Episode 1
Heartworm
by Whipping Boy
“I have done a lot of interviews recently, but this was one of the most interesting. Paul knew stuff about the band that I didn’t even know!”
Paul Page
Episode 1 - Preview
Episode Notes
Whipping Boy’s second album Heartworm was released on 23 October 1995. I first saw Whipping Boy in the early 90s in Cork. I loved the two Cheree EPs and their debut Submarine. Their gigs were always intense, explosive tinderbox affairs. Then we heard that they’d signed a record deal with Sony. Well this’ll be interesting, we all thought. Heartworm was a revelation.
“It was a life-changing experience. Getting involved in the band suddenly we’re flying off to London, and then playing shows in places I’d never been. It was huge, so for people who were from where I come from opportunities back then, and I suspect even now, are a lot more limited – your address mattered at that time.”
Paul Page
Whipping Boy and Lunatic Fringe + DJ Morty McCarthy
The Village, Cork (early 90s)
Image: Sir Henry’s Exhibition FB page
“I have done a lot of interviews recently, but this was one of the most interesting. Paul knew stuff about the band that I didn’t even know!” Paul Page (Whipping Boy)
In this episode I discuss Heartworm with Paul Page, the band’s guitarist. We talk about: the influence of seeing of Echo & the Bunnymen at Dublin’s SFX in 1985; Whipping Boy’s early days; passing off songs from Pop Will Eat Itself as their own demo tape to get a gig in Dublin’s Underground; the early Cheree EPs; Submarine; signing to Sony; the writing and recording of Heartworm; touring with Lou Reed; growing up in inner city Dublin and Heartworm’s reissue.
Heartworm is available now from Needle Mythology.
Heartworm flyer (front and back) - picked up in Comet Records, Cork on the day I bought the LP. Photographs by Paul McDermott.
Heartworm - Limited Blue Vinyl (1995, Columbia Records).
Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Whipping Boy - setlist, Cork gig mid-90s. “Possibly a Christmas gig by the looks of it - ‘Little Drummer Boy’ cover near the end” - Paul Page.
Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Sweet Mangled Thing, Whipping Boy’s 1989 5 track demo with its appropriated artwork from Michael Leigh’s The Velvet Underground (Macfadden Books, 1963). Images: Discogs and Wikipedia.
Three singles were released from Heartworm: ‘Twinkle’, ‘We Don’t Need Nobody Else’, and ‘When We Were Young’. The singles were all issued in multiple formats, as per major label practices at the time, including limited edition coloured 7” singles. ‘Twinkle’ was reissued less then a year after its initial release. All details below. UK chart positions are taken from the Official Charts Company.
‘Twinkle’ - 7” clear vinyl (October, 1995 - No. 81 in the UK Charts). Images: Discogs.
‘We Don’t Need Nobody Else’ - 7” clear vinyl (October, 1995 - No. 51 in the UK Charts). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
‘When We Were Young’ - 7” red vinyl (February, 1996 - No. 46 in the UK Charts) Images: Discogs.
‘Twinkle’ (re-release) - 7” white vinyl (May, 1996 - No. 55 in the UK Charts) Images: Discogs.
Echo & the Bunnymen advertisement for the Songs to Learn and Sing album and its accompanying Irish and UK tour (NME, 16 November, 1985. Image: Nothingelseon). The tour started with three nights in Dublin’s SFX on December 5, 6 and 7, 1985. Paul Page’s article about the impact of witnessing the Bunnymen at the SFX on that tour is published in In Concert: Favourite Gigs of Ireland’s Music Community (Hope Collective, 2017). The book is available to buy here.
For Further Reading:
To Here Knows When column in The Goo on Heartworm…
by Paul McDermott
The Goo - Issue 22 (April 2024)