Episode Notes

Episode nineteen of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on 1977 by Ash.

In his retrospective review of 1977 for No More Work Horse Killian Laher writes, “An album that isn’t always mentioned in lists of great Irish debut albums is Ash’s 1977, released in 1996. It bloody well should be… As well as some great singles, it’s full of some fine pop-punk. As albums go it has a lot to recommend it, punky riffs, catchy, well-written songs and great playing. An essential album for any collection.”

I agree wholeheartedly.

Of all the albums we’ve covered on this podcast to date, 1977 is by far the most commercially successful. The Downpatrick trio released 1977 on Infectious Records in the first week of May in 1996. Seven days later it had sold over 160,000 copies in the UK, catapulting the band to the top of the UK Album Chart. Ash, were the first Irish band to reach the top of the that chart with their debut album.

Only months later, on the first of August, 1977 was certified Platinum in the UK with sales in excess of 300,000. That’s 300,000 physical sales of CDs, tapes and records that kids in their late teens (and it was primarily kids in their late teens) actually purchased from brick and mortar record shops.

1977 also had five singles released from it. FIVE, in multiple formats. And if you’re not familiar with 1977 then you know these huge, huge tunes: ‘Fung Fu’, ‘Girl From Mars’, ‘Angel Interceptor’, ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Oh Yeah’. Indeed, had they so wished, Infectious could easily have pulled another one of two singles from the album such was the abundance of fantastic tunes in the band’s arsenal.  

I first came across Ash on a cold mid-week evening in 1994 in Dublin’s Rock Garden venue. I had traveled up from Cork with Treehouse, a great three-piece band who for a few moments in the early 90s looked like they just might make it through but for a variety of reasons, most of which I’ve long forgotten, ultimately didn’t.

On arriving at the Temple Bar venue, we discovered that the support act on the night was a band from Downpatrick called Ash. They had better backline, better instruments, they had their own sound engineer, they had a tour manager. Was he a tour manager or a chaperone – I couldn’t tell for sure – but one thing I did discern within seconds was that Ash were way younger than us. They were also really friendly – who the bloody hell did these kids think they were.

They were also good, they played a short, but really tight set of memorable punk-pop tunes. They were really good. I was beginning to hate them.

It was a cold mid-week evening – cold because there was nobody in the venue to witness Ash and Treehouse giving it their all. I can clearly remember walking around to the few punters that had showed up and trying unsuccessfully to cajole them into buying a copy of Treehouse’s second Demo tape.

Tim Wheeler came bounding up to me and asked if I’d swap a copy of Treehouse’s tape in exchange for his band’s single. “Of course,” I said and he ran off only to return and hand me a copy of ‘Jack Names the Planets’ on beautiful 7” vinyl. Not only were they nice and friendly, and really good live but the bastards had a record pressed up. God, I really hated them.

We chatted briefly, they could only stay and watch Treehouse for a few songs because they had to head back up North, they had a ferry to catch the following morning, they had a few gigs to play in the UK. As we chatted, I looked over his shoulder at Treehouse up on stage, I remember thinking that our game was well and truly up.

‘Petrol’ and ‘Uncle Pat’ came next, each single more memorable than its predecessor.

Thinking back to that cold-midweek evening in the Rock Garden sometime in 1994, Ash may have been playing to 10 or 15 people but in their minds clearly they were playing to a full room. I thought, Jesus, they might just have it, and what came next only proved that they had.

For Further Reading:

To Here Knows When column in The Goo on 1977…