by Terri Hooley
If I’m honest though, I must admit that the retail business has become increasingly difficult. Vinyl may have made a bit of a comeback, but it’s hard to generate enough business to justify premises in the city centre. I may have to resort to selling online, after all that’s where all the serious collectors are these days, and I think ‘Good Vibes online’ could have a future. We’ll just have to wait and see if ‘Good Vibes on the street’ has the same.
All of a sudden there seemed to be an interest in Belfast’s musical heritage – not just in punk but also in the work of people like Van Morrison, and I wasn’t the only person who noticed this. It was about a month or so after Good Vibes opened, and I was having a pint in The John Hewitt pub with a friend of mine, Sean Kelly. Sean runs the fantastic Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, which is centred in one of the oldest parts of Belfast and which is now a thriving entertainment area with bars and restaurants. He too wanted to acknowledge Belfast’s rich musical history, and he suggested I put together a tour of the city’s musical hotspots.
I thought it was a fantastic idea and straight away I agreed to do it. In September 2008, an incredible seventy people gathered to take part in my first walking tour. Looking back I think I may have been carried away by my enthusiasm for the subject and overdid it – I took those people halfway around the city! From the site of the first shop, to the site of the old Maritime Hotel, down into Cathedral Quarter and back to The John Hewitt for a well-deserved pint. The whole thing lasted for three hours, and by the time we had finished only twelve people had gone the distance! I still do the odd tour every so often, though I’ve had to refine – and shorten! – the route of course.
But people are still so interested in the history of Good Vibes, and all the bands we helped. The tours made me realise that we have been such an important part of this city that I thought I would put together a sort of museum, pulling together whatever memorabilia I could. I have dedicated the upstairs floor of the store to this task, but it’s slow going. So much of my own material was lost in the fire that I’m reliant on others coming forward with whatever they have. It’s going to be a long-term project, but I think it will be important to have a reminder of what Good Vibes achieved and to preserve it for the future.
The Good Vibrations store and name were not the only things to make a comeback in 2008, I am also happy to say that September of that year also marked a re-launch of the Good Vibrations label when The Minnows – formerly tiBeriuS’ minnoWs – came to me to ask if they could launch their comeback album, Leonard Cohen’s Happy Compared to Me, with us. They had been working on the album since August 2000, but it had been a slow process. The band, more mature now with full-time jobs and families to consider, had had to grab rehearsal time and studio time when they could. But they knew they wanted to release the album on the Good Vibrations label.
While we had released some singles over the previous two decades, this was to be the first album in seventeen years released on our label, and it felt good. The band agreed to pay for everything themselves, so it wasn’t quite the set-up it had been in the seventies, but they were breathing life into the label again and for that I was grateful.
In the end, the album wasn’t released until April 2010, but it was well worth the wait – the first time they played it for me, I loved it. It is, without doubt, the band’s best work to date. It received great critical acclaim and, now that the label is properly up and running, I’m looking forward to them releasing the follow-up with us – I’m really very fond of those boys.
Having the label up and running again gave me a new impetus and I felt that the label was ready once more to fund the recording and the release of local artists. So I was over the moon when, in early 2010, over thirty years after they had released their single, ‘She’s 19’, with us, The Moondogs signed up to release their new album with Good Vibrations. They have a load of new material, and we plan to throw some new versions of the original singles into the mix, for the sake of nostalgia.
I have always liked The Moondogs – they reformed back in 2000 and have been writing fantastic songs ever since. They still record under their original line up, but more importantly, they still sound amazing live! On 17 April 2010, they headlined the Good Vibes ‘Burnt Out, Still Rocking’ party which we held in the Oh Yeah! Centre to mark the sixth anniversary of the fire in North Street Arcade.
Introducing them on-stage made me feel like we were rolling back the decades, which was just about the most exciting thing I could imagine. There’s life in the old Moondogs yet!
I want to see some new bands record on Good Vibes too, to give our local talent the head start it deserves. And knowing that The Moondogs support a reunion with the label gives me hope that maybe one day The Undertones will once again record for Good Vibes – and why not? The ethos behind the label remains the same, I’m still as passionate about local bands as I was in 1978 and, more than thirty years after we kicked it all off, it would be wonderful to have the Derry boys back under my wing. At least this time they should be old enough to wipe their own arses!
And the ‘old music’, as I call it, has undergone a bit of a revival of late. I was delighted to see the release of The Good Vibrations Story, an anthology album with a selection of Good Vibes’ artist and songs. It had a limited release on Dojo Records, but every copy flew out of the shop in no time at all!
Of course, I still get a huge buzz from playing live. I gig around the town and I still pull in a crowd – I always try to send everybody home happy. This year I plan to play in Belgium, France and Germany– I’ll need Jimmy on guitar of course! – but details have yet to be confirmed so perhaps by the time you read this I’ll be on my comeback European tour! I just find it incredible that there are people on the continent who are still interested in listening to my tuneless meanderings.
I still do a monthly DJ set too, and the highlight of that side of my career came in June 2010, in the days that followed Snow Patrol’s massive gig in Bangor, County Down. The lads had put on the largest gig ever staged in Northern Ireland, with more than forty thousand fans packed into the town’s Ward Park for the band’s triumphant homecoming. Bangor has always been seen as the band’s spiritual home, despite Nathan Connolly being from Belfast, and Tom Simpson and Paul Wilson coming from Scotland. They had showcased a host of local bands, before taking the stage for one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. Being an old man, I watched from the VIP tent – I don’t think I could have stood up to being shoved and pushed around by all those enthusiastic fans!
Anyway, the following night I was doing my monthly DJ set at The John Hewitt pub, and some of the band and their entourage came down for a few pints. When the bar closed, the party moved on to the band’s hotel, and it was there that Jonny Quinn – who has been a great friend to me for many years and, despite his enormous success, has never forgotten his roots – asked if I would come along to Glasgow the following weekend where the band were playing a big open-air gig at Bellahouston Park. It turned out that this was to be the last date of their tour and it also happened to coincide with Gary Lightbody’s birthday weekend, and Jonny wanted me to DJ at the afterparty to celebrate.
My immediate reaction was, ‘I can’t,’ as I was booked to play Greg Cowan’s fiftieth birthday party. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew Greg wouldn’t mind and so I told Jonny I would do it. The next thing I knew, I woke up in Jonny’s hotel room with a bottle of twenty-five-year-old malt whiskey in my hand – I couldn’t have been happier!
The following weekend I went to Glasgow, where the band played to twenty-seven thousand fans in another fantastic gig – those boys are really very special. Inevitably we partied long into the night, with yours truly spinning the discs at Gary’s birthday/afterparty. I felt invigorated and full of energy, and I really appreciated what Jonny, Gary and the boys had done for me. They made an old man very happy. Gigging with one of the biggest bands in the world when you are over sixty years of age is the stuff of dreams. I f
elt as though they had given me yet another chance to do what I love best.
Through Jonny too I was finally able to see the Sex Pistols perform live in November 2007 – it was one of the greatest nights of my life. They were, after all, the band that started it all.
Like them or loathe them, the Sex Pistols re-wrote the history of music. They took ownership of youth culture and turned it on its head. Of course, living and preaching that level of anarchy would take its toll, and a combination of big business and bad management meant that while they made a huge dent in the system they couldn’t beat it, and they split up in 1978.
I had always regretted not seeing them play. I was called ‘The Godfather of Belfast Punk’, and yet I’d never seen the band that started the revolution! They had never played in Northern Ireland, which I think was a great pity – Belfast, more than any other city, had epitomised the punk spirit – but in 2007 they announced a reunion tour, which was to feature five nights at the Brixton Academy.
Jonny was living in Crouch End in north London at the time, and was down at his local boozer one night, when he was approached by this bloke who asked, ‘You from Belfast?’ When Jonny confirmed his background, the man introduced himself as Jimmy Lydon, brother of John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten).
‘Do you know a man called Terri Hooley?’ he asked. ‘Know him?’ said Jonny, ‘I used to be his drummer!’ It turned out that Jimmy had been over to Belfast a few times during the late seventies and early eighties, and had known a few of the bands.
Jimmy said it would be a great idea to bring me over to see the band play in Brixton and within minutes Jonny was on the phone telling me the story and offering to fly me over. I was thrilled! I managed to blag a ticket for Jimmy Symington too, and before we knew it we were on our way to Brixton to see the Pistols.
Time may have passed and the lads were certainly a lot slower than they had been in the seventies, but their passion was still there, Rotten’s eyes blazed with defiance
and, despite their image as a thrash/punk band, they were actually a very tight unit. ‘Anarchy in the UK’ is a classic, in the same way that ‘Teenage Kicks’ is a classic.
Both are totally timeless.
Jimmy and I were treated like kings that night. It’s a gig I’ll never forget. In many ways it was the missing piece in the punk jigsaw for me. I’m not going soft, but I reckon there is a place for nostalgia and that was a night packed with fond memories. The Brixton Academy is a great venue, and there were more than a few forty-somethings who dug out the old studded dog collars for that one night, before slipping them back into their pockets and going home to the kids, job and mortgage – ever wonder what punk was all about?
It certainly wasn’t about running for political office, that’s for sure! But in May 2010 that was exactly the position I inadvertently found myself in when I discovered, to my amazement, a Facebook campaign to have me installed as Lord Mayor of Belfast! Now, before you accuse me of being the ultimate sell-out, I should say that my sole election pledge would have been to put on a huge open-air gig on the lawn of Belfast City Hall, to legalise cannabis for a day and to put on a free bar! Strangely enough, however, that didn’t guarantee my place in the big seat, but I was touched by the love that the people of Belfast had shown me by starting the campaign anyway.
I feel as though my life has started all over again. In the past few years I have met a whole new generation of people who have just discovered Good Vibrations and what we are all about. In 2009, Glenn Patterson came to me with a movie script that he had written along with Hot Press journalist Colin Carberry, a script that told the story of my life.
The idea of a Terri Hooley movie was not a new one, it had been kicking about for around a decade actually, but it was one I thought would never get off the ground. One night in 2000 I had been in The Crown Bar, having a drink when I ran into Glenn. He introduced me to a group of people from RTÉ and we all got to talking. The more I told them about my life, the more interested they seemed to become in me. Glenn tells me that it was at this point that he realised the potential in my life story and so he immediately started work on a script.
I was sceptical. Would anyone really be interested in watching a movie about me? As it turned out, there was interest from a couple of film companies in Dublin, but I insisted that the film be the work of Belfast writers and directors – I’ve always felt it was really important to support Northern Irish industry – and so it died a death. I was disappointed of course, but I managed to put all thoughts of it out of my head, and thought no more about it. At least, that was until Glenn produced a complete film script and told me that plans were in motion to make the movie a reality. It turned out that he and David Holmes – the Belfast-born DJ who has gone on to compose film scores for Hollywood blockbusters such as Ocean’s Eleven – had been working together and had managed to secure funding proposals and enough capital to film a pilot. I began to think that this could actually work. We struck a deal on the movie during a night of heavy drinking in the Errigle Inn – there’s no better way to do business than sealing a deal over a table of tequila slammers!
They’ve already finished filming the pilot, which was directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn – the directorial team behind Cherrybomb – and I’ve even met the man who is playing me! Richard Dormer is a very fine actor, who won critical acclaim for his one-man show Hurricane, which told the story of the late snooker legend, Alex Higgins. It’s odd to think about my life being made public in this way, and indeed through this book. When I look back on all those wild times I had, I can see the good I did, but I can also see all the bad. My personal relationships often suffered as a result of all the partying, and my relationship with my daughter was a definite casualty of it all.
When Ruth and I broke up it was very difficult, though we did our best to remain positive. I remember writing a letter to Ruth just saying how important it was for us to stay friends, for Anna’s sake. I know that I made mistakes and I am so grateful to Ruth that she remained a friend. But there is always a consequence for a child when parents part ways, and Anna and I just drifted apart. It has taken a lot of bridge-building and a lot of work on both sides, but thankfully Anna and I have managed to get back on track and establish a close relationship. I think the turning point was when she and I went to see Oasis at the Limelight in Belfast in 1994. They were brilliant that night and Anna and I bounced out of that gig laughing and chatting like the best of friends. I was flabbergasted to realise that we were on the same wavelength. My dad had never taken me anywhere and it was at that moment that I realised how important a father’s relationship is with his children – we have been close ever since.
I remember taking her over to Scotland, where she was going to university, and telling her that the first thing she had to do was join the Young Conservatives! ‘There’ll be so few of them in Scotland,’ I said, ‘and they’ll all be loaded. Don’t listen to your mum – get married, take their money and get divorced, and then you can get married to someone you actually love!’ Of course she didn’t listen to me, but then, I didn’t really expect her to.
I have made sure not to make the same mistakes with my son Michael and he too is a great friend, even calling me Terri rather than Daddy. I’ll always remember his first day at nursery school being particularly difficult – for me, not for him! I cried at the gate as he wandered in without so much as a backward glance. The tears were just rolling down my face.
He lives with his mum but I make sure to spend time with him every week and every so often we will take some odds and ends to ‘The Black Market’ which is held at The Black Box – a great music venue in Belfast’s city centre – set up a stall and do our best to sell them on. Michael is a great haggler too – on a good weekend he’ll make around £60, which is more than I take in the shop most days! I see so many of my own personality traits in him, and I’m happy to see that he has inherited my interest in music. I’m so very proud of him, and I love him beyond words.
> Of course, my family life has never run particularly smoothly. If the relationship with my dad was awkward, then my relationship with my brother was fairly destructive. I don’t really talk about him often; he died over ten years ago at his home in England following years of drug and alcohol abuse. I don’t remember feeling particularly sad, but I did regret the fact we had not had a better relationship. I do remember trying to be there for my mother when she got the news. She had known before his death that John had become involved in drugs and, while that may have been a disappointment, he was still her son and his death hit her very hard. My dad however was so distraught at how his favourite son’s life had turned out that he couldn’t even bring himself to go to the funeral.
I think that’s why I tend to count all the friends I have made as my real family, a ‘family’ that numbers in the thousands. Friendship is very important to me and I feel blessed to have known so many wonderful people throughout my life. But it also means that when I lose someone I feel it acutely. I have lost so many dear friends over the years. In 2006, I lost thirty-seven friends and in 2009 I lost both my parents.
So I consider myself lucky that I have been able to count some of my own personal heroes as friends. People like the incomparable John Peel – who will always be top of my hero list – along with the legendary Phil Lynott and Bob Marley. I have been privileged to have not only worked with some of my heroes, but I’ve gotten drunk with them, done drugs with them, and fallen out with them.
But the real heroes of this story have to be the many people who have looked after me throughout my life and, in the case of Good Vibes, the bands and the thousands of kids who swarmed to the shop, and who packed The Harp and The Pound every week – most of whom ended up sleeping on my living room floor!