron, huge sections of this film will not make sense (and, don’t worry, it comes with subtitles for those who might have difficulty understanding the accent), but this should not deter you from filling an essential part of your musical education by spending a couple of hours in the company of the legend that is the ‘Hooleygan’.
Photo of Terri Hooley is courtesy of the Belfast Telegraph.
To pick up your copy of ‘Good Vibrations’ on DVD – CLICK HERE
